#ThankYouForTheMagic Birthday Campaign

 

July 31 is a very special day every year for us here at MuggleNet, as well as for the rest of the Potter fandom! The reason it’s so important to us is because both J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter celebrate their birthdays that day!

This year, we want to do something extra special in order to give both Jo and Harry the best birthday present ever! Help MuggleNet make their birthday even more magical by supporting one of these four Potter-friendly charities!

These specific charities were chosen for this campaign because they strongly support and reflect the same positive values and messages that the Harry Potter series represents. They are also smaller organizations that don’t typically get as much attention and publicity and could therefore really use our support!

Below you’ll find information on each of the four charities and links to their donation pages. After you’ve made a donation, please click the “tweet” button below to share our special birthday message for the Boy Who Lived and his creator. Even if you are unable to donate at this time, please commit to supporting our Daycause campaign in order to spread as much awareness for these charities as possible!

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The Harry Potter Alliance

The Harry Potter Alliance turns fans into heroes.
We’re changing the world by making activism accessible through the power of story. Since 2005, we’ve engaged millions of fans through our work for equality, human rights, and literacy.
Our Vision: A creative and collaborative culture that solves the world’s problems.
Our Values: We believe in magic. We believe that unironic enthusiasm is a renewable resource. We know fantasy is not only an escape from our world, but an invitation to go deeper into it. We celebrate the power of community—both online and off. We believe that the weapon we have is love.

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Aside from practically sharing a name with the series itself, the HPA is a clear choice for this campaign because of the work it does. This charity is specifically designed to bring fans of Harry Potter together to support causes they feel strongly about. The group typically has multiple great campaigns occurring at once, so fans have a variety of causes to support.

Project Purple

Project Purple is a Connecticut-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization created to raise awareness, support patients and families affected by the disease, and fund research efforts to defeat pancreatic cancer. [...] Project Purple supports patients struggling with medical, pharmaceutical, and everyday living expenses related to their fight against pancreatic cancer [and] funds research for early detection and finding a cure for pancreatic cancer. We are currently funding research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Tufts Medical Center, and University of Nebraska Medical Center.

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Project Purple holds a really special place in the hearts of many Harry Potter fans due to its work with pancreatic cancer. For those who may not know, pancreatic cancer was the illness that eventually took the lives of multiple Potter actors, including Roger Lloyd Pack (Barty Crouch, Sr.) in January 2014, Alan Rickman (Severus Snape) in January 2016, and Sir John Hurt (Garrick Ollivander) in January 2017. Pancreatic cancer is typically asymptomatic in the early stages, so in most cases, by the time it is detected, the disease has already spread and is almost always fatal. Rickman was only diagnosed with cancer just five months before his death, in August 2015. While Hurt was diagnosed 19 months before his death, in June 2015, his situation was atypical - after detection, only 25% of pancreatic cancer patients survive one year. Project Purple hopes to find a way to detect pancreatic cancer earlier as well as find better treatments for those with the disease. It also helps cover the medical expenses of those already fighting pancreatic cancer.

The Protego Foundation

The Protego Foundation fights to end the abuse of the creatures in the [N]o-[M]aj world inspired by the [w]izarding [w]orld.
We are a group of activists empowering all magical persons to get active for animals. Launching in 2015 as the Fwooper Foundation, relaunching as the Fantastic Beasts Foundation in 2017, and finally becoming the Protego Foundation in 2018. We have been inspired by the Harry Potter an Fantastic Beasts worlds to compare how magical creatures in the [w]izarding [w]orld and how the animals in the [M]uggle world are treated. Our goal: a wizarding fandom that is more considerate of the rights, feelings, and treatment of all creatures regardless of species, size, or magical ability.

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Another organization inspired directly by the wizarding world and all of the incredible magical creatures mentioned in the books, the Protego Foundation hopes to change how animals in the Muggle world are treated. It typically has a variety of campaigns running that support different endangered species and other ongoing issues, like the overpopulation of animal shelters. It is currently spearheading a petition to change the butterbeer recipe at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter to contain only vegan ingredients.

The Trevor Project

Founded in 1998 by the creators of the Academy Award-winning short film TREVOR, [t]he Trevor Project is the leading national organization providing crisis intervention and suicide prevention services to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer & questioning (LGBTQ) young people under 25. [t]he Trevor Project offers accredited life-saving, life-affirming programs and services to LGBTQ youth that create safe, accepting and inclusive environments over the phone, online and through text.

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While not directly connected to Harry Potter, the Trevor Project helps provide support to LGBTQ teens who are struggling. One of the prominent themes in the Harry Potter series is to be open and accepting of everyone without judgment. J.K. Rowling has firmly come out to say that wizards don’t typically discriminate against sexual orientation or other lifestyle preferences and that Hogwarts was a fairly safe place for them. She also later revealed that she always thought of Albus Dumbledore, one of the greatest and most powerful wizards in the series, as gay. The Harry Potter fandom has always tried to be a welcoming place for everyone and tends to have a fairly large LGBTQ community within it. It is important that resources like the one the Trevor Project supplies are around to continue to support struggling teens during difficult times.