Our charity is committed to supporting everyone affected by Addison's and adrenal insufficiency, regardless of their financial circumstances. For this reason, our website has all of our up-to-date resources on for you to read, and print off at home.

A membership with the ADSHG does have additional benefits, however, and we have also decided to offer these to a limited number of people who are unable to afford the usual annual fee.

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What is a sponsored membership?

This is a digital membership, worth £33/year, offered for free, to a limited number of people in severe financial hardship, so that they can access our member forum, member events and other member benefits.

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Is it different to a standard digital membership?

No, however, we do ask you to consider making a single donation for £8 to cover the cost of producing and sending you your member pack in the post.   This helps us cover one of the basic costs related to a membership and therefore helps us offer sponsored memberships to more people.

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How long can I be a sponsored member for?

Your sponsored membership is for 12 months, and we then ask if you can move on to a standard paid membership.  If you are still unable to afford this, and we have a sponsored place available, we can offer you to renew your sponsored membership for a further 2 years, but as before, we will contact you at your renewal stage each year to see if you are able to move onto a paid membership.  

At the end of this maximum period of 3 years of free membership, you will be asked to move onto a paid membership.  You will not be able to apply again for a sponsored membership for a minimum of 3 years.

We urge people to stay on the sponsored membership only for as long as they have to, to ensure that we can offer the same support to others in financial hardship.

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Am I guaranteed a sponsored membership if I ask for one?

No, we have limited resources as a charity and are not able to offer everyone a sponsored membership.  Our member fees are an important part of our income as a charity and help us to do the good work that we achieve. 

We only therefore offer a very limited number of sponsored memberships each year. 

If you have been a sponsored member in the last 3 years, then we would not be able to offer you another free membership as we need to try and ‘spread’ this resource around all those who need it.

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How do I apply for a sponsored membership?

If you would like to be a member but are in severe financial hardship and are not able to afford the lowest membership fee (£33/year for a digital membership), please email us on [email protected] asking to be considered for a sponsored membership.

Information we will ask:

• To confirm that you have Addison’s or adrenal insufficiency
• To confirm that you live in the UK or N.Ireland

We will then email you a link to a membership registration form to complete online, which will confirm your membership.

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Giving back

If your circumstances change and you can stretch to pay the membership fee, we ask that, after your first free year, you choose to move to a paid membership to allow someone else to benefit.   

As mentioned, we also ask that, if at all possible, you make a one-off donation of £8 to cover the cost and postage of your member pack in the post.

We have been so proud and grateful to see members previously on a sponsored membership, go on to not only pay for their membership but also to Sponsor a member when we run our annual autumn ‘Sponsor a Member this September’ campaign.   

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