If you are already a supporter of Cancer Research UK, you may still receive the occasional unaddressed appeal asking for your support.

Unaddressed mailings are our most cost-effective method of gaining new supporters. In 2002, over 160,000 people responded to these appeals, and donated a total of over £6 million.

We employ Royal Mail to deliver our appeal packs to various regions in the UK, allowing us to make huge savings on postal costs.

The appeals are put through every door in a particular area, meaning that some of our regular and loyal supporters will also receive the mailing.

We would like to be able to prevent this happening but, unfortunately, the costs of filtering out our regular supporters would outweigh the savings this approach allows us to make.

We have found that including a pen in our appeals increases the response by 70 per cent.

The use of a pen in our appeals attracted 76,000 new supporters between February and December 2002, resulting in an extra £2.58 million each year for our life-saving research.

The pens are also branded as this helps to increase awareness of Cancer Research UK and serves as a constant reminder of our charity.

We can assure you that the actual cost of the pen is minimal. Some of our supporters return the pens to us with their completed donation form so that we can use them again.

We occasionally employ Royal Mail to deliver one unaddressed appeal to each address in a specific area. However, you should not receive two or more copies of the same appeal.

If this does occur, please let us know so we can address the situation.

Please let us know your postcode and the number of items you have received. You can either fill in our enquiry email form, or call our Supporter Services team on 020 7121 6699. Thank you.

It is never our intention to send two or more copies of the same appeal to the same person and we apologise if this has happened.

Please let us know if this happens and we will update our records. This will prevent it from happening again and will also reduce our costs.

You can either fill in our enquiry email form, or call our Supporter Services team on 020 7121 6699 and we will take immediate action. Thank you.

We are extremely grateful for all donations we receive, regardless of the amount. We hope you will appreciate our commitment to spending as much as we possibly can on research. Every penny received really makes a difference.

We have taken the decision to only acknowledge individual donations of £10 and over. This is in order to save on administration costs and to ensure that as much of our funds as possible are put into research.

If you currently have a standing order and would like to amend it in any way, you can do so by contacting your bank with this request. Please also advise us of your intentions by filling in our enquiry email form, so that we can update your details.

We aim to acknowledge all donations within 14 days of receipt. Sometimes, however, due to a large response to our appeals, backlogs can occur.

During these times, please remain patient with us and we will send your acknowledgment as soon as possible.

If you have not heard from us after three weeks, please contact our Supporter Services team on 020 7121 6699 and we will look into this for you.

Under the Inland Revenue's Gift Aid scheme, Cancer Research UK is entitled to reclaim the tax made on gifts by UK taxpayers. This means that, if you are a UK taxpayer, your gift can increase by nearly a third – at no extra cost to you.

For example, if you give £10 to Cancer Research, and you Gift Aid your donation, the Inland Revenue will add £2.80, bringing the total donation to £12.80.

Cancer Research UK use the medium of television advertising as this reaches a larger audience than any other way of fundraising. This also increases awareness and helps to increase support of our world class research. The initial cost of this method of advertising is high, but the support from either new or existing supporters outweighs the initial spend.