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Donations in lieu of flowers

Condolence donations – transforming grief into hope

There are many ways to express grief. With a donation in lieu of flowers, you can send a sign of hope in the face of the painful loss of a loved one. Your donation in bereavement has a lasting effect: as a means of research, your condolence donation, no matter how small, can make a significant contribution to the fight against rare diseases in the long term.

Eva Luise Köhler und Annette Grüters-Kieslich

“We cannot take away the pain of the death of a loved one. However, we have often found in the past that mourners who decide to make a donation to our foundation at this difficult time usually have a personal connection to rare diseases.

We would therefore like to assure all mourners that their condolence donations will go directly towards research into the causes of diseases and the development of targeted therapies. In this way, together we can turn grief into something positive.”

Eva Luise Köhler

Information for the bereaved

How does a condolence donation work?

Please indicate your wish to donate in the obituary and/or the funeral notifications and make a note of our donation account:

Eva Luise and Horst Köhler Foundation
Sparkasse KölnBonn
IBAN DE83 3705 0198 1901 4480 17
BIC COLSDE33X

So that we can allocate the donations correctly, it is important that the surname and first name of the deceased are stated in the reason for payment. Please also indicate this in the obituary.

So that we can clearly allocate incoming donations, please inform us of your appeal for donations before or when the obituary is published. You can also ask the funeral home to inform us.

Your contact person for donations

  • Sanna Börgel
    • Sanna Börgel
    • Stiftungsleitung
    • +49 (0)151 4129 7774
    • boergel@elhks.de
Stofftier
andrea katheder, Berlin 2023

Donations in lieu of flowers

Wording help for the obituary

Below you will find some text suggestions as a formulation guide:

  • In lieu of flowers, and in memory of the deceased, please make a donation to the Eva Luise and Horst Köhler Foundation for People with Rare Diseases to the account at
    Sparkasse KölnBonn:
    IBAN DE83 3705 0198 1901 4480 17
    BIC COLSDE33X
    Reference: First name and surname of the deceased
  • Turning grief into hope: In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Eva Luise and Horst Köhler Foundation for research into rare diseases
    Sparkasse KölnBonn:
    IBAN DE83 3705 0198 1901 4480 17
    BIC COLSDE33X
    Reference: First name and surname of the deceased
  • As the burial will take place in nature, please refrain from flower arrangements and wreaths. Instead, we ask for a donation to be made to the Eva Luise and Horst Köhler Foundation for People with Rare Diseases
    Sparkasse KölnBonn:
    IBAN DE83 3705 0198 1901 4480 17
    BIC COLSDE33X
    Reference: First name and surname of the deceased

Information for funeral directors

How you can help relatives and loved ones offer a sign of hope

As a funeral director, you are the most important person to contact when the bereaved want to do something good in memory of a deceased person. In all likelihood, you are often dealing with relatives whose partner, father, mother or child suffered from a rare disease. As is usual with chronic diseases, this has often affected the life of the entire family.

It is not uncommon for those affected to have to fight for a long time for an accurate diagnosis, only to find that there is no hope of a cure. In such cases of bereavement, a fundraising campaign for research into rare diseases offers the bereaved the opportunity to counter the powerlessness they have experienced with a sign of hope.

The Eva Luise and Horst Köhler Foundation for People with Rare Diseases is one of the few non-profit organizations that works across all diseases to improve medical care for people with rare diseases. Please add us to your list of charitable institutions and refer bereaved families who are mourning the loss of a loved one due to illness to us.

We will be happy to support you in counseling the bereaved and send you some of our information flyers that you can hand out to the bereaved.

If the bereaved decide to make an appeal for donations to our foundation, please let us know by sending us the obituary.

Support the orphans of medicine!

ELHKS uses your donations in a targeted manner – so that medical progress reaches everyone.

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