Thursday, 28 March 2013

Put The Fun Into Fundraising

We have a fantastic team of runners taking part in the famous London Marathon event this year, challenging themselves to run 26.2miles through the capital whilst raising vital funds to help keep us flying and saving lives.

With 24 days to go, here are 24 top fundraising ideas to help top up your total:


Birthday coming up?
Ask for donations towards your sponsorship instead of presents or a card. If you have an online fundraising page you can post it on your Facebook page, or email it out to all of your family and friends.

Dress down days     
These work well in schools or in the work place, charge each person £1/£2 to come in for the day in no uniform or casual dress.

Skills auction
This works really well in the workplace, get your colleagues to donate their 'skills' from dressmaking to tea making and everything in between! Get your boss to offer to make the tea or wash someone's car and watch the bidding shoot up!

Book and CD swap  
Set up a stall in the office and ask everyone to bring in their old books and CD's. They can donate a few pounds to swap them for something different. You never know what they might find.

Charity car wash      
A fundraising car wash is simple to organise, fun to do, and is a great way to raise funds. You could offer to wash colleagues cars in your lunch hour. People might donate more to see you complete the task in fancy dress.

Cake sale
Bake some cakes and set up a cake and bake sale at your home/work place or school. You could also serve hot and cold drinks to increase revenue. Remember to cook a wide selection of different cakes to cater for all tastes.    

Office lottery
Run this fundraiser as weekly event and watch the kitty build up. You need 20 people to enter, with each person paying £1 for a lottery number (1-20). If their number gets picked out the hat they win half the money and the charity gets the other half. Not a big money maker but if you do this every week the money soon adds up. You could also increase the number of entrants if you work in as large office.

Sports day    
Organise a special sports day for the local community, you can lay on a host of different events from egg and spoon to relay. This is a great way to fundraise especially if you can do a range of different events that cater for all ages. You can charge people an entrance fee to take part in the different events with the winners getting a medal or prize. You could even set up a refreshments stall to bring in more money.

Coffee morning
Why not throw on the kettle and bake a cake, all in the name of charity? With little outlay, this is a guaranteed success, simply ask your friends, family and work colleagues for a donation in return for coffee and slice of homemade cake.

Garage sale  
Ask friends and family to bring in their unwanted items and sell it, it could make someone else's treasure.                                                             

Ten pin bowling
Easy to organise, if you’ve got a local bowling hall. Charge for entry and award a small prize to the winning team. Or run a marathon sponsored bowling competition.                                   

Tombola        
Run a tombola stand at a local event. Collect prizes from suppliers, colleagues and friends before the day. Give everyone plenty of notice to donate prizes.

Bingo 
keep it simple, invite a group of family and friends for a fun game of bingo, you can do as many games as you like and charge people per bingo card per game and offer small prizes to those who are first to get a full house.                    

Shoe shinning          
Offer shoes shinning at lunchtime at your work place.

Movie night                                         
Show videos at your house and charge family and friends admission, you could make your own concessions and sell those too.

Zumba night             
Ask your local gym if they would be willing to put on a special spin/zumba/yoga or any other class that happens in your area, and add donate proceeds to your fund. Alternatively they could add £1 to normal class price which is donated to you.

Discount       
Talk to the people who work at some of the places you visit regularly. Maybe your favourite restaurant or bar would be willing to give you a discount for a party or a donation per person or per drink sold.

Give it up      
Give up something until the marathon. Whether it's coffee, chocolate or texting, give it up and add the money you would have spent towards your fundraising goal.

Sponsorship forms 
Make sure that you carry your sponsorship forms with you at all times during the lead up to the marathon. As it gets closer people will want to know how you are getting on and if you can get them to sponsor you there and then it makes it easier for both of you.

Fine jar          
Put a fine jar in your office/home/school and write a list of rules and charges, when someone breaks a rule they have to pay the according charge. (for example, being late, forgetting to say please or thank you, swearing or mentioning a nominated forbidden word/phrase, using your left hand to drink etc.)

Smartie tubes
Wirte to/visit a local store and ask if they would kindly donate a number of tubes of Smarties to support your challenge and help you fundraise for a lifesaving cause. If you hand these out to colleagues/staff/friends and family and ask them to fill them with10p pieces before returning them to you.

Write about it
Create a blog, detailing your final weeks of preparation.Talk about your nerves/excitement, final training activities, what you are looking forward to and what you are might be worried about. At the bottom of each blog post attach a link to your online fundraising page and then post your blog pieces on Facebook and Twitter. This will make people feel more involved with your journey, engage them with your challenge and perhaps make them more likely to donate.

I hope at least one of these top ideas has inspired you to organise your own exciting fundraising activity. For further ideas, news and some positive fundraising stories please visit our website.

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