100+ Fundraising Ideas That Actually Work

Whatever you do you must create a page on one of the many online fundraising sites that exist. These sites make fundraising so much easier. Gone are the days of sponsor forms and handing over cash. Now you just head across to the relevant site via a link from an email or social media page make a donation using your credit card and it is job done. However, there are many ways to make sure you get your page right and increase the amount of donations you receive. The top tips are:
 

• The name of the charity and the appeal you’re raising funds for and the reasons why the potential donor needs to donate. Make sure the charity branding is strong.
• Images on the page that relate to the email or social media page that the potential donor will have clicked across from to find this page.
• Information on what a specific amount of money will buy for that charity.
• Plenty of detail on you and the cause. Don’t just do the bare minimum. Don’t go overboard but make sure give lots of information that encourages people to donate.
• Add lots of relevant photos and a video (but don’t make it too long…).
• Encourage recurring payments as much as possible. On most sites, donors can choose from a one-off donation or recurring. If you can encourage payments monthly or quarterly that will make a huge difference to the charity concerned.

Many us are wearing pedometers, like Fitbits, these days and many of us set a daily steps target. 10,000 is a recommended daily target so why not organise a challenge to see how many work colleagues or friends or family can meet that target for a certain number of days in a row? There are lots of ways you could create a competitive environment that plenty of people could get involved in. 10,000 steps is a lot, but it is absolutely within most people’s capabilities.

We are all time poor these days and it’s often the poor old dog that suffers as a result. Offer your services as a dog walker for a donation to your charity and everyone will be happy. Again, planning is the key here. You find your services are very much in demand as word gets out, so you’ll need to make sure you have a decent schedule, especially if your dogs are geographically spread.

It sounds easy enough and with good planning it is, but there is more to this than just turning up and generating cash. Most supermarkets, especially the bigger ones, are inundated with fundraisers wanting to collect in or just outside their premises so you’ll need to get a spot as far in advance as possible. You’ll need to know exactly where you’ll be located and what you need to bring or are allowed to bring. They will also have certain rules that you’ll need to follow, and you need to stick to them, or you won’t be allowed back.

Ask your charity for branded buckets and anything else you can have to make yourself stand out. After a few days make sure you contact the store and thank them for having you. This will make it easier to get another go in the future.

It’s not just selling cakes at work or to family and friends that will raise funds for charity, there are plenty of other options. Why not bring some sensuous smells into people’s homes by making your own scented candles or soaps? These can be made fairly cheaply and sold on at a good margin.

Fran had great success with this crafty fundraiser in raising money for ActionAid.

I love fundraising for ActionAid as they are such a brilliant charity. I’m very creative and its wonderful selling my handmade soaps and candles to help raise money, they always sell out fast! It’s so rewarding to raise funds for such a worthy cause and know it makes a difference to people’s lives. ActionAid inspires me to be even more creative, I think Watermelon Soap could well be next!

Being creative with your fundraising is key to standing out, and what better way to do that than with personalised poems for your supporters? Alistair Jones used this in his fundraising for Spinal Research, and smashed his fundraising targets.

My principal method of fundraising has been writing personal poems for people on social media. (See @runningmrjones on both Twitter and Instagram). I’ve been surprised by the enthusiasm and generosity of so many people and have raised somewhere between £4000 and £5000 this way. My top fundraising tip is to ask people at the end of the month when they’ve just been paid. They are much more likely to be both willing and able to donate at that time. And remember to always say “thank you”!

If the company you work for produces products, why not see if they will donate some of their old or excess stock for you to sell or auction off for your charity? This tip was sent to us by Stuart, who used it amongst other fundraising methods to raise over £8500 for Whizz-Kidz.

I worked in the automotive industry and asked some car suppliers to donate merchandise, or even part exchange cars that held little value which I sold on via an auction house (who waived their fees). Be cheeky… if you don’t ask you won’t get.

This can still work if your company offers a service rather than physical products. Speak to your employer and see if they’d be willing to donate a few hours worth of client work to your cause. Make sure the client is aware of this and they might make an extra donation of their own.

If you want to do something a bit different in your next running event why not run in fancy dress? Every year the London Marathon is full of characters and you’ll now see them in many other events around the world. Remember to do a couple of training runs in your costume to make sure you’re used to the weight.

Anthony has run over twenty events for WellChild as their mascot Nessa the Nurse since 2007. In that time he’s been trending on Twitter, and been interviewed by the BBC multiple times. All in all Anthony has run more than 500 miles as a fundraiser for WellChild, raising over £20,000 in the process, and has some tips for other fundraisers.

Fundraising has to start early in the process of training or planning for an event - you have to be tenacious and learn from what others have done, what’s been successful and not successful, and apply it to your own working and personal environment. By promoting the charity’s work and using local examples where possible, sponsors are more willing to support the charity.

Using established characters as fancy dress, or in your fundraising, is highly effective. But taking things to another level by creating your own character can really help to set your fundraising apart.

This was the approach taken by Emma, who created Sparkle the Unicorn to help her raise money for VICTA.

“In thinking of ways to fundraise it was important that it met the following criteria:

• Something you SEE (or challenge what you are seeing)
• Be fun, make you SMILE
• Be INSPIRATIONAL, make you believe anything is possible
• Be about feeling EMPOWERED, able to overcome adversity
• RAISE FUNDS but also raise awareness and raise the profile of VICTA.
• Represent my friend’s daughter, who is a *Sparkly* young musical theatre student.

Taking all of the above into account, the answer seemed obvious. I would become a Unicorn. A magic running Unicorn. An eight foot tall, inflatable, magic running Unicorn called *Sparkle*who appeared randomly and made you smile!

This would certainly achieve most of the above, but how could we raise funds? We decided against asking for large donations or raffles, instead opting to make badges that we could sell for £1 stating: ‘I’ve SEEN a Unicorn’ and ‘Follow The Rainbow’ (VICTAs logo is a rainbow). So far it has been a great success, *Sparkle* draws a crowd wherever she goes, stopping for selfies and selling badges. It has been an incredibly fun and rewarding way of realising my dream whilst supporting a worthwhile charity.”

Sometimes all it takes to get people to donate to your cause is a willingness to go through some embarrassment! Setting up forfeits is a great way to increase your fundraising total, as the more people donate, the more hilarious tasks and challenges you’ll have to do.

This is how Paul raised over £6,000 for cancer charity Maggie’s. What started as a fundraising forfeit or running in pink dress, soon evolved into a whole series of laughter-inducing forfeits once various targets were hit. This included things like shaving his arms and legs, piercing his ears for the race, running in pink false nails and even a spray tan before the event.