Charity fundraising at work

[freezedriedromance]

Morning kind folks,

I've been asked to organise a little monthly fundraising at work to raise a bit of cash for a local charity. Once per month - a quiz, something like that etc.
I know these things are vilified on Mumsnet (I don't like these things either) but unfortunately I've been told to do it by the big boss and don't have a choice in the matter.

Can anyone suggest any cheap/free, quick, "fun" ideas for me to roll out every month? Most are working virtually if that makes any difference.

I much prefer (and a lot of us do!) to give money to charity directly but like I said, I don't have a choice but to organise something. I think people will be as enthusiastic as a cabbage personally, but hey ho.

Thanks for any ideas!

big boss doesn't want to do it him/herself? Funny that.

team youtube video watch; find a guilty pleasure from the 80s and have a giggle for 3 minutes. Then everyone puts 10p in a jar. Repeat each week. Collect the cash at the end of lockdown and give to charity.

He's wanting a monthly one so unfortunately having to think of quite a few.

Thank you for your ideas though, I appreciate it.

E-mail bingo can work well - buy a pad of tickets to sell, e-mail players ten numbers an hour (use Excel to randomise the numbers) and the first to a full house wins 🙂

Best thing we found is an alcohol hamper raffle.

£1 entry to a quiz or bingo?

Email or what ever the main means of communication is, outlining the charity, what they do, why you would like people to donate, and how they can do this.

No event, no organised 'fun', say how you value everyone's time given they have to home school (well many do), indeed make a virtue out of not holding an event given everyone's time pressures.

Charity exercise events eg step challenges. People pay to enter or could gain sponsorship.

Bake sales (post Covid)

Raffles

Quizzes

Sports Event Sweepstakes

Set up a pennies from heaven scheme - where your monthly salary is rounded down to the nearest pound and the pennies are donated to charity. Get HR involved in this!

Realistically you have to accept that employees will be asked to constantly dig into their pockets for this. So worth finding a charity that staff want to support (vote?) and recognising this will be a challenge. Also worth thinking about events where you can win a prize - people are more likely to support as a game even if they aren’t doing it for charity.

Quiz, bingo.

We did a fair bit over Christmas in our team.

Less 'effort' is something like a picture competition. We had a christmas tree competition, but you can always do pet posing, nature, gardens etc, £1/£2 entry, £10/£5 prize.

Depending on how keen people are, a talent show, with video entries. Tbf we had very few entries, so really depends.

Possibly some fair type games, pics of sweet jars. Guess the number, and name that teddy.

Would an ongoing competition work, something like fantasy football?

Monthly challenges too get a different type of person, so step challenges where people record their fitbit stats.

Alternate between less effort/engagement ones and activities.

I have seen a few online quizzes, such as Guess the London Underground Station from cryptic clues/ guess the chocolate bar wrapper from a photo of a segment of it/guess the company logo from a segment etc. I guess you could charge people £1 to enter on the night, then give them 30mins to submit their answers and then a winner. You would probably need a prize though. Unless a competitor gets points for winning/second/third, with a bigger prize at the end.

For one month, you could encourage people to register for Easy Fundraising, with your chosen charity as the recipient. Doesn't cost anyone anything, people just need to remember to download the app.

I have done Zoom bingo, which worked. Prizes (chocolate) for a line, four corners and a full house. We had the bingo cards delivered in advance.

Get someone to do something for which they could be sponsored. Not necessarily sky diving or similar, but something like walking x000 steps per day/losing weight/giving up alcohol etc.

Organise an online karaoke (not sure how!) which people would pay to enter.

Ask people to save their copper, so 1p and 2p pieces, to donate in a bucket on your desk when they come into work. I guess someone would have to be responsible for locking it away at night, and putting it out in the morning.

Send them all a tube of Smarties, and ask the to fill it with pound coins before they come back to work. DOn't make it compulsory, as that is a big ask for a lot of people.

The money will come from the staff because they can't do sponsored events at the moment. Is that right? So your boss is basically taxing his staff and putting it to a cause of his/her choice. I wouldn't enable a manager that tried that. People have a right to keep their pay. Let the company donate out of profits if they want to.

Zoom pub quiz? £5 per team?

Exactly - if he wants to donate to charity, let him bloody do it.
Really not on, especially when people are stretched at the moment.

I would send out a note to all —dumping boss in it— explaining boss wants to raise money for charity and does anybody have any ideas of other lockdown fundraising activities they have participated in and enjoyed, and that have been successful. Also say that you know lots of people like to donate directly to a charity that has meaning to them so to suggest any worthy charities that folk can vote on, so that it doesn’t all end up going to boss’s per charity.

For ease could you set up a 100 Club type set up? You have 100 numbers (or 50 or 200, whatever you think is reasonable for the number of staff you have) - then sell each number for £12. If you sell all 100 numbers you get £1200, of which 50% is used as a prize fund and 50% goes to charity.
Each month you have a draw from the 100 numbers and draw 3. Winner gets £25, 2nd gets £15, 3rd gets £10. £50 goes to charity - can change it to be a different one each month. Organise a social zoom meeting in work time to do the draw and have social chit chat catch up time.
Just over a third of those that buy a number win a prize so quite good return for a lottery type thing. Runs for a year with minimal effort. Works out a pound a month for those that take part - so hopefully affordable.

You can tweak percentages for charity vs prizes. Add in an extra couple of pounds for bigger draws at say Xmas and first or last draw. Persuade boss to contribute couple of nice bottles of wine or boxes of choc etc for extra prizes.

So lots of scope to tailor it to be suitable and for people to at least have a chance of winning their money back!

The company are matching whatever is donated. I appreciate people don't agree with it, but this isn't a manager, its the company owner so I can't just say no I'm not doing it. I don't want to participate in events never mind plan them, but I know of so many people without jobs right now that I need to do everything to keep mine to be honest.
Thank you for all your ideas.

Is the company giving you a budget to do this? To pay for raffle prizes, bingo cards, postage etc?
Does the charity have a fundraising department? Or a website? If so, they would have some ideas.

Be careful as a couple of these ideas would need registering with the right authority and you have to be open and transparent. Legally running a raffle is a nightmare as it has to be registered and given a number.
Can you look into the legal ramifications and say it will take far too much time.

And as a member of staff at your place I would be using my No as my complete sentence. I am broke, with reduced hours and furlough and high heating bills right now. I have no spare money at all

No its only a small company, around 30 employees so no separate department. Its not as simple as just saying "no" unfortunately.

Sorry I misread a pp, I thought you meant if you were me you'd say no. If I was asked to participate I totally agree with you, I'd be saying no as well. I'm hoping the owner will forget about it to be honest.

it's a tricky one, as PP have pointed out, this is essentially the boss asking his staff to donate to his favourite charity.

You need activities that people can opt-out of without feeling under any pressure.

Possibly crap ones so that you explain why there is no take up...

Thats exactly what I need.
He won't mind spending a little on prizes from his own pocket, we're only a small company so I'm picturing a crate of beer, few bottles of wine or a big box of chocolates type thing. Honestly he's hoping it will be a nice team building thing, get people involved etc, its coming from a good place, the money is to go to our local womens refuge centre. But obviously these things do get tedious to take part in, nevermind with remote workers. I've said I think if he wants to do something like this we should at least wait until after Covid so staff are all together in the office.

Would he give his staff the time and funds to make up bulbs in plant pots etc?

Something that those interested could make over zoom together and sell on?

Other people may have other ideas, anyone good at baking could "sell" their wares?

With selling to the public we would have to charge VAT so I think its probably easier to find something that requires a donation for a prize type thing.

A bake sale is a good idea, definitely a post Covid one though :)

More as a "suggested donation" sale!!