Has anyone fundraised before?

[norahbonez]

I need fundraising tips! I've signed up to do the London marathon for a charity, and need to raise £3000 through go fund me. I have a good network of friends who have donated a fair bit already, and I have 10 months or so to raise the rest and think I will struggle with just relying on the good will of people around me.

The charity is very dear to my heart and supported my family through a very scary time.

Has anyone any ideas or suggestions?

How much have you got so far? Does it have to be £3000 or is that just a target?

Ideally £3000 as that's the charities target I've committed to. I've only raised £550 so far but that's in two weeks so fairly good going.

I did a swap shop day. Essentially bring your old clothes pop them on rails, choose new stuff and take it away. A bucket for donations. All the leftover clothes whack on vinted with a large bundle discount to encourage multiple purchases. Everything left after a month went to bc a buy by the kilo clothes place.

I had access to a free hall though and local community are big on sustainability. It was labour intensive, my house looked like a charity shop for a good month made nearly 1k though.

I did a bonus ball sweepstake at work, guess the eggs in the jar at Easter and a bake sale at work!

My mum god love her collected 20ps in a tin to help as well!

In my experience of marathons you do get lots in the day as people remember you’re running it!

Ive only done one charity place and my target was a lot less but it was hard work raising it!

Good luck- and think about it if I was to do one now I’d probably use my Monzo account and round up payments into a pot and whack that towards it every month

When I fundraised, I...

Made sure I had support from the charity. That came in the form of publicity (I did radio interviews and all sorts!), promo materials (collection tins, balloons, t-shirts etc). This came with support from their own supporters too.

Contacted all manner of local companies and attractions who donated hugely generous things - vouchers, tickets, bottles of wine, chocolates, electrical items, so many generous donations. I used these for raffle prizes at other events, see below!

Events:

I had support from my employer (and by default their client base!) and was able to use their premises to hold a Christmas craft sale. I gave local crafters a stall at the venue in return for a donation to my fundraising. I also included a cake sale (my colleagues generously baked too!), tea/coffee for a small donation and held a raffle here. Tesco very kindly donated tea, coffee, milk, disposable cups etc. for this too.

Bingo night - my husband was the bingo caller, the cricket club we held it at had a PA system and gave us the venue for free in return for people buying drinks there. Also held a raffle here as well as other prizes.

And then social media
I created a Facebook page to share my training. The good, the bad and the (sometimes very!) ugly. Pictures (especially in charity t-shirt!), progress, successes and failures. I was and still am not, and never will be a runner so it was pretty brutal! Updates were posted at strategic times to maximise engagement. I was very open about my own journey (I'd been super morbidly obese beforehand!) and also about the work the charity do and how they support the local community. It was also featured in things like whole organisation newsletters etc. At work.

Marathon day I wasn't aiming for a specific time, I was just aiming to finish and still be alive. So I had some fun with that too and did a photo scavenger hunt. People pledged donations for certain things e.g. a picture of someone running with a fridge, or a selfie with a celebrity etc. which was actually really fun and quite popular too.

It was hard work, and about 30% of my donations came in on the day or after, but it kept me going on the day. When I was struggling (Isle of Dogs, fucking he'll...) I mentally calculated how much each mile was worth based on donations and it really kept me moving.

Hugely humbled by the amount of support I received all round but you'd never get me to do it again, truly a once in a lifetime experience 😂

Does your work do a matched fundraising scheme for charities?

Quiz night at a pub for your mates. Hire a room and charge everyone a fiver to enter, have a collection bucket and a small prize for the end.

See if your employer does a donation to charities or a matched scheme. Mine donates £500 to people doing it.

You mentioned the charity is dear to your heart - on your gofundme, have you gone into detail about your story and why it’s important? A good story which helps people to understand why it’s so meaningful to you, makes a big difference in how people respond. And on gofundme, you might pick up extra donations from strangers too.

Other ideas - set up a seperate Facebook donation page and do the usual ‘instead of gifts for my birthday….’ Also, if for example you lost a parent or a friend to an illness, raise funds on their birthday/anniversary as part of honouring their memory.

On the anniversary of my mum’s death I used to do a Facebook fundraiser for the charity that helped her so massively. It would always raise a few extra hundred pounds from people who knew and loved her.

If you do have a compelling story connected to why you’re doing this, consider sharing it with the local press too. Make sure they share the link in their article.

I was going to suggest a quiz night as well.

£500 in two weeks is amazing.

One of my friends provided tea and coffee and snacks at sons sports club.

Regular training updates on my GoFundMe page made a big difference at reminding people.

Cake sales at work (I worked in a team of about 40). I did one every few months and got posters and bunting from the charity that I was raising money for. Also a general donations pot alongside the cakes.

Canny charity shop shopping and reselling on Vinted for a profit. Good pictures make a huge difference.

Definitely contact the charity for ideas and items you can use (buckets, branded things etc). Do you know others who have done similar who can inspire you? Is the charity finding a say to connect their marathon team so you can all chat and share ideas?

I work for a charity and we ask people in their application to set out their fundraising plan to meet the target, it helps focus people on what they need to do to commit but also gives us an understanding of their circle. If you're relying on family only to cover it, you'll struggle and we don't want to put that pressure on people, on top of training too!

Family, friends, work, kids schools, community opportunities (table sales, car wash / odd jobs)

I did a cake sale, car boot (people gave me stuff to sell and I cleared out my garage). Good luck.