Fundraising Ideas

This page has been created especially for those of you who are thinking about undertaking a challenge, but don’t quite know how to go about raising the funds.

We have some great fundraising ideas and we are always happy to take your calls and share our fundraising experiences with you.

Here are a few easy ideas to get you started...

Supermarket Bag Pack

We all know how exhausting the weekly shop can be and after trawling the supermarket to find everything that's needed, packing your bags can seem a real chore! Past challengers have raised hundreds of £s taking advantage of weary shoppers so why not do your very own supermarket bag pack and fill up that fundraising pot! Approach your local store manager for permission and, if he agrees, contact us in the Challenge Office for shirts, spoon leaflets and collection tins. Just think, one day in a supermarket with a couple of your mates and you could raise over £300 - sounds like a good days work!

Chocolate in the Office

If your office is anything like ours there will be two points in the day when someone has to nip to the local shop to pick up a supply of snacks, once around 11am and once around 3pm. Well here is the solution - if you go to your local discount shop such as ‘Home Bargains’ and buy some promotional packets of chocolate, you can sell these to your colleagues at 50p per bar. This can make you up to 50% profit and saves the legs of the office ‘runner’. Depending on what goes down well, you can do the same thing for crisps, canned drinks and even homemade cakes (which go down very well here!) Put your supplies in a bowl with a collection tin and a price list and watch the funds come pouring in!

Only Smarties Have the Answer

Give your friends and colleagues a tube of Smarties each and ask them to enjoy the contents, then fill the tube with their spare 20p pieces.

Once the tubes are full they hand them back to you and believe it or not, each tube can hold £15 worth of 20p pieces!

Go Casual

Get your company to hold a ’Dress Down Day’ and encourage colleagues to dip into their pockets to make a contribution to your fundraising pot in return for turning up in their casual clothes.

You could also ask your local school to do the same thing and depending on how many pupils attend, it could make a substantial contribution to your fundraising total.

We Love JustGiving

Just giving is a fantastic way to fundraise. It is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to donate as we will receive your money electronically and if your donations come from a UK taxpayer, an extra 28% in Gift Aid will be added on top of your fundraising. Just Giving is easy to set up and with one email to your whole contact list you could find yourself well on your way to reaching the fundraising total! We suggest that you personalise your page and write a piece about why you are undertaking the challenge and what it means to you. If you have already set up a Just Giving page and are not having a great response, then advertise! Send a monthly email to your friends, family and colleagues (just after payday is always a good time!) thanking those who have already donated and reminding those who haven’t! You could also include a training update in your email so that everyone can see the reality of what you are doing. Some Challengers even send a monthly reminder to their mobile phone contact list reminding them of their Just Giving address and this in itself can raise a lot of funds without too much effort from yourself.

Gift Aid

Just Giving guarantees a return of 28% to Wooden spoon (assuming all your donors are taxpayers), that means for every £1000 raised the charity gains an extra £280. A great example of this is, if 50 Four Peaks Teams raised the minimum fundraising of £4,400, the additional gift aid on this amount would be a whopping £61,600! This goes along way to helping disadvantaged children - so please once you have reached your minimum sponsorship amount don’t stop! - every £ helps!

Let us Help

Fundraising is as tough as training and the longer you leave it to get started the harder it gets.

The challenge office has a number of fundraising tools available which can help towards your goal. Our famous 100 square poster can be used in the office, club or pub.

All you need to do is sell each square on the poster at a fixed price (challengers have charged between £1 and £10 depending on the prize they are able to offer) and ask the buyer to write their name on a square. When all the squares are sold, cut them up and draw one out of a hat. The prize can either be a percentage of the poster income or a prize donated by a sponsor.

We also have collection tins, various raffle prizes and DVD’s which can be used to show larger corporate sponsors how the money is spent. So don’t forget to give us a call and see if we can help with any of your fundraising needs!