Fundraising Ideas.PMD Ideas
User Manual: Fundraising-ideas
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Page Count: 7
Updated January 2013
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Prior House
6 Tilbury Place
Brighton
BN2 0GY
Tel. 01273 606160
Fax. 01273 673663
e: info@resourcecentre.org.uk
www.resourcecentre.org.uk
Fundraising ideas
PTO
for your voluntary or community group
This sheet aims to help you work out the best strategy for raising
money for your group. We also have information sheets on
Organising fundraising events, Planning a funding application,
Writing a funding application and Fundraising from local
businesses.
Why raise money?
Fundraising is always more successful if you know what you are
raising the money for, and have a clear idea of how much you
need.
Raising money can tend to become an end in itself – if you don’t
have a specific reason for raising money, it might be a good idea
to think about whether you need to do it at all. Sometimes having
money can cause problems for a group as well as solve them.
Before you start trying to raise money for a project, an event, or
general running costs for your group, you need to break down the
likely costs to form a budget.
Keeping accurate accounts can help you work out how much you have
spent on similar activities in the past. If you need the money to start
something new, make sure you have done some research to find out
how much each aspect of the project will cost.
Using your budget, you can arrive at an overall fundraising target. This
will help you decide best how to raise the money. You will also need a
target figure and a specific budget for each fundraising activity.
Fundraising techniques
Once you have an overall fundraising
target, you need to think about how to
raise the money. There are several ways
to do this:
•Selling badges, cards, t-shirts or
other merchandise
•Collections, donations and raffles
•Applying for grants or awards
•Organising your own fundraising events
Which route you decide to take depends largely on how much
money you have to raise, and how many people you have available
to do the work.
The Resource Centre’s
information sheet on ‘Budgets’
will guide you through the
process of writing a budget
for a specific project, or for all
your organisation’s activities
in the coming year.
Page 2 Fundraising ideas
You may choose to combine several approaches. Some grant-
giving bodies are much more likely to help you if you can raise
some money yourselves. Letters to local businesses can produce a
rich crop of raffle prizes to make your summer fete more
successful.
Selling badges, cards, t-shirts or other
merchandise
You can design and make your own badges or cards (e.g. Christmas
cards) at quite a low cost and sell them to supporters to raise money.
Some groups also print t-shirts and information booklets, record CDs
or DVD’s, or make earrings and other items to sell to supporters.
You can also have items made, such as baseball caps, stickers, pens, or
keyrings.
Before doing this it is worth thinking about where you are going to be
able to sell your products, and who you are going to sell them to. Are
you going to have a stall at your own, or another group’s, event? Are
you going to rely on personal contacts? Some supportive shops may
take some to sell – but they may ask for a percentage of the ‘profit’
for doing this.
Remember that, whatever you are selling, you are bound to end up
with some left over, so allow for this when you decide on a price.
Collections and raffles
There are many ways of collecting money from supporters, but there
are often rules and regulations that affect how you carry them out.
Here are a few ideas:
Collections
If you are having a stall at an event it is always useful to have a
collection tin for members of the public to make small donations to
your group.
You can also organise a street collection. You will need a permit from
the local council for this. You can make your collection more
imaginative and appealing to the public by dressing up, having musicians
or performers with you, having information about your group available,
or having stickers to give to those who donate.
If you are having a collection at your own event, or a larger event, you
could:
•Have large labelled buckets
•Have groups of people shaking blankets
•Use a paddling pool or water feature to make a ‘wishing well’
The Resource Centre has
badge machines for hire. We
also have printing facilities
which may be useful to you.
The Resource Centre
Information Sheet on
‘Licensing and Regulations’
gives guidance on any legal
requirements.
In Brighton contact the Health
and Safety Licensing Team on
01273 294429.
Page 3 Fundraising ideas
•Create a ‘Coin Painting’. As people donate coins a group of
’artists’ could create pictures on the ground or on a large board,
using the coins.
100 Club
100 members pay £1 or £2 per month into the club. Each member is
allocated a number, and each month one or two numbers are drawn to
find the winner. 50% of the cash collected would go to your
organisation, and the rest would be used for prizes. It is a good idea to
have quite a small regular prize, then larger prizes (e.g. £100) once or
twice a year.
Raffles
You could hold a raffle at an event, or even on the coach if you are
going on an outing. For this kind of raffle you can buy books of
cloakroom tickets from a stationery shop. Alternatively you could hold
a draw over a longer period, and print draw tickets. You can ask local
businesses to donate prizes, for example, a box of chocolates, a meal
for two, a food hamper, or a haircut.
Donations and membership fees
Membership
You can ask supporters of your group to become members, and
charge a small membership fee. This can give your organisation a small
regular income, and lead to members identifying more closely with you.
You could have a small fee for individuals, and a larger fee for other
organisations. You could print membership cards, where you record
members' payments, and the date their membership expires.
However, asking people to pay for membership might deter some of
them from getting involved, so discuss this carefully before you go
ahead with it. Membership fees are probably more suited to sports,
arts or social clubs where there is a clear benefit to being a member.
Standing Orders
You could ask supporters to pay a monthly Standing Order directly
from their bank account. You just need to give supporters your
group's bank details (account name, number and sort-code) so that
they can ask their bank to set up the standing order. Ask them to tell
you that they have done this, so you know where the money has
come from when it appears in your bank account!
People often get confused between standing orders and direct debits,
so it is useful to remind them that they control the standing
order - they can contact their bank to amend or cancel the
standing order whenever they like.
PTO
The Resource Centre has
Ticket Wizard software, which
enables you to create
attractive numbered tickets
with details of you event and
prizes.
Page 4 Fundraising ideas
Payroll giving
Payroll Giving enables employees to give to any UK charity
straight from their gross salary (before tax is deducted), giving
immediate tax relief on those donations. This means that £10
donated each month costs only £8.00 for employees paying
standard rate tax (£6 for higher rate taxpayers).
GiftAid
Charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASC's) can claim the
tax back when people make donations to them. Therefore, if
somebody makes a donation of £10 to your charity, you will receive
£12.50.
To use GiftAid you need to register with Her Majesty's Revenue and
Customs (HMRC), ask all donors to sign a Gift Aid declaration, and keep
accurate records.
Community shares
If your group wants to raise money to, for example, save your
local pub or community building and run it yourselves, a way of
doing this is through community shares. For more information,
visit: www.communityshares.org.uk.
Online donations for charities
There are several websites that provide a service for collecting
GiftAid donations for charities and CASCs. Most of them charge,
but they also carry out some of the admin tasks and make the
claim to HMRC for you.
If your group is not a charity you can set up an account with Paypal,
Google Checkout or Worldpay. You will need to register with them,
and give them your bank account details. Your supporters can then
make donations directly to you, or you can put a 'Donate' button on
your website. The registration process can take a while and be a bit
confusing. If you are not a charity you will not be able to register as a
'Not-for-Profit' organisation, and will have to register as a Sole-trader
instead.
Fundraising appeals
It is possible to raise a lot of money with a well thought-out
fundraising appeal, and it can be useful to combine this with other
fundraising activities. For example, if you organise some fundraising
events such as a music night, a pub quiz, or a sponsored walk, you will
send out a clear message to your supporters that you are aiming to
raise a lot of money. You may then receive some individual donations
from people who cannot attend your events. If you combine this with
a well worded appeal you will probably get more donations.
For more information about
Payroll Giving see the website
at www.payrollgiving.org
For more information about
GiftAid see
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/
charities/gift_aid/basics.htm
Sussex Community Internet
Project have put together a
useful list of websites that will
collect on-line donations for
charities and CASCs at
www.scip.org.uk/news/
taking_donations_online_options
Page 5 Fundraising ideas
A good appeal will give clear information about why you need the
money, what you will use it for, and how people can make
donations. For example:
•Our monthly running costs for room hire, refreshments and
transport are £160. We are asking 80 people to make a
monthly donation of £5 by standing order to cover these
costs. We can then concentrate on providing fun, interesting
and stimulating activities for the children.
•Each meal provided by our Meals on Wheels service costs £6.50
(for the ingredients, kitchen facilities and transport costs). A
donation of £52 would provide an elderly person with a hot meal
twice a week for 3 months.
•The cost of redecorating our community room is £1,500. We plan
to do the work in November so the room is ready for the
children's Christmas party and pensioners' Christmas lunch in
December. We have already raised £900 during the year at our
fetes, jumble sales and bingo nights, and are asking for donations
to make up the difference. We really appreciate all donations -
please give whatever you can.
You could send your appeal to members and supporters by post or
email, distribute flyers at events, or get it published in local
newsletters, newspapers or on the local radio.
Pledge fundraising
Pledge fundraising is when you ask people to make a promise of a
donation, and you collect this donation at a later date.
This kind of fundraising is for a specific appeal or project, with a
set target amount you want to raise. Generally, pledges are made
so that donations are only actually collected once you are sure
you will collect as much as you need. So, if you need £2,000 to buy
a new minibus, there’s no point in anyone making a donation
until you have commitment from enough people to know that
you will be able to buy the minibus. Only then do you actually
collect money.
The easiest way to do this is to produce pledge cards or forms.
People use these to write down their contact details and the
amount of money they pledge to the group or project. They then
hand this in to you, and you can contact them to ask for their
donation once you have received enough pledges.
It is important that you clearly state what the money is for, and
that it will only be used for that purpose, e.g. buying a minibus.
You can include wording that if the fundraising for the specific
appeal fails, the donation will be used for a similar purpose
unless the donor declares otherwise - i.e. they do not want to
donate to you group unless you use their donation to buy a
minibus.
PTO
The Resource Centre has
several books with lots more
ideas and information on how
to organise events.
The Resource Centre has
Information Sheets on
‘Fundraising Applications’ and
‘Fundraising from local
businesses’
The Resource Centre
information sheet on Media
Contacts has details on where
you could send your news
release to, and our News
Release information sheet will
give you tips on how to write
it.
Page 6 Fundraising ideas
When collecting people’s contact information:
•keep them safe and secure, in line with the Data Protection Act
•Make it clear why you are collecting this information (e.g. so
that you can contact them in future for them to make a
donation)
•only ask for details you actually need
•get rid of the details once they are no longer needed
•don’t pass the information on to any other
organisation
Crowdfunding is a form of pledge fundraising,
but via the internet. There are sites that your
group can set up a crowdfunding page on, and
collect pledges of donations from people
online.
It’s a good idea to have a few target contacts
for this kind of fundraising - people you
know who will: a) have the money to donate;
b) be sympathetic to your cause.
Remember also that people tend to donate to projects and
groups that they are familiar with and they recognise, or are
located in their local communities.
Applying for grants or awards
This involves writing convincing applications to grant making
trusts, your local council, businesses, or the lottery. Although this
may appear to be the easy option, it can be very time consuming,
as you will need to:
•do some initial research to find suitable organisations to
apply to
•collect together information about your group and activities
for the applications
•prepare budgets
•plan ahead as many funders consider applications on a 3
monthly or 6 monthly cycle.
Organising fundraising events
Events such as summer fairs, kareoke nights or gigs can be really
good ways of raising money.
The Resource Centre has
information sheets available
on Planning Funding
Applications and Writing
Funding Applications
The Resource Centre has an
information sheet available
on Organising fundraising
events.
Page 7 Fundraising ideas
Further information
The Resource Centre has a range of Information Sheets on all
aspects of running a group. The following ones are particularly
useful for fundraising:
•Organising fundraising events
•Planning checklist: for fetes, fun days, parties and other
events
•Licensing and regulations: essential information for event
organisers
•Fundraising from local businesses: where to get small
amounts of money or raffle prizes for Christmas parties, fun
days, outings or other small projects
•Planning funding applications
•Writing funding applications
•Budgets for community groups
•News Release
•Media Contacts
Our reference library has sections on:
•Health and safety
•Publicity and campaigning
•Sources of funding
•Applying for funding
•Fundraising events and games
We have a wide range of equipment for hire including:
•Money making side shows
•Play equipment
•Badge machines
•Digital and video cameras
•Data projectors, OHP, slide projector, laptops, PAs and
megaphone
•Collection tins and money aprons
