HOME / FUNDRAISING TIPS

Here are some tips to help with your fundraising efforts:

1. The higher your fundraising goal, the more you will raise!

People respect an ambitious goal and are keen to help you achieve your target. The higher your fundraising goal the more inclined people are to show their support to help you on your way. Think about it, would you donate more to your friend if their goal was $100 or $10,000?

2. Make the first donation yourself

Put your money where your mouth is and start your fundraising campaign by sponsoring yourself first! If you are asking others to support you, then you should always be willing to make the first donation to show them you mean business (and the higher the first donation, the more inclined others are to follow).

3. Personalise your page and have some fun!

Make the effort and upload images, videos and a personal message as your friends and family want to know what is going on and how you are involved. Entertain them! People always show their support if you can make them laugh.

4. Use our emails template.

Send out one of the templated emails to all friends and colleagues in your address book. For simplicity you can keep your email simple, and one version can go to everyone. Or you can tailor this to address different subsets of your contact list such as friends / work colleagues / clients etc.

Schedule to send this email to everyone at least 3 times! Experience shows that many will mean to sponsor you when they see it the first time, and are happy to be reminded! The final email you send in the week of the event generally brings the greatest response especially if you have sent the email a number of times before!

5. Share your page with everyone!

Quite often the largest donations are by the people you least expect (it is really quite astounding), so share your page with colleagues, suppliers and clients and tell everyone what you are doing to support a great cause. The more people you communicate with, the more support you will receive.

6. Ask your employer if they match funds!

It is a great idea to apply for matched funding from your employer. By matching your team’s fundraising your money is instantly doubled! We have prepared some information that might support you in making the request. Click here for more information about corporate dollar matching.

7. Organise an event

Organising a fundraising event is an effective way of gaining support, raising your profile and increasing the amount of funds you collect. We have prepared a few ideas of some of the fundraising events you could organise. Click here for more ideas for your own event.

“We are in the finance industry and when we emailed our colleagues we had great support. We have also decided to run a raffle at work with a Kindle Fire, which is not yet available in Australia, as the prize! Tickets will be $10 each and we expect to sell lots.

“We are in the fitness industry and did the event last year and are pretty excited about this year! The team is going well with training and fundraising. We are offering a 3 hour adventure class to our clients for a set fee which will go towards fundraising.”

8. Contact your local media

Don’t forget to contact your local newspaper – media coverage is a great way to increase the impact of your fundraising. Local media love stories about local people doing interesting things, especially when it’s for a good cause. Ask them to send a photographer to capture your team in training, or to your fundraising event – a photograph grabs people’s attention. You can use media coverage as a platform to advertise your fundraising events or to solicit sponsorship from your local community. You would also be supporting us to get the word out about the event.

9. Promote sponsors on your webpage

Sell logo space on your webpage to corporations and other businesses and give them something for their money!

10. A list of ideas to help.

Auction
Book sale
Comedy night
Donation drives (chocolate, lamingtons, pies)
Email ‘online donation’ link to friends and family
Fashion parade
Golf day
Helping Hearts
In-house colouring in competition
Juice day
Karaoke night
Lolly jar guessing competition
Movie night
Name that baby (photo comp)
Office massage therapist
Poker night
Quit something for sponsorship
Raffles
Sausage sizzle
Trivia night
Unwanted gift sale
Variety talent show
Wine and cheese night
Xmas early party
You think you can dance comp
Zany dress da
Shave or wax something crazy. Head, legs, back. Let your imagination run wild.