fundraising

Charity match a success

2009-08-03T05:49:00.000-07:00

Our fun match before summer shutdown was a great success, enjoyed by all whom attended and raised £200. We charged players £5, spectators £2, sold donated cakes, had a guess the weight of the cake competition and ran a squares grid. All in all a great success thoroughly enjoyed by all. This event was relatively easy to organise, and will definitely be run again in the future. We made over £50 on the cakes alone, and are seriously considering asking parents to donate cakes for sale on match days next season, every little bit will help in the kitty.

Sponsorship success

2009-07-07T06:38:00.001-07:00

With the start of the new ice hockey season looming, sponsors are needed more desperately than ever to assist with the financial aspects of the running of the individual age groups. I e-mailed all of my age group parents, and put an update on facebook asking people to help to secure sponsorship for match trophies and home shirts. Success the same day was achieved with a trophy sponsor being secured - thank you to a close friend of mine, and within a week or so a sponsor was found for the shirts. It's always worth starting with those most obvious when appealing for funding. I have also managed to sell some advertising space in the match programmes to a contact at our local roller disco which we regularly use both personally and as a team.

Mixed results

2009-06-23T07:03:00.000-07:00

Sultan show at the weekend was quieter than the organisers had anticipated, therefore we only just made enough money to cover our costs. Although if some new players come to new starters as a result of the advertising then the exercise would have been worthwhile. It would also be a good idea to use the same stall - shots on goal - at local shows, fetes and school summer fairs, it's probably a bit late now for this summer, but certainly something we are going to bear in mind for next year.

The group page I set up for fundraising for the Ice Hockey club on facebook has had several members join, although not many of these have actually bothered to sign up for easyfundraising, I am concentrating on sending them regular updates though and hopefully as time passes more of them will sign up. We have also involved a local book club in fundraising and I have added their link onto the facebookk fundraising page. It is very difficult to continually come up with new angles to fundraise from, so please add your comments and suggestions to help everyone out.

An appeal was sent out via facebook for sponsors for next seasons trophies, and that was successful with a sponsor found on the same day. The next task is to sell some advertising space within the match programmes for next season, this will be emailed out to club members initially to see what the response is, last season this was successful with space selling quite quickly.

Connection Café: Peer to peer fundraising and social media

2009-06-16T07:59:00.001-07:00

Connection Café: Peer to peer fundraising and social media

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HMS Sultan show, Gosport, Hants

2009-06-16T07:48:00.000-07:00

Solent and Gosport Ice Hockey club have secured a stall at the HMS Sultan show this weekend and are hoping to raise some much needed funds. Goalies will be taking much punishment all weekend with shots on goal, there will be a tombola running, and a recruitment drive for new players interested in joining the club. It should be a fantastic weekend, are you in the area? If so please pop by and say hello.

One of the players Dad's is also in the process of making up a DVD of a recent tournament played by the U14 team, along with a slide show of some fantastic photographs, this will be sold for £5 and each copy will provide 100% profit to the club.

What fundraising have you been doing lately? Has it been successful?

Easyfundraising

2009-06-09T04:49:00.000-07:00

One of the most effective ways of communicating the benefits of easyfundraising and easysearch to your supporters is via your website. A dedicated page on your site, explaining to your supporters just how easy it is to raise funds simply by shopping and searching, is the best way to maximise your fundraising total.

I have also set up a group on Facebook to encourage use of the easyfundraising site. One of the most important tips to remember is that anyone participating in fundraising likes to know the totals of what has been raised, so make sure you regularly update all of your supporters.

Have a clear fundraising plan

2009-06-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

Two must haves for your bookshelf are Fundraising for Dummies and Fundraising when Money is Tight, these two books are available from Amazon, along with many other helpful titles.

All charitable organisations plan ahead of time when thinking about fundraising events and reaching to their target. Raising funds for a charity can be achieved in a number of ways, namely that of an activity, private sponsorship, donations or public sponsorships. Some organisations jump from one fundraiser to another without a sufficient programme in place, meaning that the organisations will delay in reaching to the target. There are simple steps to planning an effective fundraiser plan and in order for the plan to lead to successful results the organisation would need to manage and follow it through rigidly. The first step into devising a rigid fundraising plan is to begin researching. Depending on what the money is being raised for one should be clear on how effectively they can raise the money in a designated length of time, ensuring that they make the relevant contacts and bring together a group of people to work on the project. You will need to ask yourself what kind of fundraising event works and what works for the community you are in. Looking at other organisations what was the most successful event for them and what was least successful. In terms of your own organisation, what is the fundraising history? What types of projects have you conducted, how long for and how much did you raise? Do you and your staff have the commitment to fundraise? What is or will limit your efforts? What tools can use to effectively jumpstart your project such as use of technology? What are the latest techniques and how effective are they? After thoroughly researching the above information, you can then move onto the next objective which is to actually plan. By this point you should have a clear idea of what you want to do, what resources you will need and what you are capable of pulling together. Putting pen to paper make a list of your goals (why is this money being raised? What is it in support of? What will the funds be used for?), objectives (How much will be seeking to raise and what type of funding are you seeking? Are you making an evaluation as you go along? How cost effective is the event? How many programmes will you have on the go?), strategies (how will successfully reach your objectives? What other resources do you need to achieve this?) and timeframe (how long do you intend to run the programme? How long will each strategy take to complete the objective?). Take your time on the above before you move onto the next stage of fundraising which is carrying it out for real. This is the most nerve racking moment making it the most stressful and high pressured day. All this time planning will be put to the test as it will ultimately prove whether the organisation will reach their goals and raise the funds within the timeframe you have given yourself. This will also mean effective management of staff, monitoring progress and delegating responsibility. After the fundraising project has completed it is always important to evaluate the day, being sure to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the event. Ask yourself whether you have reached the target funds amount, were staff comfortable in their roles and were there positive feedback from the people involved? Above all never rush into things, always be certain that all corners have been covered before conducting the event.

Fundraising

2009-05-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

Voluntary fundraising is a thankless task which we take on. I've been fundraising for my son's ice hockey club http://solenticehockey.net/ this season and have decided to share hints and tips with you as to how to raise funds.

There are lots of simple and easy ways to raise funds, but they do need the support of those you are fundraising for. Two of the most successful events we have held this year have been bag packing at the local Sainsburys store - raised over £700 and a raffle at our end of season presentation which raised almost £500. Other events we have ongoing include recycling mobile phones - just over £100 raised during the past few months, recycling ink cartridges, sale of snacks and drinks at training sessions. We have also held a family social evening and a motorbike rideout. Another good fund raiser is a squares grid - you have a grid of 100 numbered squares for sale for either £1 or £2 each. Once every square is sold the winning number is drawn out of a hat and wins a proportion of the prize monies - usually 25% and the profits go to the organisation.

Another successful way to raise funds is to sell photographs and montages of the children in action if your cause is suitable for photographing, we also designed and sold calendars at christmas which had a good mark up and raised over £200.

Signing up for Easyfundraising also keeps a trickle of funds coming in. Easyfundraising features www.easysearch.org.uk, a search engine with a difference. Search the Web with easysearch instead of Google or any other search engine and you'll raise funds for your chosen cause with every search you make. Make just 10 searches a day and you could raise around £20 a year - just by searching the Web. easysearch is powered by Yahoo!, MSN Windows Live Search, Ask.com and several other well-known search engines. If you use this link to sign up not only will your cause receive funds, but so will my son's ice hockey club http://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/referral/14081