Fundraising Ideas!

Hey!

I've been accepted onto a summer programme in India with Raleigh through ICS and need to raise £800.

I was just wondering if people could share there fundraising experiences and give any tips or advice?

Thanks!

Do the Yorkshire Three Peaks, or a different sponsored, well-known walk and ask a lot of people for sponsorship; I raised just over £800 doing this two years ago.

Bag packing at morrisons and asda- get a group of 5-10 people ready to help you out. You can raise the 800 in 2 days if you can pull it off. Always smile and be really nice. You'll be surprised how generous people are. Just write to them as soon as possible giving a lil background abt your self, the organization u're going to be volunteering with and the amount you need to raise etc... Best of luck! I'm off to Tanzania in 1 week and I did pretty much the same thing. Good luck!!!

Who were the people who sponsored you? Was it all like friends and family or did you manage to get strangers/businesses to sponsor you?

Family and friends, as well as people who live on my street; I got about £5 each from households on my street who decided to sponsor me (success rate was about 72%) and I got larger amounts from family and family friends. Don't ask strangers who aren't local though; they are unlikely to sponsor you (especially for something like this, rather than a charity donation). Also make sure you prepare a pitch of some sort (I kind of improvised at first and then I adapted it and it became more and more routine) and also take some evidence of your expedition. Finally, make sure your sponsorship form looks formal. I think that's about everything, if you have any more questions, just quote me.

Did you know the people on the street very well?

See the thing is I don't know a huge amount of people at Uni so most people don't care enough to sponsor me, and they're all poor students! lol

Any event ideas I have seem almost impossible to actually make any money.

I am climbing Kilimanjaro in June and for my fundraising the most successful money raising activities have proven to be pub crawl bucket collection and I would absolutely recommend you consider doing one for your fundraising! They're surprising quite a lot of fun, and the money making potential can be huge. The first time I did one was with 2 others who are also climbing and we made £840 altogether, so £280 each and I've done more since then raising similar amounts. This was visiting a range of pubs from student bars to "old-man pubs" to some more "posh" ones too. Obviously a city/big town is preferable in terms of volume, more people means more donations. But in some smaller towns you might have less people but the single donations might be bigger.

Get a list of pubs and phone numbers and call round a few days in advance to ask permission to enter the premises to do a charity collection, and take down the person's name who you spoke to and/or the name of the manager. Get a friend or two to help you and make sure you've got some buckets and a t-shirt or something so you're easily recognizable!

Hey!

I've been accepted onto a summer programme in India with Raleigh through ICS and need to raise £800.

I was just wondering if people could share there fundraising experiences and give any tips or advice?

Thanks!

I had to raise £2,700 for a trip to Swaziland, and one of the main ways I did this was with car boot sales as is recommended above On Saturdays I would distribute leaflets on 2 or 3 streets in my local village asking for any old books, toys, furniture etc., and say that next Saturday I would be collecting. Got a surprising amount of stuff! I also did a week long sponsored silence, and that prompted a lot of people at School to sponsor me when they realised what I was doing

Ahh nice.

I kind of have some trouble with things like that though as I don't have a car.. :/

Also it kinda of suck as my friends aren't exactly the 'giving' type. They couldn't care less if I was silent.

I had to get my dad to help out, but he was sorta happy to seeing as it was that or him paying :P aw that sucks, fair enough. It may've been easier as when I did it I was at a school, and so the people i were asking weren't on a budget so much :/ Sorry I couldn't be of more help! Have you considered getting a part time job maybe?

How did you get on with your fundraising then? Hope you met your target and are looking forward to your trip!

That's great that you're nearly there! Have you got any work or business contacts that might sponsor you towards your final bit of fundraising?

I've hit my target now so just looking forward to going out to Tanzania in the summer now, climbing Kili and visiting a school which is funded by the charity... then coming home to graduate, eek!

When do you head off to India? Do you know what kind of projects/work you'll be involved with? I know two people who've recently finished projects with ICS, one in Kenya and one in Nicaragua, sounds like a brilliant experience!