How to fundraise during a cost of living crisis
This is a longer version of the article How to help support good causes during the cost of living crisis that appeared in The Guardian 13 August 2023.
How to fundraise
Charities have suffered throughout the cost of living crisis. It’s clear that the public still wants to help others and that charities and voluntary organisations are needed more than ever before. However, it’s also clear that there is less money and time to go round.
Some charities have been forced to close vital services due to lack of funds, such as Home-Start Hampshire which had to end two of its family support groups in Waterlooville and Southampton last month.
Research from the Benefact Group’s Value of Giving showed that although more people donated to charity, they gave less. UK charitable donations in 2022 were just £4.3 bn, compared with £9.3 bn in 2021.
So, in this difficult environment, how is it possible to raise more money from a wider group of supporters?
Start small and local
Donate items across local charity shops or to one you’d like to continue supporting.
If you’ve children at school, join/start a Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and help it by providing not only gifts for raffles but your time and ideas too.
Volunteer
Charities value your time as much as cash. The Government provides links for searching at the website https://www.gov.uk/volunteering
Do something simple
Ask family and friends to sponsor you for shaving your hair off or doing a walk or run. Involve the family and undertake silences or ask for donations to sell at boot fairs or jumble sales.
Check your rubbish!
Items regularly thrown out can be used to raise money, even things you normally recycle! Contact a The Crisp Packet Project local group and/or send your used clean crisp packets. This helps the environment by reducing single-use plastics, as the material is used to make blankets for the homeless.
Send bottle tops to Friends of Water Search and Rescue Team. A recycling company turns them into pellets for making hard plastic items such as traffic bollards and cones and makes a donation.
Select a Recycle 4 charity cause and send used ink cartridges.
Reduce, Reuse and Recycle lists stamp collecting charities for raising money.
Raise money on your birthday
Set up a fundraiser for your Facebook contacts to donate instead of giving presents and cards. It is surprising just how much can be raised, especially when you choose a cause close to your heart.
To inspire you, two years ago Flic Louise Everett raised £500 for Refugees Action for her 50th. Laura Schofield raised £250 for Mind. She says she “Asked my FB friends to donate £5 if they had considered themselves to have struggled with a mental health disorder, so that we could raise money and prove we weren’t alone. I was really touched by the support.” Kirsten Whitehouse says she’s open about her own breakdown and her son’s mental health struggles and raised £580 for a charity supporting suicidal teenagers, The Ollie Foundation.
Johanne Stimson’s mother died from motor neurone disease in 2008 within 10 months of diagnosis. Johanne works with the local MND committee and fundraises for MNDA. She said it just made perfect sense to her to use the fundraising opportunities of Facebook to get information out to all her contacts who wouldn’t necessarily know why MND is close to her heart. She advises fundraisers to “Post once in the morning and once in the evening every day of the two week campaign. Post on LinkedIn too, I’ve hit targets of around £300/500 seeing money go in each time I post”.
Donate without it costing individuals a penny
Search for, or register your cause with Easyfundraising.org.uk Click through the site and shop at one of over 7,500 brands registered. A commission of 1-10% is paid to your cause.
Share your link on various social media platforms. Currently there’s a competition for entries into winning a slice of £2,000 for your cause, whenever you share your link. Brands have different offers available, such as a broadband contract lump sum.
Companies participating include various retailers, holiday, delivery companies and auction sites. You can even raise money doing your online grocery shop. Give as you Live works in a similar way.
Utilise your skills and contacts!
Organise an event. Speak with all your family, friends and professional contacts to see what you could do. It could be a karaoke night, cake stall, street party, talent show, charity auction or a fete!
Dave Blood was the recipient of two life-saving open heart surgeries. The second provided a mechanical aortic valve, costing the NHS over £30k. A former stand-up comedian, he puts on an annual comedy night in aid of the British Heart Foundation “Cardiac Comedy” to become ‘valve neutral’, raising £27,000 since 2013. Acts give their time for free. Dave says “After the first one it was much easier, as everyone had a good time, so they returned and each year it’s grown.”
Run a charity art auction brings together artists and buyers, with the help of a friendly auctioneer, in a live bidding environment to raise money for a favourite cause.
Join forces
Think about skills you could offer to others in creating something and reaching more people, such as writing a book.
Becca Maberly, in touch with illustrator Stacie Swift on Instagram, asked her to create something to help mums feel less alone. Buggy Tag was born! Hung on your buggy, it signifies to others that you are open to having a chat or helping out a fellow parent. 100% of the profits go to PANDAS. Stacie recommends “Finding people who align with your values and whose skills compliment yours.”
Declutter with others
Professional Sustainable Declutterer & Organiser, Janine McDonald, says “Decluttering is good for your mind, heart and soul but it becomes even more prevalent when you declutter and raise money for charity at the same time”.
Consider keeping a box and fill it as you and your friends declutter. Janine advises arranging regular pick-ups to ensure you don’t end up with a garage full, if you don’t want to sell the items yourself. Although many of the larger charities will do this, check with smaller local ones that have shops, like Haven House Hospice in East London.
Send Janine your old bras! Funds raised go towards breast cancer research and support women in Africa to set up businesses selling bras to their community – by wearing a bra, women in Africa are more likely to secure employment and less likely to be attacked.
See Bras and knickers on The Complaining Cow Consumer Show to find out more on this.
Pay it forward
Undertake some Random Acts of Kindness (RAOK) which could include foodbank donations, volunteering or offering some kind words.
In 2018, following fertility treatment and IVF, Lauren Frost tragically lost her son Leo at 8 days old. Lauren and her husband set up the #rak4leo hashtag on his first birthday, 5th February 2019. She encourages others to undertake Random Acts of Kindness just to feel good and pay it forward.
Lauren’s The Honest Family provides links to wish lists for charities seeking specific items. She advises “The order value doesn’t matter and you can ask people to share wishlists, even if they aren’t financially able to buy anything.”
Research the best fundraising platform
Go Fund Me – one transaction fee 2.9% + 25p, automatically deducted from each donation for personal fundraisers. For charity, it’s 1.9% + 20p per donation.
Just Giving one transaction fee 1.9% + 20p and 5% of Gift Aid.
CAF Donate (Charities Aid Foundation) allows you to build online donation forms and buttons to embed in your website, without using a third party platform. It charges 3.6% of the total donation (including Gift Aid). Donation fees are reduced if your charity has a CAF Cash account with CAF Bank. For regular donations 2% of the gross donation (capped at £5 per donation) is charged. (plus £1 – £1.50 Direct Debit set-up fee).
Wonderful.org – free.
Consider Crowdfunding
Use Crowdfunder to ask supporters to donate to a project in return for a reward. Fees vary from 1.9% + 20p and VAT to 5% platform fee and 2.4% + 20p + VAT for charities and personal causes. The platform also has match-funding available if your bid to them is successful.
For example, Jan Kiley crowdfunded for Dogs for Autism (DfA) in 2020, raising £5,490 from 190 supporters in just 41 days.
Jan Kiley crowdfunded for Dogs for Autism (DfA) in 2020 raising £5,490 with 190 supporters in 41 days.
Rewards were:
£5 – High Five from all at DfA
£20 – E-certificate of thanks
£50 – DfA T-shirt
£100 – regular “pupdates”
£1,000 – come and meet some of the dogs
£2,000 – dogs brought to home/workplace
Jan used the Aviva Community Fund website which works in partnership with Crowdfunder. Jan says “The charity was in its early days and we were looking at various forms of fundraising and although I had never done a crowdfunder before the Aviva team were so helpful that we went with them!”
Access free resources
Charity Excellence Framework provides a wealth of resources and supports charities with funding bids, fundraising research, planning, campaigns and impact reports. It offers a Funder Finder database which links to hundreds of other free grant funding databases and online funder lists.
Be Facebook compliant and legal!
Be careful if you’re running a competition on Facebook. If you break their rules, your page might be closed down. You could also be breaking the law.
Zaria Sleith, a Meta-Certified Community Manager and a Brand photography Expert, advises that competitions on Facebook are allowed as long as no money changes hands. See “Facebook Pages, groups and events” for terms and conditions. You can do it for likes, votes, or a link to an entry form on your own website.
She warns “As long as the participants don’t need to pay an ‘entry fee’ to take part, no licence is needed. To obtain gambling licences you need a physical premises and there are LOTS of restrictions and boxes to tick to get it from the local council!”
Raffles, tombolas and sweepstakes are all classed as lotteries. See the Gambling Commission’s advice on Types of lottery you can run without a licence.
Raise the profile of your cause
How to Get Free PR For Your Business & Be Paid For It
Grow your own media contact list, approach television, radio and newspaper outlets and leverage your coverage. Armed with this knowledge you can become the “go-to” media expert in your chosen subject area, with regular paid-for appearances.
