charityadventure

Some Fundraising Ideas

Sponsorship form - as well as bugging relatives and friends, you could try your work/school/college colleagues or if you go somewhere on a regular basis where you are known (e.g. church, karate, golf, further education courses etc) take that form with you! It works, believe me! (Just looked and the sponsorship form on the CharityAdventure website says 'Amsterslam078' at the bottom - I'll get that sorted.)

Swearbox - could be a flat fee (£1 per word) or a price list as in the film Hot Fuzz.

Collecting buckets - write to your local supermarket and ask if you can stand at the entrance/exit to collect money. We can probably get Jessie's Fund tins to you so that it looks official. In fact, let me know if you've managed to get a date. One tin can contain as much as £150! And if you're in fancy dress....put it this way 4 riders dressed up as Dutch Girls made £400 in 3 hours standing in Morrisons. One of them in particular confused small children, but did get a lot of sympathy coinage.

Newsletters - if you have kids, ask their teacher/headteacher if you can put a little article in their bulletin - it would include links to our websites.

Email - basically open your local yellow pages and anything that has a website (e.g. car dealers, estate agents etc), go on it and check for email addresses. You never know!

Cake Day - there are various things you can do with a cake (steady!) from guess the weight to getting loads of people at work/college to bake one and then sell it. Try and keep it simple e.g. chocolate covered cornflakes crispies and charge a lot! Doughnuts also go down well.

Raffles/Auction - get everyone at work/college to bring in a bottle, slap a raffle ticket on it and sell, sell, sell! Also works with good quality goods that you or your colleagues might not want anymore. It works and it's a great laugh! One guy at my work won an Abdominizer and The Joy of Sex in I raffle I held for c2c 2006! Any items left unclaimed can them be auctioned off and that can be done through the power of email and an intranet webpage. Ask your local cinema for a couple of tickets that could be auctioned.

Leg waxing (gents) - let's say no more about this shall we? Charge people £1 per wax strip - £2 if it's above the knees although I've heard it's particularly painful around the ankle! After all lads we're cyclists - we're allowed to shave our legs! (Personally I think I'll save this for much later...)

Food - offer food to people at work or college - easiest things are bacon butties, toasties, fruit kebabs in chocolate (these can be made for about 30p a kebab), freshly squeezed orange juice. Might need to get the permission of your boss first.

Casual clothes day - ask work if you can have a casual clothes day with the money going to Jessie's Fund or if you're lucky enough not to wear a shirt and tie, arrange to come in Sunday best or fancy dress!

Matching - your work/college might be really generous and offer to match the amount that you've raised. There might be a limit though, but hey, it's worth asking. For one ride, my work matched my £1000 - which led the Director to ask me not to raise as much the next time!

Quiz - again this is something you could run at your work, college or local pub! Prizes for winning could be as simple as a bottle of wine, box of chocs or flowers.

No chocolate/coffee/tea day - again simple idea - the money that people would spend on chocolate etc could be given to Jessie's Fund.

£1 to park - if car parking at your work is free, charge people £1 to park their vehicle - just leave a bucket on reception.

Village/Town Fair - late Spring/Summer is the season for Fairs and Fetes. Grab yourself a stall and sell cakes, bric-a-brac and other stuff. Personally I wouldn't recommend selling second-hand books - the good people where I live seemed to have read everything anyway, as after 3 hours and several cloudbursts later we made £25.

Again, these are just ideas, some of which work better than others. All I'm asking is that you raise as much money as you can - every penny counts!

Hope this helps. Any questions just hit reply.

I did this to raise money for C2C.
Invite between 6 - 10 people for a game of poker. Play for whatever sakes you like with a percentage (i did 25%) of the total pot going to charity.
Also provide food and or drink and charge them for it. I charged £5 for jacket potato with stirfry (cost me £2 per person) + £1 a bottle of beer (cost me 60p each)

And its a fun night!