Easy peasy fundraising

If you have plenty of supporters with time and enthusiasm on their hands - then ask them to do what they love, in aid of your charity. For some people having fun and fundraising at the same time is more attractive than cooking sausages and baking brownies.

Anyone who is competing in some sort of personal challenge or a team event could fundraise on your behalf. It doesn't have to be a sports event. It could be some kind of marathon - singing for 24 hours, standing up for a month, travelling on a shoe string budget - anything that's relatively newsworthy and attracts an audience will do.

We used to do this sort of "athon" by knocking on doors and seeking support from neighbours. Now we do this through special fundraising websites where participants can write their own blogs, email their updates to friends around the world, and collect pledges and donations electronically via credit card.

Evidence tells us that if you ask someone to collect by door knocking during an appeal week you may get them to collect a few hundred dollars each. If you ask them to collect by what we call personal challenges then they could collect at least several thousand dollars each. And they will have more doing it, than knocking on the neighbours door.

To make this successful the charity itself needs to provide guidance and all the tools necessary to make it work. It's usually easy to subscribe to a fundraising site such as Everyday Hero. But you need to provide some communication training for your participants. They will need words to describe what you do, they will need to understand how to use the website and establish their own blog. They will need to know what works and how other people have done their challenges. They will need media support from you, at least for their local community newspaper. They will need encouragement and congratulations. They will need to be part of the team. They may need tangible stuff like t-shirts, banners, flags etc. They will need you on the finish line!

Make the most of the new supporters that your participants bring along. They are part of your acquisition strategy.  Make sure you have a communication strategy to enlist them into your supporter group (first and foremost they are supporting their friend, but you can convert them to your cause). Thank them directly and make sure they know how their support is making a difference.