|
|
|
|
Following you'll find various resources to help you and your organisations raise the funds to attend the conference. Go to our A to Z of fundraising ideas page for more ideas. 1) Use 'Kids International', a fundraising website set up by Firefly, to raise money for your organisation. Any time you shop at Amazon, Ebay, or hundreds of other online shops, buy online plane, bus or train tickets (at a range of travel sites such as Lastminute.com, Opodo, British Airways, National Express, theTrainLine.co.uk, and many more), buy electronics, or a mobile phone (for example at the Carphone Warehouse, Apple iPods or computers, or Dixons), books, CDs, videos or DVDs (at Amazon, Booksonline, WHSmith, HMV or many more), make international phone calls, or do any other online shopping, you can go to your favourite online shopping sites through links on the Kids International site, and each of the shopping sites will give us a percentage of any payment made to them for goods bought. Between now and July 15th, all income to Firefly through the site will be divided between our summer camps volunteers. Please email the link, and a request to use it, to as many people as you can! If each volunteer gets 20 people to use the site regularly, you could raise much of your funds this way. 2) UK Rotary clubs addresses, or Rotary clubs addresses from other countries - if you're from the UK, click on & download the UK addresses, and if you're from anywhere else, download the addresses for other countries. These documents each contain descriptions of rotary clubs, round tables and 4 other similar organisations. These are groups of local individuals (usually businessmen) that will give funding to people from their area to carry out or take part in projects. The document also includes contact information for each of the 6 types of group. You should each write to each one - you can just modify the sample fundraising letter, above, so it should take you no longer than 20 minutes to write to the different groups, & you may find it possible to raise all your money this way. Very easy! 3) Each of you can arrange and take part in a sponsored or fundraising event between now and the conference. They don't need to be complicated - Firefly volunteers have had a one-day's sponsored silence, sponsored 10-mile walks and cycle rides, a sponsored bake (which also allowed the spons-ee to sell the baked goods following the event), and a sponsored no smoking day. The best way to raise money is to convince 4 or 5 friends to take part in the event with you - they can then raise money on your behalf or for projects they're doing, and it makes it more fun even if they don't get sponsored themselves. Have a look at the following fundraising ideas documents, which includes information on sponsored events, sales, raffles, and others. i) Organising a raffle ii) Organising a fundraising sale iii) A blank sponsorship form for you to use. iv) Go to our A to Z of fundraising ideas page for more ideas. 4) Blind Date application form. For those of you up for organising a bigger event, one of our most successful and popular event has always been our blind date night. For this to work, you ideally need to have two groups of people involved who don't know each other too well (so that you can set people up on dates with someone they don't already know). You need a minium of about 10 people - it often makes sense to team up with someone else who's also trying to raise money, as you'll then widen the circle of people taking part. Each person pays some amount (5 or 10 pounds is a reasonable sum to ask for) to take part, and fills in a form (you can download it through the link, above), to specify what kind of date they'd like. You then set them up with someone who has similar answers on their form, and arrange for all the couples to meet in different locations. They can identify each other by using their stated chat-up lines from the form (or, as often happens, if they're too embarrassed they can just go up to people who look similarly awkward and ask if they're their blind date...). Arrange a party at one of the bars or someone's home where all the dates can come 45 minutes after the date starts, get people to invite friends - that way, if the date isn't working they can get out early and hang out with friends for the rest of the evening. Friends who didn't do the date should pay a small amount, say 1 or 2 pounds, entry to the party. People whose dates are going well can of course keep the date going longer and show up to the party later! We've raised a lot of money with this each year - even people who were initially sceptical ended up loving it, since even those who don't want a date or who are already in a couple can use it as a way to meet new people, make some more friends/acquaintences, or just have fun for an evening. |