Archive for the 'Fundraising Tips' Category

Well done Virgin London Marathon runners!

Published April 22, 2013 Events , Fundraising Tips 9 Comments
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Virgin London Marathon Finisher Medals

A huge well done to everyone who took part in the 2013 Virgin London Marathon! If you’ve woken up this morning and you’re still wearing your finisher medal it’s totally acceptable – you should be keeping it on for at least a week.

Now you’ve completed the run here’s 4 things you can do this week to boost your fundraising total

  1. Update your fundraising page with a photo from Sunday. The official Marathon Photo images will be available shortly, or if you had a friend take a photo at the start or the finish it will help show everyone you did it.

  2. Change the information on your page, let your supporters know how the run went, what time you did and how you feels to have run it.
  3. Send a quick email around to everyone you now – including people who’ve already donated. Let them know how much you’ve raised so far, what time you did, and how it went, and don’t forget to include a link to your page. You might get some repeat donations.
  4. You can download a finisher certificate with your time from the Virgin London Marathon, just put your details in here, you’ll find it just below your  marathon timings. It’s super useful to let everyone know you’ve finished.

We’d love to hear how it went for you, let us know by leaving a comment below.

How to make the most of our new mobile optimised fundraising website

Published April 15, 2013 Fundraising Tips , Support for Charities Leave a Comment
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QR CodeWe’ve enhanced the Virgin Money Giving website so it’s super easy and fast to make donations from your smartphone. Here’s a simple way you can use it to boost your fundraising by promoting your fundraising or charity page with QR Codes

If you’re making leaflets or putting up posters you could include a QR (Quick Response Code). It can be scanned on a Smartphone and takes the holder of the phone straight to your page – with no need to type your page address.

You might have seen them on billboards, leaflets, or business cards.

All you need to do is generate one with your fundraising or charity Virgin Money Giving page address (which you can do at http://goqr.me/ or http://qrcode.kaywa.com/ and many link shortening tools such as http://goo.gl or http://bit.ly) and add the image of the QR code to all of your promotional materials.

To scan the QR code you friends will need one of the many free barcode scanning apps on their phone such as Red Laser for Android and iPhone

Your friends will now have no excuse – It only takes a couple of minutes to make a donation using a smartphone so if you bump into a friend in the street or down the pub they can do it there and then.

We’d love to see what you do with QR codes and using our new mobile friendly website to collect donations, Let us know by leaving a comment below.

Club runner? Going for that PB? You can still fundraise for charity

Published February 14, 2013 Events , Fundraising Tips 1 Comment
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Runners

For many people taking on a Marathon or Half Marathon will be their first foray into distance running. However thousands of runners come back each year with the aim of getting that all elusive PB.

Many club and competitive runners view the marathon as a race to get a better time with – but even if you’re tackling miles and miles as you strive for a PB you can still raise funds for charities that mean a lot to you.

If all of your free time is taken up training, then why not let your friends, family and colleagues know just how dedicated you are to your it. Some runners runners take on 50, 60, even 70 mile + training weeks – and we’re sure that commitment deserves fundraiser support.

Asking for donations isn’t quite as straight forward when running is your ‘day job’ so we’ve got some ideas that can help even the most elite of runners, but with a club or ballot place there’s no steep fundraising target to have to meet.

  • Why not set yourself a fundraising target to raise £1 for every mile that you run. Some plans have hundreds and hundreds of miles so you could build up a great donation, or you could ask for a £1, or more, for every mile you run.
  • If you’re a club runner why not bake some post meet treats that you can give to your running mates  – for a donation. Don’t forget to give them some warning, so they can turn up to the session with their cash ready.
  • You could even hold a time sweepstake. Ask your friends and family to leave a predicted time with their donation – the closest will get a prize.

Up for the challenge? It takes just 10 minutes to set up a Virgin Money Giving page. What are you waiting for?

Lent fundraising – what are you up to?

Published February 13, 2013 Fundraising Tips Leave a Comment
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Pancakes

Did everyone enjoy their pancakes last night?

As today is officially the first day of Lent lots of people are giving something up for the next 40 days.

If you are, why not combine it with raising a little for charity?

You could abstain from coffee, biscuits, chocolate, alcohol and even the tube or driving to work (walking or cycling instead) for the next 40 days.

Let us know if you’ve got any lent fundraising via mystory@virginmoneygiving.com – and don’t forget to mention a link to your Virgin Money Giving fundraising page.

Tips from the Help Desk – choosing your charity

Published January 29, 2013 Fundraising Tips Leave a Comment
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Virgin Money Giving Help Desk

Our forums are a great way of keeping in touch with fellow fundraisers and to ask us questions.

Over the past few months there have been some popular topics that you’ve been keen to find out more about, including APIs , fundraising tips and making changes to fundraising pages.

We’re going to be  picking up some of these on our blog over the next few weeks.

First in our series is your choice of charity. A few fundraisers have asked if it is possible to change who you choose to support.

Once you’ve  created your fundraising page , you won’t be able to change your chosen charity, or the donation split if you’re fundraising for multiple causes.

It’s really important that you choose the right charities when you set up your page.  But if you do need to make a change to the charity you picked, you will need to close your fundraising page and set up a new one. You only need to close the page, not your Virgin Money Giving account.

If you have raised any money on the closed page, this money will make its way to the charity you chose first.

If you want to display this money on your new page to show everyone how well you have done, you can list this in the ‘offline fundraising’, and if you want to publicly mention or thank the donors, you can do this in the ‘about me’ section.

When you sign in to your account you will still see the closed page, but don’t worry, no-one else will see this.

If you need any help with closing, creating or amending pages, please contact the team on 0845 6 10 10 45 or email us on  theteam@virginmoneygiving.com

Festive fundraising

Published December 11, 2012 Events , Fundraising Tips 2 Comments
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SantaDashChristmas is fast approaching and we’ve seen lots of fundraisers take on festive fundraising.

If you’re looking to hold your own Christmas inspired fundraising event, or take part in a organised event but are struggling for ideas, we’ve put together a few suggestions.

Let us know what you’re getting up to.

  1. Take part in a Santa Dash: One of the most popular events for keen runners and fans of fancy dress is the Santa Dash. You can find details of your nearest run here.
  2. Christmas Cake Sale: Why not bake some mince pies and other festive goodies and take them into work. Your colleagues could leave a donation for each mince pie they munch on!
  3. Christmas donation. Instead of Christmas presents, you could ask your friends and family to donate to your favourite charity. Alternatively you could ask for donations instead of Christmas cards.
  4. Donate your time to help charity. Perhaps your charity is holding a volunteer day or you could help at the local old people’s home in setting up for Christmas. Some charities are also holding wrapping days.
  5. Boxing day dip. If you’re a keen swimmer and not afraid of the cold weather, lots of swimming clubs and lidos have Boxing Day dips. Check with your favourite charity, or local swimming centre to see if they have any Boxing Day dips or swims planned.

Don’t forget to send us details and pictures of your festive fundraising – and remember if you’re taking part in a fundraising event in December you could win a £2,012 donation to your chosen charity.

Blogging to the start line

Published November 13, 2012 Fundraising Tips , Virgin Money Giving News Leave a Comment
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Writing a blog to chart your marathon journey is really popular with over half of the runners who take to the start line of the Virgin London Marathon, typing their thoughts onto a personal blog.

A marathon is a huge commitment, taking time and effort for the training as well as trying to make as much money for your chosen charity as possible. Many people choose to chart this journey with their own blog. This could include details on your training runs, any races you’re involved in, fundraising events and how you’re feeling during the lead up to race day.

If you’re keen to set up a blog, log on to blogger.com or wordpress.com and they’ll take you through the simple process of getting your blog up and running. Once you’ve got your blog designed and you’ve made your first post make sure you add it to your fundraising page. You can find out how to do that on our help guide.

Let us know if you’ve decided to set up a blog to chart your training and fundraising. If you’d like to feature your story on the Virgin Money Giving blog send us your story and a relevant picture to mystory@virginmoneygiving.com

 

Top fundraising tips from Leonard Cheshire Disability

Published October 26, 2012 Fundraising Tips , Guest Blog Leave a Comment
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Leonard Cheshire Disability charity have had a fantastic year, with their fundraisers taking on a whole host of challenges to raise money and awareness for the charity that helps support over 21,000 disabled people in the UK.

They’ve shared some of their top fundraising tips with us:

“Let’s be upfront about this: raising money is not an easy thing to do. Unless you’ve got a convenient group of millionaire friends, you’ll probably have to put in a reasonable amount of effort and try a few different tactics to reach whatever fundraising goal you’ve got ahead of you. Here are five of our top tips to help you get on the way:

1) Find out as much as you can about your chosen charity. The more you know, the easier you’ll find it to persuade potential sponsors to give you money.

2) Create your personal online fundraising page straightaway. ‘Personal’ is the key word here – make it clear that the page is about you, your challenge and your reasons for doing it. Get a photograph of you up there (ideally in your running gear, or doing something a bit daft). Write a few words explaining what you’re doing and why and of course, give a few facts about the charity you’re supporting – especially if you know exactly what your fundraising will support.

Need inspiration? Gary, Ali and Martin have each set up great pages for our charity!

3) Ask for help, not just donations. While you might think asking everyone you know for money is the way forward, it pays off to line up a key group of friends who you don’t ask for money. Instead ask them to share the load by helping you draw up your fundraising plan, rounding up new contacts, or organising some mini-events for you. Probably best these aren’t your convenient group of millionaire friends, though.

4) Remember to say thank you. People like to give money to charities. They also really like to get something back from it. At fundraising events this is easy – they get their food, or a raffle prize, or the chance of being crowned pub quiz champion. For anyone giving a donation on your fundraising page, you can literally say thank you by tagging them in your Facebook status or in a Tweet, so they get highlighted as a generous person – and include the link to your page so anyone who hasn’t yet donated has the chance to save face!

5) Have fun, raise more.Don’t rely on sponsorship alone – make your fundraising as varied and fun as you possibly can. Got a group of friends who like a get-together? Invite them to a film night – unlimited dvds and a bowl of popcorn for £5. Work colleagues always snacking? Hold a regular cake sale in the office. It’s really important that you enjoy what you’re doing because the more enthusiastic you are about it, the happier your friends, family and colleagues will be to support you – and the more you’ll be able to raise.

We’ve only got space for our top five tips here, but if you’d like some more – including lots of ideas of different themes and fundraising events – then you can find them on our own events blog.

Good luck, and happy fundraising!”

Ghoulish fundraising on the agenda? Let us know

Published October 25, 2012 Fundraising Tips 3 Comments
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Halloween is fast approaching. We want to know if you’re taking on any ghoulish fundraising?

It’s also an opportunity to boost your current fundraising page whatever event you’re taking part in. Once you’ve worked out your plan we’d love to hear about it.

  1. Hold a gruesome cake Sale and bake some Halloween-themed cakes and treats, and sell them to the ‘zombies’ at work.
  2. Dress spooky at work and see if your office will agree to take part in a freakish Friday dress-down, or maybe fancy dress. Charge everyone a small donation for taking part, and a bigger donation ‘fine’ for just wearing their usual work gear.
  3. Run in costume if  you reach a level of donations. Agree to tackle an event like Parkrun dressed in fancy dress if your friends and family donate enough to your page.
  4. Play Halloween-themed games at work, such as fill a jar with sweets and for a donation people can guess how many are in there, or hold a Halloween Quiz.
  5. Hold a Halloween film night with a selection of ‘scary movies’ and spooky film snacks (we’re thinking green popcorn, Halloween cup cakes and trick or treat sweets). Ask for a donation to your page from your guests and then hide behind a cushion with the lights out when the films start.

Don’t forget if your event is taking place between October–December and you’ve got donations on your page you could be entered into a prize draw to win a £2,012 donation to your chosen charity.

Looking for a place in the Virgin London Marathon

Published October 18, 2012 Events , Fundraising Tips 2 Comments
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By now most people will have received their ‘Congratulations’ or ‘Sorry’ Virgin London Marathon magazine.

If you got a place, don’t forget to set up your page early. You can get your page started here.

If you didn’t get a place – don’t worry. Plenty of charities will still have places open for runners keen to tackle the 26.2 miles. You can find out, and apply for the charity places here.

Most charities will have a minimum sponsorship they’d like their runners to reach. We’ve got plenty of fundraising tips on our site, but don’t forget to let us know your fundraising tips.

Best of luck.

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