A fundraising idea - but I need advice

wordybird · 23 June 2017 at 4:58PM

I had this idea today that to raise money for a charity bike ride I'm doing in July, all I need to do is ask each of my Facebook friends (235, I just checked - I know, it's low, I'm not a teenager and I don't sign up everyone I've ever met) to donate £1 and I might easily clear the £100 target I'm supposed to achieve. How much will people miss £1, right?
But then I thought, if it's so simple, why don't people do it all the time? Is there a catch? Is it not worth the Justgiving charges, for example?
Advice please!
Thanks

Savvy_Sue · 24 June 2017 at 1:57AM

People don't do it all the time, because friends would probably get pretty peeved pretty quickly if all their FB friends were asking for £1 every five minutes.

I'd start with the charity you're raising money for: what's their advice? Do they only have a presence on JustGiving? The fees can be lower on Virgin and other sites, for example.

Also is that £100 just your minimum target, rather than an up-front fee for taking part? You'll get a better response to the former: we had one friend trying to raise a large sum for a sponsored walk along the Great Wall of China, but they were asking too much for their own participation fee: it felt as if we were being asked to pay for their exciting holiday to China, with anything extra raised going to charity.

There is nothing wrong with posting what you're doing on your FB profile and sharing a link to your JG page: explain why you want to support them (and the charity will probably have suggested messages for this). ATM one of my friends is posting regular messages from one of the National charities, because it's 'their' week, and that's fine, we all know why that charity is so important to them. It's clear that these are the charity's messages, but they add their own personal 'bit'.

Geoff1963 · 24 June 2017 at 2:01AM

It is rather like pyramid schemes.
What if each of your 235 FB friends asked you for £1 ; and what if they did it every year, or every month ?

Savvy_Sue · 25 June 2017 at 1:59AM

BTW, I listened to an interesting programme about charity giving on Radio 4 once. Top tip: ask your female friends to donate first, especially (and I hate to have to say this) if they are attractive.

If a chap sees that an attractive female has donated generously, they tend to want to outdo her. Apparently. And then the next chap wants to outdo the first, and so on.

Assuming your friends know each other, it doesn't matter if profile pictures are used or not.

wordybird · 26 June 2017 at 8:18AM

thanks Geoff, I see what you mean. I think I'll try it and see - it's still better than asking for a bigger donation.
Sue, I've paid the participation fee so it is a minimum target. I don't have to raise huge amounts but obviously the more the better. Anyway, I think I'll put it on FB and see what response I get - I'll know for future ref then.
Thanks, both.

jackomdj · 22 July 2017 at 8:17PM

I did the Moonwalk earlier this year and posted exactly this on my FB. The people who I expected to sponsor me did, but nobody took me up on the £1 suggestion.

A fundraising idea - but I need advice

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