Fundraising Challenge!

amyparr

Hey everyone,

I'm going to Cambodia in January 2007 to volunteer in an orphanage, and I want to try to raise money to fund the trip and to be able to take toys/books etc for the children.

I thought I'd pick the brains of all of you money saving experts, and challenge you all to think of some interesting I could do to raise money!

Anything goes - an event, something I can do over a long period of time etc - anything!

Thanks a lot guys!

Sallys_Savings

Hiya, we've been visiting and raising money for an orphanage in Sri Lanka for the last few years and hope these ideas are of some use to you.
When asking for favours etc its sometimes good to take a few photographs of where the money is going to be going, and perhaps get your local paper to do an article on yourself.(we hated this idea but when a local newpaper did became involved, they kept popping us in the newspaper every now and then and it really helped with our fundraising)
We have held car wash days (maybe your local fire brigade may help out if you show them the details )
A race night ..which are great fun...grovel to a club/hall or a pub and try for a discount or even for free. The race nights are easy to follow when you buy them over the internet. We used https://www.dwlpromotions.com and they were extremely helpful. They gave lots of ideas to make more money, like sponsor the races etc. We gave a few booby prizes away too for the runners that came last...i.e. an old straw hat with donkey derby written on, a pot of glue and a can of dog food(I know a very sick joke), a cane with a carrot dangling from it..but i'm sure you could think of better. They send you the videos/dvds and all the details of how to run the night, and are great if you have a problem just ring them up.
A Casino night...we hired this from the same company and was a fantastic evening but you really need to a couple of people who know what they are doing on the roulette wheel. We also had "play your cards right" and a few card race games going at the same time.
Darts tournament - our sons were playing for a team in the league and they donated all the match fees...so grab someone you know or pop in a pub and ask or find out your local league.
The obvious Raffles - but we held these at our daughters drama school, the darts comp, the local pub etc.
Stalls at carnivals/fetes/With the summer coming up, this is ideal...we made the minimum of £80 a day when we did "Play your cards right". We had wine donated by supermarkets and also brought a few cheap bottles. My other half made up a wooden board with a piece of wood on to stop the cards slipping and we brought a large pack of cards (the A4 ones are quite expensive but we paid £5 for a size similar to A5 off of ebay). You place eight cards along and they have to say higher or lower before you turn the card....nothing for the pair not in this game (said in my best Bruce Forsyth impression) You can get quite a few people playing if you're not shy in calling people over etc. Another game we played was Hoop La...where you have blocks of wood with prizes on and rings, throwing them COMPLETELY over the block to win the prize. My hubby made the blocks and we brought the rings off the internet.
How about an auction of Promises? Get people to donate their time and you can auction it off on the evening....i.e. car wash, cleaning the windows of a house, painter/decorator for a day, a cars mot, childmind for a day, declutter your computer, a days springcleaning, bake a cake, cook a three course meal, gardener for a day etc. etc.
The obvious car boots, ebay sales etc
We also contacted a couple of local playgroups who put a box out to collect good quality unwanted "light" toys...I did promise to come back and show the children photographs on our last visit to the orphanage. Some schools/playgroups would really appreciate you doing this as it helps the children understand more about the world. I took in a map of the world to show exactly where it was, brought a few fruit that are from Sri Lanka and let them taste them, showed them the flag (just off the computer), spoke a few words in Sri Lankan..i.e. hello, thank you, . and showed them photographs of the children at the orphanage, local area, housing etc.

We also sent letters to different companies/shops/dentist to see if they'd donate items for us to take. We've had outofdate (they were an oldfashioned cartoon character) toothbrushes (nice and light to take)/soaps/nearly new books(contact your local library as they get rid of out of date childrens books every now and then),/pens/crayons/paper/, The one thing that the children absolutely go mad on when we visit is the little pots of Bubbles...you know that come in party bags etc....they love them. They weigh heavy, but its always a must when we visit. Frisbees (tesco 49p), and skipping ropes (tesco again 89p) have also gone down great.

Hope I've been of help.

kit

I made a lot of money by writing to local businesses and asking them to donate money..... the incentive I offered was that the business that donated the most would have their company logo printed on the tshirt we wore for publicity shots.

We had varying donations from £25 upwards. 2 companies donated £1000 each so we had to get tshirts printed with both the logos. The tshirts only cost about £10 each..... local papers showed the pics for free so everyone was happy :j

blingal1

Hi there

I have raised £1700 pounds for Macmillan so far. A good site to get on line donations is Just giving. Mine is https://www.justgiving.com/angelalangton I update my events regularly. The new one is recycling mobile phones for every phone collected £4.00 will be donated to charity, great for recycling great for the charity!

Blingal1

LottyB

Hi
Having worked as a volunteer at an orphanage in Nepal I can highly recommend taking balloons out with you - they're light weight and the kids just love them!

I did all the usual stuff for fundraising, but found it easier to pay for the cost of the trip myself and asked people to donate items for me to take over with me - people felt happier giving something rather than giving money - again!

Have a great trip - it will be an experience of a life time
lotty

novelli

HI
we r a voluntary org and we are now embarking on a project to send teams out to volunteer in orphanges in India, this is more of a long term project, so we are also embarking on a big fundraising drive.
Some of the things we are doing are, many of what previous posters have mentioned, also parachute jumps, abseils. Local funding pots sometimes will let u apply if its to be an educational project for you, some of the bigger companies like microsoft, we did this because part of our project does involve IT skills. If you can find something specific that you will be helping with at the orphanage and then relate it to a larger international company, you have more chance of getting something from them.
Design a simple sponsor form and have it with you at all times, and give copies to family and friends. its a hard slog raising the funds but if you work at it, it is manageable!!

good luck
if we come acros anything that may be of use i will post here
the parachute jumps is a good one, as the compnay organise it all and you can get as many jumpers as u like all raising money for your cause. the company is skyline events. just key it in google.

forgot to mention, use the local press too, get them to do a piece on what u are doing and ask for donations!! this always works for us.

I really wish you the best of luck with it, it will be an experience of a lifetime for you, something u will never forget!! and just look at the valualbe contribution you will be making to those less fortunate than ourselves!!