Raising money to pay for specific course for people?

hrj2922

I’m looking at ways to set up some sort of small thing (don’t really know what to call it as I don’t think a charity is feasible since it consists of pretty much full time work) to raise awareness and educate people in my area about suicide prevention - mostly through raising money to pay for people to attend ASIST - a short course in suicide prevention which typically only health workers in certain areas attend. It would be this and social media pages with educational pieces, stories from people who have been suicidal about how others can help. I don’t know anything about charity work or CIC’s so not sure what the best way to do this is. Can you raise money without having a charity or CIC? I would have thought the money has to go somewhere safe, as I imagine people would worry about donating if they think it’s just going into my bank account. Any advice would be much appreciated, this is a really needed thing in my area!

Savvy_Sue

I'm just wondering if it wouldn't be better to channel your efforts through one of the already-existing charities for suicide prevention? Even if they don't currently make much of ASIST, they might be willing to do so if someone was willing to help raise funds for it? I've just googled, and got a page of what looks like fairly relevant results, adding my city gave another page so there might even be local possibilities? 

hrj2922

Savvy_Sue said:

I'm just wondering if it wouldn't be better to channel your efforts through one of the already-existing charities for suicide prevention? Even if they don't currently make much of ASIST, they might be willing to do so if someone was willing to help raise funds for it? I've just googled, and got a page of what looks like fairly relevant results, adding my city gave another page so there might even be local possibilities? 

Thanks, worth considering but it’s the lack of charities in my area that’s a problem, none have much of a social media presence and with the national charities they wouldn’t be able to focus on just my area. I have a meeting this week with a charity in another city who do a lot of funding for ASIST and run similar courses to see if I can work with them in some way to do it here, so hopefully that will give me some ideas 

Savvy_Sue

Glad to hear that. Setting up a new charity is a LOT of work, and it doesn't stop once you've set it up. Even setting up a new non-charity is a lot of work, so if you can piggyback on someone else's hard work, it's definitely worth pursuing. 

MalMonroe

Hi, I just wanted to say could you possibly try to find ways of publicising ASIST rather than setting up something new? I have never heard of ASIST (until now) and it would be great if you could help to spread the word. I mean, everyone has heard of the Samaritans and I've only just heard of ASIST - because of your post. 

I see you're having a meeting about funding etc. this week and think that's an excellent way forward. As Savvy_Sue says, it's an awful lot of work setting up a new charity. 

I've just googled and there are some free online courses that ASIST offers so I'm going to have a look at those, thank you so much for your post - I wouldn't have known about ASIST if you hadn't asked your question.