Fundraising: not as scary as you might think

Experienced fundraiser, Gareth Jones, passes on his ‘tips of the trade’ (so to speak).

''I got my local water company involved by selling them an advertising space on my t-shirt.'' ''Many people offered to help me out. My friends were great when it came to securing raffle prizes.'' ''Organising fundraising events can have mutual benefits. As well as raising money for charity they could also be the stepping-stone to your dream ethical job.''

Recently I decided to do some serious fundraising for WaterAid. The way I see it, water is a keystone solution to ending poverty and associated problems like war, famine and disease.
(If you’ve ever been to a festival you’ll know how bad the toilets can be - WaterAid’s African style pit latrines at Glastonbury really made me appreciate how important clean sanitation is!)

There are many ways to raise money for charity, and they are all as important as each other. Last summer I decided that I would undertake a sponsored trek to Everest Base Camp in November 2006.

Raising a few thousand quid to meet the sponsorship target has not been easy. A good way of raising sponsorship is to hold an event. This can seem daunting at first, but with a little bit of planning you can raise a lot of money in a short amount of time.

First things first - arrange something that you know you’ll enjoy doing. On 22 July I held a Video Horse-Racing night at a local pub. As a one-man band it took about 9 months to plan and get people on board. This may seem like a long time but I found the more time I had, the less stressful the whole thing seemed.

Brainstorm everything you need to do. This was extremely useful for me. Keep adding things to your ‘to do’ list until you can’t think of any more - some of my best ideas came to me whilst down the pub on a Saturday night!

Try to think of other ways of exploiting the opportunity of having loads of people in the same place. I held a raffle, which turned out to be one of the biggest money-spinners of the evening. By writing letters and calling around local businesses I managed to secure more prizes than I expected. I was beginning to think no one cared about Making Poverty History anymore, but believe me it isn’t dead!

I even got my local water company (Bournemouth and West Hampshire Water) involved by selling them an advertising space on my t-shirt. Using creativity can mean more sponsorship.

Once you’ve sorted out the event a quick run through or rehearsal can be vitally important. For me this meant testing out the projector equipment the evening before. My brother and his family had just landed in the country from the USA and we spent the evening pulling our hair out figuring out how to get everything working. I’m so glad we did though. The night would have been a disaster had I not tested everything.

Many people offered to help me out. My friends were great when it came to securing raffle prizes. Don’t be stubborn about accepting help - the more people the merrier. The volunteers seemed to get as much enjoyment out of the event as me!

Organising fundraising events can have mutual benefits - as well as raising money for charity they could also be the stepping-stone to your dream ethical job.