More fundraising tips

Matched Giving

Ask you employer today if they have a Matched Giving Scheme.  It could easily double the amount you raise.

It’s not difficult to do – but it’s important to find the right contact within your company – this could be the Personnel or Human Resource dept.  Then find out exactly what their scheme’s criteria is.  Some employers will match the total you have already raised, other will have a ceiling amount they are prepared to give.

And we’d recommend you ask your employer as soon as you can, as you may need to register your chosen activity before you start to fundraise.

Blogging

You could sign up and create a blog on a social networking site – such as MySpace or YouTube – to promote your fundraising event, and share ideas.  Or go direct to blogging.com (you could link this to your Bmycharity site). Or blog away on RealBuzz.

Oxfam recommends Bmycharity for online sponsorship.  Bmycharity's online sponsorship homepages do not enable you to set up a blog per se, but you can use their pages to write an online diary, with personal messages and photos and receive sponsorship donations. The site automatically reclaims Gift Aid and transfers all funds to Oxfam.

An online diary will allow you to keep your sponsors up to date with your progress through regular updates on your Bmycharity page.  The difference between a blog and an online diary is essentially in the functionality.  A blog also allows you to receive comments from friends and supporters, to allow people to subscribe to your blog via an RSS feed and for you to tag your content with descriptive words that can be picked up by search engines and blog networks.  You can set up a blog on another site and provide a link to it from your Bmycharity page – and remember to include a link back to your Bmycharity page from your blog.

Back to London Marathon 2008

Resources

• Start fundraising for Oxfam – Create your fundraising page and share with your friends.
  Sponsor form – to collect your hard earned cash.
  Remittance form – to pay-in your hard earned cash.
  A Guide to Blogging – you’ve started jogging now get blogging.