Fundraising
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A – Z of Fundraising Ideas
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BAKE SALE
ARTS AND CRAFTS
No one has time to buy birthday
cards these days! Hold a card-making
craft workshop for your friends and
sell your cards around the office at
lunchtime, saving your colleagues
hassle, raising money for City Gateway,
and having fun at the same time.
Why not bake your own cakes or sign up
for one of our cake-making workshops?
Participants pay a small fee for the workshop
and come away with a new recipe and a
delicious cake! Book one for a group of friends
or colleagues by emailing us.
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DONATE PRIZES
Can you get free tickets to a show or exhibition,
or a free round of golf from your local golf
club? City Gateway support a number of events
throughout the year which can always benefit
from interesting and substantial prizes.
CLOTHES SWAP/SWISH
Swishing.com provides helpful tips for
hosting your own clothes swap event,
where people bring their unwanted
clothes and leave with a whole new
set for a small fee or £1 per item. A
great way to completely revamp your
wardrobe without the financial hangover!
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EASTER EGG HUNT
Organise one around your workplace
(check with your facilities team first!)
A – Z of Fundraising Ideas
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GIVE UP SOMETHING
FANCY DRESS
Get your whole office involved! Why
not celebrate National Talk Like A
Pirate Day on the 19th September, or
one of these other national days.
Can you set a Guinness World Record
for the number of smurfs in an office?
Get a donation jar, get sponsored, or donate money you would have used
on bad habits. For instance, get your whole office to give up management
speak and try and hold a meeting without it, making people donate to
the jar if they use any jargon. Get sponsored to give up speaking for a
day (a 24 hour or 48 hour silence) if you’re a very chatty person, or get
sponsored to shave your hair off. Alternatively, give up public transport/
cigarettes/chocolate for a week, and make healthier choices such as
walking to work and abstaining from bad habits, whilst donating the money
that you would have spent to City Gateway.
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HOW MANY…?
Every Friday you could hold classic
guessing games, such as ‘how
many sweets are in the jar?’, or
‘how many raisins are in the cake?’
where the winner gets sweet/cake
if they guess correctly.
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JAIL AND BAIL
INTERNATIONAL CHALLENGES
Go to Skyline Overseas Challenges and check out what events you can
enter for City Gateway. The most popular is the London to Paris Cycle
ride, which takes place several times a year. Skyline also offer treks across
the Sahara Desert and Costa Rica, as well as Vietnam and South Africa
cycles throughout the year. You have to raise a certain amount which
covers the cost of everything, and includes a donation to City Gateway.
Sponsor your colleagues to set off
from a mystery location without a
mobile phone or money. Challenge
them to find their way back by
getting members of the public to
donate money along the way.
A – Z of Fundraising Ideas
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KARAOKE
Why not hold an office karaoke
competition?
Showcase the best talent in your office
by holding a talent competition and
encouraging colleagues to pay a small
fee. Gemserv have held an ‘X-factor’
style competition for us two years in
a row, and it continues to be a huge
success. Get the venue for free and
charge a small entry fee.
LENDING LIBRARY
Put those well-read books
to good use by setting up a
library at work. Lend books out
to friends for £2 a book and
encourage ‘reading lunches.’
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MONOPOLY CHALLENGE
A fun way of getting your office involved in a
fundraising day. Get into small teams and race
around the monopoly board, completing challenges
along the way. We will provide you with ‘Monopoly
Challenge’ packs, which will provide teams with the
rules, Chance/Community Chest challenge cards
and monopoly board. The team who earns the
most points wins a prize awarded by City Gateway!
Contact [email protected] for your
‘Monopoly Challenge’ packs.
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NON-STOP FUN
Stay up all night, dance all day, or come up with
something new (such as the 24 hour pedalo race
that Moorhouse Consultancy organised for us!)
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ONLINE
Go online to eBay and opt to add a small
donation to your payment at the checkout, sell
online and donate 10-100% of the sale price to
City Gateway, or auction off your unwanted items
directly through City Gateway’s eBay shop.
A – Z of Fundraising Ideas
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QUIZ NIGHT
PAMPER DAY
Ask your company to pay for a pamper package from
our beauty social enterprise, Beauty Gateway. Our Beauty
Apprentices will come to a quiet space in your office and
provide the following treatments: back massages, head
massages, manicures and pedicures. Past successes have
included ‘Pamper the PA’ day, and a Bollywood makeover.
Contact [email protected] to arrange.
Put together a fun quiz and involve
your whole office. You can even have a
‘guess the baby photo’ round.
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SKYDIVE
Go to Skyline Parachuting, choose City
Gateway and book! All you have to do
is put down a deposit of £70, which you
can make back if you raise £375.
‘TOUGH GUY’
The ultimate test of endurance in
this extreme race. Read more about
it here and let us know whether you
would like to enter for us by emailing
[email protected]
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RECYCLE
Trade in your old mobile phones, ink cartridges or old
printers to raise funds for City Gateway. Go to SHP
and choose City Gateway as the beneficiary charity, or
email [email protected] directly to
organise collection for large items/quantities, and quote
City Gateway.
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UNWANTED ITEMS
Sell your bric-a-brac in one of
London’s many car boot sales.
Check where your nearest car
boot sale is here.
A – Z of Fundraising Ideas
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VERY CLOSE SHAVE
Ask your bearded workmates
to have their beard or head
shaved for charity. Just think, it
would save lots of money on
styling products!
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WISDOM FROM EXPERT SPEAKERS
Invite an expert in your field to come and give an
interesting talk at your workplace during a lunchtime
or evening. Charge an entrance fee and donate it to
City Gateway.
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X-CHANGE
Get your friends to donate their time and
specialist skills (for instance, teaching guitar or
language expertise) to be auctioned off. To
make it easier for colleagues to get involved,
hold a silent auction in the office where
people write down or email their bids over
the course of the day.
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YOUR OWN IDEA
Do something completely different, like
Moorhouse Consulting’s Extreme Pedalo
challenge, Ablestoke’s Golf Day, or Germserv’s
RPI X-factor. Anything is possible!
(or any other kind of dance!) Link up with a ballroom dancing
society and nominate big
personalities in your office to
learn a strictly ballroom routine.
Hold a fundraising event where
colleagues, friends and families can
vote for who they want to win.
Let’s talk about it
Why not talk about your fundraising activities on
Facebook or Twitter?
You could also get in touch with the local media
two weeks before your event is due to take place,
and invite them to send a photographer to cover
your event.
We’d love to hear how you’ve raised money,
and we are always on hand for advice and ideas.
You can reach us on 0203 189 0405 or drop us
a line at [email protected]
Who knows? Your idea could be included in the
next A-Z of Fundraising!
Good luck and have fun!