1. health and fitness
2. disease
3. cancer

FUNDRAISING IDEAS FOR GROUPS
Our new fundraising pack is crammed full of inspirational
ideas to help kick-start your fundraising. It doesn't matter how
much time you have – there's something for everyone!
Cancer, we’re coming to get you.
Our Partner
Our Sponsors
Welcome to our Race for Life family!
We can’t thank you enough for uniting
with us in the fight against cancer and
raising money for Cancer Research UK.
Every two minutes someone in the UK is told they have cancer. And this
number continues to rise. We want to create more tomorrows for more
people and we’re determined to keep pushing forward in the fight against
cancer.
You are cancer’s worst nightmare.
Welcome!
Save time – get
sponsored online.
Benefits of setting up an online
fundraising page include:
Every pound you raise in sponsorship helps us continue our groundbreaking
work and helps more people survive.
We know the idea of fundraising can be daunting, so to help get you get
started we’ve put together some top tips and great advice to boost your
efforts.
Good luck and have fun!
Make sure you share this fundraising
pack with all your group members and
get everyone to join in!
Your friends and family can
easily sponsor you.
It’s easy to promote on
Facebook and Twitter.
Get your fundraising off to a flying start
by following our top fundraising tips.
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Have fun!
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Keep it simple
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Aim high
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Choose a fundraising project that you will enjoy. If you’re having a good
time, people are more likely to support you.
The best fundraising projects are often the simplest. Be realistic and
plan well. We love a checklist!
Be realistic about your fundraising target but set your sights high. Then
you can really show cancer who’s boss when you reach your goal.
Gift Aid
Ask your sponsors to tick the Gift Aid box on your Race for Life
sponsorship page or form. This can add at least an extra 25% to every
donation at no extra cost to you or your sponsors to help us gang up on
cancer.
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Do your sums - profit, profit, profit!
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Timing is everything
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Spread the word
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Say thank you!
Aim to raise at least 3x more than you spend. Set a budget and keep
expenses to a minimum. Try using your bet smile and sweet talking to
get items donated for free.
Choose the best time for your fundraising. Make sure it doesn’t clash
with other things going on amongst your friends or in the office.
Get on Facebook and Twitter and let everyone know about your
fundraising. Even see if you can talk to your local paper or radio station,
especially if you’re planning to make a real splash.
Let the people who sponsor and help you raise money know how your
Race for Life event went and how much you raised.
Top tips for
fundraising
success
Let people know about your Race for
Life event and fundraising efforts!
Word of
mouth
Email
Social
network
Pro
m
fun ote y
dra ou
isin r
g
Tell everyone in your neighbourhood, social club,
gym or office what you’re doing and why.
Email your friends and colleagues asking for support and let them know why their support is so
important. Remember to include the link to your online fundraising page.
Share the link of your online fundraising page on Facebook and Twitter so that
everyone you know can sponsor you and let cancer know you mean business.
How your fundraising helps
Do you fancy helping us keep our scientists safe? Every day they use different chemicals as part
of their groundbreaking work and some of them can be harmful. Around £23 is enough to kit them
out with a lab coat and a pair of safety specs to protect them.
Cancer Chat is a moderated discussion forum. It’s a safe online space open to anyone to discuss
any aspect of the disease, from symptoms and treatment, to living with cancer. £46 is the cost of
running the forum for 1 hour, helping many people through very difficult times.
£82 enables a man to take part in one year of a study looking at a potential screening test for men
with an increased risk of developing prostate cancer. In the future, this could help detect the
disease at an early stage when it is more likely to be successfully treated
Around £260 pays for a powerful bit of kit called a microarray, which staggeringly can examine
around 40-50,000 genes in a tumour sample all in one go!
Keep your fundraising activity legal
and safe
Fundraising
advice and
rules
Health and safety
It’s so important you consider health and safety
requirements when doing any fundraising. Doing a
risk assessment beforehand will help you find out if
there’s anything you need to do to prevent
accidents happening. It doesn’t need to be a
complicated process – it might be as
straightforward as making sure spillages are
cleaned up promptly so people don’t slip.
Licences
You will need a licence from your
local authority for any of the
following activities:
• Providing alcohol
• Providing entertainment
Food hygiene
• A public collection
If you are providing food, you need to follow the
simple guidelines for preparing, handling and
cooking food by the Food Standard Agency. You
can find lots of useful information at food.gov.uk
and nhs.uk/LiveWell/Homehygiene.
• Putting up banners or signs
Raffles and lotteries
There are strict and complex laws relating to raffles
and lotteries. There are also legal requirements
regarding prizes, the costs of running a raffle or
lottery, and the way they are organised. Please
contact your local authority for advice before
holding an event like this.
Please see our guidelines that you can download
from cancerresearch.org.uk/fundraising for more
information.
in public areas
• Selling goods in a public
place
.
Smash your group’s fundraising target...
Fundraising
story
Dress down day
Doesn’t the day go quicker when you’re wearing jeans! Get
colleagues to pay for the privilege, or why not go all out
with glittering gowns and sparkling suits?
Fantastic
fundraisers
Office Olympics
Get your colleagues involved in a mini Olympic challenge.
Think of some fun competitions such as speed typing or bin
basketball. Charge for entry and give prizes to the winners.
Do you have a new fun way to raise money?
Share your fundraising tips on Facebook so
everyone can give it a go!
Change it up
Why not keep it simple? Of the 22 billion coins in
circulation, around 13 billion of them are lost – that’s a lot of
money lurking in handbags or down behind the sofa. Make
a change jar, and go hunting!
Sweepstake
Whether you plan to walk, jog, run or even dance your 5k,
why not run a sweepstake for people to guess your time?
Your friends can pay for a guess, with a prize for the winner.
‘Smifull’s and Co’ took part in
Race for Life Crawley in 2013
and raised a fantastic £800!
Group leader, Alice, says, “We
all got together to plan our
fundraising. Both families
involved, the Smiths and the
Fullers, love quizzes, so we
held a quiz night in a local
community centre, and invited
lots of friends, family and
colleagues. People were so
generous, especially when
they knew that it was for such
an important cause, and it was
a really fun evening”.
Smash your group’s fundraising target...
Fundraising
ideas
Quiz night
Hold a quiz night in a pub or at home. Charge to enter, and
then offer half the money raised as a prize for the winning
team and pay the other half in to your fundraising page.
Themed evening party
Organise a themed evening base on a film, era, letter of the
alphabet or anything else you like. Why not theme the food
and tell guests to come in costume too? Charge for entry.
Sell your skills
Whether it’s cooking lessons, manicures, talking a foreign
language or gardening, you’re bound to have a talent that
you could share!
How to return
the money
you’ve raised
Once your Race for Life event
and fundraising activities are
over, either make sure all your
money is on your JustGiving
page, or please send us the total
amount you’ve raised.
Online – make an online
payment with your
credit/debit card at
raceforlife.org
Phone – call us on 0845
600 6050 to pay with your
debit or credit card.
Sponsored Something!
Known as the resident chatterbox? Hold a sponsored
silence. Always hopping in the lift? Get sponsored for a
fortnight of only using the stairs. Just think of something
that will challenge you!
Post – send a cheque
payable to “Cancer
Research UK” to Race for
Life, PO Box 1579,
OXFORD OX4 9HX
We hope this pack inspires you and has helped you with your fundraising
efforts. Every pound you raise will help to keep the momentum going – and
get us closer to winning the fight.