Mark Chipperfield's handy hints on how to achieve your fundraising target...
I raised over £5000 for The Children's Society's in 2006 by running the Flora London Marathon - and below is a summary of how I did it.
I got my place in late January 2006 having been on a waiting list which meant I had less time than I might have had for planning my fund raising, but added impetus to get on with it. It would have been great to have had 6 months more but who knows if it would have made a difference.
I have always wanted to do something significant for The Children's Society as I have a lifelong connection with them, they managed my fostering and adoption over 40 years ago. Most people have an affinity for one reason or another with a charity and that alone helps spur you on. Doing something as gruelling as training for and then running the marathon somehow makes raising as much as possible and telling as many people as you can more important.
Stage One (last week of Janary)
The first thing I did immediately on securing my Marathon place was to set up a free web fund raising page with www.justgiving.com, I actually tried another site too but Just Giving was much more straightforward and efficient. Its dead easy and it immediately gave you a sense of having got things underway, and somewhere to easily point people to.
The Children's Society had provided a very useful dummy Press Release document, which I also tailored an initial draft of my aims in, in readiness to send out to newspapers. Even in draft it was great to be able to refer to a website that I had already set up to point people to. At the same time I worked with my daughter (aged 12) to produce a poster, using the TCS logo they sent me, a photo of me training and some appropriate words about why I was doing the marathon and the great work the charity do.
Lastly I created the bones of what I called my 'Media Plan' i.e. who and how I wanted to reach my target audience, which roughly speaking were family and friends, work colleagues, business acquaintances, the press, my neighbours and local community, local and national Business. This remained a pretty dynamic document but was my reference point for ticking off what I had done and who I had contacted, and gave me a sense of achieving something.
Stage Two (February)
Next I did a bit more work on identifying the groups of people I wanted to contact and who I wanted to contact first. I decided that I wanted to get a few contributions on the website (which is where I thought I would get most of my contributions) as soon as I could so that anyone who went to the site could see people were already donating. Ideally I'd get some larger donations up early so that others may follow suit!
To that end I told a few close friends by personal e-mail about my Marathon run. I also approached an industy committee I was a member of, where I hoped the other members would be generous! My immediate Family also pledged to me which allowed me to place some 'offline' donation amounts on the site, showing I had collected a reasonable sum already to would-be donors.
I also spent February tailoring press releases to the local free papers, local papers, plus areas of the country I had a connections with, writing the press release in a way I felt they could just pick up and use it e.g. where I went to University, ('Former xxx University student....) or where I my parents and I used to live ("Former xxx school pupil"). I also identified other publications I thought may be prepared to carry a story relating to this charity. I found contact details using the internet, primarily www.mediauk.com
Stage Three (March)
In March it was all systems go with just 7 weeks to go before the race...
- I sent out batches of e-mails to friends ensuring I blind copied everyone to make it a wee bit more personal i.e. they didn't get a Dear xxx but they didn't see loads of other names getting the same e-mail. This ended up being a great way of tidying you my personal address book as many people had changed details and it gave me a reason to call them.
- I sent out batches of e-mails to work colleagues, again blind copying them. I work for a large company and had a big base, but I broke it in to batches so as to be able to manage any responses I needed to make. Many people e-mailed separately and it gave me a chance to personally speak to them. Although the www.justgiving.com site allows you to write the message you want automatically sent back to donors, I mailed every single donor personally too to thank them.
- I sent out e-mails to business contacts, suppliers, people I had met through work
- I sent out my press releases. Local papers only need a week or less to receive and publish your story. But of course they will start to get many people sending them fundraising requests so I'd recommend 2-3 months from the event in order to ensure you get as much non-competing space as possible. National papers, if you have a particularly interesting story to tell may want to interview you, take a picture and have more demands on space so again give them as much time as possible. Other media such as local TV and radio may be interested if you have a compelling story and its worth contacting them if only to give you confidence in your efforts. Don't expect to generate lots of donations on the back of media exposure though, its more about awareness and getting lucky with a donor or potential sponsor
- I asked local shops and public buildings, community centres, to put posters in their windows
- I asked my local gym to take posters
- I asked some pubs to take posters and/or take a sponsorship sheet
- I asked my local Children's Society shop to put a poster in their window and take a sponsorship form and collection box
- I updated my FriendsReunited page with my plans
- I contacted local businesses to see if they were interested in donating or sponsoring my shirt. This is one area where an extra 6 months notice would have helped as most companies decide on charitable connections a year ahead and had spent budgets or committed to support another charity by then. Companies that already support The Children's Society were prepared to take posters though and display either publicly or in their staff areas.
- I contacted my old college Alumni as they always want news stories
- I door dropped leaflets locally to around 600 houses, pointing them to my website or the local Childrens Society shop
- I contacted my companies Charity support unit to ask for a donation, which I was fortunate enough to succeed in
- I used my companies internal communications website to raise awareness, in case I had forgotten to tell anyone directly!
- I wrote to around 40 people, mainly family or older friends who I thought might respond better to a letter
- My Mum held a sponsorship form for me and asked her neighbours and friends to support me.
Stage Four (April)
April was really about following up e.g. e-mailing people I had not heard from, texting people I had not heard back from.
- I followed up on press releases I had not seen get a result.
- I updated my local Children's Society shop poster telling my local community how much I had raised and trained.
- I pursued any exposure I thought still might be worth getting and had time to achieve e.g. company website.
- I updated my page and thanked everyone who had (and hadn't quite got around to it yet) donated, where I had their e-mail. Those I had written to I wrote back to.
General Tips
- Don't be afraid to ask people, the worst they can say is no and most people are impressed by others trying to raise money. Remember to thank everyone
- Use a web donation site, and try to get some larger pledges on it as soon as you can, follow the useful fund raising advise of the web company
- Awareness activities such as Posters, press, door drops may not directly generate as much as other methods, but what they did was remind people who might sponsor you to do so. For example many parents of my children's friends saw posters and commented on that and eventually sponsored me.
- Remind people right up to the day of your Marathon run or other event to sponsor you if they have not done already. Keep a note of people who don't respnd first time and try them once or twice more, more than likely they have forgotten.
- Use your communcations effectively. In e-mail tell people what you are doing, why and how they can help, including passing this on to anyone they know who may have a connection with the charity cause.
- After the event tell people what you did and thank them for their help. I even thanked people I knew hadn't donated knowing they meant to but had probably forgotten. Sure enough they promptly did!
- Most donations will come from people you know. If you don't have much time concentrate on friends and family and if you have customers or business acquaintances and colleagues them too. This will be where the vast majority of donations come from.
- If there is time, get some business sponsorship either locally or from a national company if you can. This is where having a great story can help e.g. how The Children's Society helped you. You can offer them shirt sponsorship, press coverage or simply an internal communications story they can tell their staff. If you can work creatively to give them an idea e.g. promoting that each time a car dealer sells a car they will donate £50 to your fund raising efforts they may just take it and run with it.
- If you have enough time to do a street collection ot two, get your local authority permission to do so as it can be extremely lucrative. It is extremely encouraging to get donations from people you don't know
- If you have any events you have a connection to or can even organise from a sports club through to a garage sale, with some of the takings going to your target thats a great way of raising a great deal quickly.
- Identifying trusts or funds you can bid for donations from is a great way to raise biggers sums, if you can find them.
Mark Chipperfield, Flora London Marathon Runner 2006
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