Fundraising Ideas
There are so many ways that you can raise funds. You could do something simple like selling pin badges or something more challenging like dragon boat racing. You can also be sponsored for just about anything. When trying to decide what to do it may be useful to set yourself a realistic fundraising target to help you plan your events.
Something simple
Why not sell our Thumbs Up pin badges to colleagues, friends and family? We ask for a minimum of £1 donation per pin badge, so you could ask the same of your colleagues, friends and family. If you know 50 people to ask, you could raise at least £50 from this.
How about doing a Tombola? Ask your colleagues, friends and family to donate prizes and mark each prize with a cloakroom ticket. Sell tickets for 50p each and then draw tickets from the Tombola to collect your prize. Remember that you will need to include some non-winning tickets in the Tombola
Are you a good cook? Then bake some cakes and then sell a slice for a £1.
If one cake has 10 slices you could raise £10 from one cake. If you baked and sold one cake a week, you would raise £520 during the year.
One man's trash is another man's treasure! Raise money and clear your unwanted items through holding a 'Bring and Buy' sale. Display all the items for sale on a table and price up items however you like. You could sell all kinds of things such as: plants, books, ornaments, unwanted gifts, etc. You could even tie this in with selling your cake slices!
An extremely simple way of raising £2500* each year is to run a 'Guess the Bonus Ball' competition. All you need to do is draw up a chart with the numbers 1 to 49 on it and the each person pays £1 per entry to guess the National Lottery bonus ball. The person who guessed correctly would win half of the money raised and the remainder would come to the MND Association.
* based on £1 per entry twice weekly (Wednesday and Saturday draws) for 52 weeks and half the money being given to the winner.
If you have more time to plan
There are lots of other ways you can raise funds that are great fun. A little more planning is required, but the extra time spent would be well worth it.
There are a number of different fun tournaments you could arrange. For example ten pin bowling, go karting, computer games, darts, pool/ snooker, table tennis, etc.
If you like the idea of a competition but would prefer something a little less energetic, why not organise a quiz night? Come up with lots of questions covering all subjects, charge an entry fee and then let the fun begin. You can use different media, e.g. films or tapes and you could even have interactive questions that people need to perform to answer.
If you liked the simple idea of a bring and buy sale, but would prefer to do something on a much larger scale, why not organise a car boot sale or join in on one that's already been organised. See if you can get your colleagues, friends and family to join in too to maximise the potential of how much you could raise.
During the warm summer months to make the most of the nice weather you could arrange something outdoors like a garden party or barbeque. At a barbeque you could ask everyone to bring their own food then charge them to cook it for them. You could combine either of these with a raffle or other competitions.
Why not organise a treasure hunt at the same time? You could charge everyone to enter the hunt and give clues to lead participants to the treasure. For an interesting variation on the treasure hunt you could give a list of 'things' to all participants; this could be people, places, items and so on. The aim is to find all the items on the list and either take photos or bring them back with them. The team to fulfil the most of the list, wins!
For more help on organising a large event, click here (link to organising a large event booklet).
Something more challenging
For those of you who prefer to live on the wild side there are lots of things you can do to satisfy your appetite. The list below should give you a few ideas for starters, but let your imagination run free!
. Parachute jumps
. White water rafting
. Dragon boat racing
. It's a knockout
. Abseiling and zip sliding
Sponsored activities
You can also be sponsored for practically anything from a sponsored silence to a sponsored trek. The MND Association can provide you with official sponsor forms overprinted with your details and the event you are participating in.
. Slim
. Run
. Walk
. Silence
. Dance
. Keep fit
. Swim
. Cycling
It is important to note that the MND Association cannot endorse bungee jumping in any instance and we would actively discourage anybody from participating in this type of event.