Celebrating our fundraising heroes
Check out these amazing success stories
Celebrating our fundraising heroes
Check out these amazing success stories
Local fundraising is a great way to gain support for your unit and encourage more people to join, but where do you start? And what’s the secret to a successful fundraiser? As units up and down the country take on the ‘All girls can do anything’ challenge for BBC Children in Need and Girlguiding, we sat down with some Girlguiding fundraising heroes to hear all about their great work and top tips.
Helen is a Guide and Ranger leader in Stockport who has raised thousands of pounds to support her unit and girls going on international trips as well as funding camping equipment. Helen and her unit often set up fundraising stalls at local events like village festivals and Christmas light switch-ons.
‘One of the most successful things we do is an “every go wins” teddy tombola’, Helen says, ‘and we have queues of people wanting to take part! Posts on community social media groups and emails to parents result in hundreds of teddies being donated. We also do a “name the teddy competition”’ for any special teddies and set up a stall to sell them.’
But the Guides’ and Rangers’ favourite fundraiser is the human fruit machine. They stand behind 3 boxes, each with a hole cut out. Each girl has a selection of fruits they choose from when '1, 2, 3 spin' is shouted. Competitors then try and match all 3 to win a prize.
Helen’s top tip: ‘Try to have a lot of different things available at your fundraising stall. We always have a teddy tombola and a raffle, but we also have a ping pong game where you try to get the ball in a cup, and sell friendship bracelets. Our latest stall raised £800.’
The unit has also enjoyed performing fundraiser gang shows for audiences, including the local mayor, and running bingo nights using the cards on the Girlguiding website. The Guides, Rangers and their parents ask local businesses to donate prizes and support them with advertising the event. They also always make sure they receive thank you letters from the unit. Girlguiding members and families come along to enjoy the bingo, refreshments and teddy tombola, which can help raise as much as £1100 in just one night.
Another volunteer who’s banded together with other Girlguiding members to fundraise is Jean, who worked with her division’s events team to run a ‘sing-along-athon’ for last year’s BBC Children in Need and Girlguiding appeal. Together as a division, which is in Cornwall, they raised around £800.
Jean's top tip: 'Split the event into half an hour chunks. The sing-along-athon was about 4 or 5 hours long in total but we had sections for different types of music, action songs and had musical instruments like tambourines. We gave the Rainbows an allotted time so that we could gear the type of music towards them, and the Guides and Rangers could come whenever they wanted and stay as long as they liked.’
Jean thinks getting the whole division involved in such a big fundraising event for the first time also made a difference. It meant they could spread the planning across multiple volunteers and boost donations, giving girls in all sections the chance to grab a sponsorship form and take part.
Having collection buckets there on the day also helped to boost their impressive grand total of £800 – ‘lots of parents asked if they could stay to watch them, and then ended up throwing money in the bucket too.’
Another leader who’s worked together with a team of volunteers to fundraise is Rainbow and Guide leader Jill from Hampshire North. She worked with other local units to raise £1000 to buy new neckers.
With help from a local business, Jill printed off dingbats-style quizzes for girls to sell in the local community at £2 each. Prizes were donated by the village’s businesses, and girls and volunteers collected donations outside supermarkets.
When it comes to fundraising, Jill thinks the timing of the event and having different ways people can make donations is key.
‘We did it after October half term’, she says, ‘the shops are quite busy then in the run up to Christmas, especially at weekends. We had a bucket to collect cash and as well as a card machine. This made a massive difference as most of our donations were made by card, and it’s quite easy to do. We share the card machine as a division and use it at stalls and events.’
Jill’s top tips: ‘Use the skills of your volunteers, and don’t be afraid to ask local businesses and other units to help and get involved too. Start as early as you can and split the work and cash collection shifts between you, it makes it so much more worthwhile as a team. Just make sure you look after them and keep them topped up with teas, coffees and hot chocolates!’
Also a pro at finding creative ways to fundraise, Melanie is a Rainbow leader in Wiltshire North , whose unit managed to raise over £500 for the 2022 BBC Children in Need and Girlguiding appeal, with one girl even managing to raise £115. Melanie started off by asking the Rainbows and the volunteers their ideas of how to fundraise before putting it to a unit vote – a ‘dance-athon’ came out on top.
‘We held it in our usual meeting place so there wasn’t any extra admin to do’, Melanie says, ‘if that encourages others to give it a go. It really wasn’t much different to planning a usual meeting or event, and we were able to link it to the programme, incorporating Play time! from Feel good Stage 1.’
Melanie’s top tip: ’Get the girls involved in the decision-making process for the fundraiser. The Rainbows were engaged all the way through because it was what they chose and something they all knew how to do, and we taught them some new dances too so it was very varied. They had a great time.’
‘Even though some of them were a bit hesitant at first,’ Melanie says, ‘they all got involved and took part. We did a Pudsey theme and all got dressed up for it – it was just like a party.’
However you choose to fundraise, whether it be dancing the meeting away or running a teddy tombola, make sure you follow the rules of your local authority and the Fundraising Regulator, read Girlguiding’s fundraising policy and make sure you’ve got permission to fundraise. You can find more fundraising tips and useful resources in the fundraising toolkit on our website, and discover more about grants and trusts. Good luck!
Have you done some brilliant fundraising you’d like to tell us about? Got any top tips like the ones above? Get in touch with us, we’d love to hear from you.
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