Blog on fundraising
So boots bought, training postponed again until you can find a day when a) you won’t be tempted to drink and b) you have one hour to kit up, run through random woods, shower and still have 30 mins left of an eve to watch some pap on Channel 5…
So amongst the dread of impending blisters, the fact I still get out of breath at the top of BD Towers 4th floor and cancellation of a social life – you have to worry about raising money.
Feeling like some of the greatest fundraisers of all time is not a glamorous one. Monkhouse recently justifiably came back from the dead to raise money for prostrate cancer, Brent faced humiliation in a Bernie Clifton Ostrich and we all knew a RAG chair at College or Uni – a mulled wine swilling do-gooder who probably played the oboe.
My fundraising approach was a mixture of hard sales and cunning.
My 3 top tips are:
1. sell in the benefits – this means a different approach to each target
To some this is the obvious – the ‘think of the kids’ approach / selling in the charity and good work that Great Ormond St do. But to others it’s about the smugness that they don’t have to do it and that you in some way are carrying the ‘Hex’ for them. You are their voodoo doll with which they can burn and blister your feet, make you cough up a lung and worst of all place in you in fluorescent anorak.
The final approach is the simple brilliance of setting an ambitious target of £10,000 for the whole team and not individuals – namely ‘donate now and no one else can bother you again’. Surely a shining USP.
2. guilt
Can be played subtly as in ‘have you donated yet? The reason I ask is the site went down so if you were trying to register might want to try again’
or aggressively –
‘3 pints for you or some kids smile as he plays a Wii for the first time ever. FACT’.
3. Ingenuity
Yes, we have a few alternative means of raising the cash on the way. Calculated and charming – you could find yourself betting on a live GPS walker-cam (I bet SKY are sh*tting themselves); to bidding well over the odds for a signed Ron Jeremy/Star Wars spoof flick called ‘The Perennium Falcon’ (I’ve seen it and it’s a hell of a ride from start to finish).
However, the facts are simple - it does feel good to give.
This year Great Ormond Street were fantastic to me and my family under difficult circumstances, so it’s easy for me to support incredible people who get paid F-all for caring for sick children. If Johnny Depp (a pirate) can donate £1m to GOS, surely a stellar 200-strong agency such as BD can donate £10,000.
Aren’t we all partial to a bit of mulled wine and the sound of an oboe over soft Wagnerian strings?