Hi all,
I’m looking to give my committee a bit of a kick up the b side regarding fundraising. At the moment they have very grand ideas for fundraising, none of which get off the ground, and require a heck of a lot of planning and work from me, for realistically very little yield.
Can anyone recommend any ideas for fundraising? I know this seems like a simple question, I’m just convinced there are a number of ideas out there that I’ve not even considered.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Runner
Are you looking for , “money for an activity”, “money for an asset” or “money for squadron coffers” - because each will require a slightly different plan of attack!
Most fundraising for the first two can be accessed through charitable trusts and grant schemes. There are loads of them out there, and it depends where you are in the country as to which ones you can apply to. Some to consider are…
See if your local Council has any Youth Opportunities Fund money lying about still (some do… mine doesn’t :()
Contact your local County Sports Partnership - they are good for funding AT & sports types stuff (and the definitions of “sport” that I’ve seen lately seem to have been quite loose!)
There’s a few websites (grantnet and a few others) which have extensive directories of funding agencies and grants - but lots of these will be “targeted” funders (ie have a specific area or interest in mind).
If you are looking for funding for squadron coffers to cover on going expenses, general wear & tear, insurance for an SOV or anything else which isn’t “specific”, then you’re likely to have no luck through the channels above. As such, we resort to getting the cadets to work for it. Marshalling, car parking, horse shows, bike rides, supporting other organisations etc, all help to bring in money for the squadron - which is then spent on the squadron.
We’ve tried many, many times to get CivCom to help funding the latter but each and everytime it falls on it’s backside! I recall them using their “community links” to set up a dog show for us. 15 cadets & 3 staff members supported the show, doing a variety of duties. We were “donated” a grand total of £50 for 2 days work. As such, I try and avoid letting the CivCom meddle too much in funding this area - they seem quite satisfied that 6 weekend events nets us around £4k per year, with an additional £2-3k coming from a Christmas bag pack at our local Waitrose.
I’ve recently seen a lot of Squadrons going down the “Easyfundraising” route - I’d be keen to hear if anybody has had any success with this and how much additional funding it brings in.
:blink: I thought that the £800 we got from the Co-Op was good… We’ve got to start going to Waitrose…
depends what kind of fundraising you’re after and what you are raising funds for
a couple of car parking/marshalling events and helping man water stations are your local town run isnt going to raise big bucks but will offer enough to replace your aging DofE tents but pointless if your saving for a SOV or trying to run the SOV with insurance, fuel and the like.
we have a mix of the above withs grants, sponsorship and the like that our CivCom find, a grand here or there for specific kit. £500 towards “stationary” or £1500 for camping gear for example.
as for ideas, what about sponsored events. we join our local RBL for a walk they run brings in 50% of what we raise (split between Sqn and Poppy Appeal).
if you set it up as an annual Sqn 15 mile walk for example it could bring in a few hundred pounds or more in just one event.
there is of course the standard car wash and car boot sale at Sqn events although low yield against required (CivCom) effort
edit: seems Batfink beat me to it!
I know of one Sqn that runs a car boot sale every Summer raising between 5-8K depending on the weather.
:blink: I thought that the £800 we got from the Co-Op was good… We’ve got to start going to Waitrose…[/quote]
We raised just short of £2.5k packing bags in ASDA over two days one weekend in Apr. It really is pretty simple if you’ve got enough cadets just organise it!
There are lots of funding providers available for equipment and projects. You do, as BF says, need to be selective which pots of money you apply for. My unit has just been funded to purchase some new drums for the band from the local airport community fund! That was a relatively simple application process!
Remember that the RAFCT has already funded over £1m to ATC Sqns for various projects. They normally like applications to be “matched” to a certain degree with other funding (like money from bag packs etc).
:blink: I thought that the £800 we got from the Co-Op was good… We’ve got to start going to Waitrose…[/quote]
i wouldnt worry too much, we make around £1800 from our Tesco after two days 10-4 which is the same as Batfink makes in a day! all depends on the store you visit and the clientele that use it
Try the token schemes where each customer gets a token and puts it in one of two or more boxes depending on which charity they want to support - at the end of the period (usually a month), a set sum is distributed among the charities depending on how much support they got. Waitrose, Budgens and Nationwide run such schemes, along presumably with other companies.
Thankyou so much for all your useful feedback on this!
I am initially looking for money to fund an extortionate installation bill from BT, and then obviously for some ‘coffer’ money to pay the monthly line rental etc. We need a load of consumables at the moment, like printer stuff, stationery, a float for fuel costs etc etc.
I’m also looking at the possibility of doing a Sqn camp (which might sound ‘everyday’ for some, but it’s not something our Sqn have done for a good number of years) so that the cost to the cadets isn’t so much that it prices them out. We don’t live in the most affluent of areas.
I know this might sound like an odd question, but how do you deal with fundraising in as far as what kind of involvement does your civ com have? I know the in a perfect world, the committee would deal with it all, but we all know the world on the ‘coal face’ is far from perfect, so wondered what people’s experiences are?
Thanks again for all your help, I will be exploring the avenues you have suggested.
in terms of what i mentioned above where teh Cadets do the work, either a staff member knwos someone or someone has approached us about helping out at the event.
it is typical either a cheque or cash is handed over to the CO/Project Officer at the end of teh day after the “job well done” chat from the organisers to the Gadets (which is then forwarded on) or is sent direct to the treasurer.
from there i’ve no idea where it goes.
Tax gift aid back from subs is good. 20p in the £1 and if you have not claimed you can backdate it to 2008, which by coincidence is how far Bader records go back.
BT Wise, make sure you get some of that money back through BT’s Charitiable Arm - Community Connections - http://www.btcommunityconnections.com/register_closed.php. Definitely worth registering, I can remember a squadron on here some years ago blagging a years free broadband, some PCs and some extra bits and pieces!
I’m not sure how wide spread it is, but our Wg give squadrons who get their accounts in early a small bag of gold coins to spend as they see fit. I can’t remember the exact sum, but it might help top up your coffers short term. Equally, I’ve known a couple of squadrons get an annual donation from their local Parish/Town Council, Rotary Club, or Masonic Lodge. I know one who has excellent relations with a private school who provide “in kind” donations (stationary/toner/photocopying as required) in exchange for topping up numbers at events (both staff and cadets).
Are you thinking blue, green or AT camp? In all instances, you can generally run these at quite low costs - depending on how committed you/your staff are. Blue camp, go to a RAC and stay there - it’ll keep the costs very low and some do some pretty good activities onsite - or use it as a launch point for other things (day walks, NNAS training, First Aid training, Radio/Comms training). If you can get an FMT600 and grab a minibus for the event to reduce transport overheads (see this thread for details - and a healthy dose of cynicism!)
Green camps will depend where in the Country you are as to what’s permitted - I know RC(N) exercises some restrictions on his domain, whereas others are slightly freer & easier to play with! Again, these are doable relatively cheaply and can cover a range of all sorts of things. If you want to add some “service support” element, contact your local Auggie unit, TA unit or regular unit and see if they’d be willing to send some staff along to give an interest lecture/activity. I’ve seen this done very successfully in a number of ways, and the cost was a slab of ale and a thankyou letter to them and their OC for releasing them.
AT camps can depend on what you want to do and what staff quals you have. We recently ran a “big weekend” with 20 kids in North Wales for not much at all. We’ve run “local AT” weekends for the same number for even less. For AT food, we wrote to our local Sainsbury’s & Tesco’s stores and asked whether they would be willing to donate us some food for a DofE expedition - the agreed and provided us a £50 voucher, as well as some rapidly going out of date food for us to do a “ready steady cook” event on a training evening. It worked a treat… but was, predominantly, a staff initiative - but one you could delegate to your CivCom.
Whilst a Squadron lead camp might be a good aspiration, could you delay the “squadron element” for a year and rely on your sector to make it work and take over some of the overheads/burdens until it’s more established?
CivCom involvement is limited. They do GiftAid for us. They setup a GrantAid scheme with a local initiative which does match funding from a trust fund for any donations made to Squadron. They also process all our accounts. Occasionally they will attend one of the “working” fundraisers (where the cadets are doing activities). They always try and send 2 or 3 members along to the Bag Packing events.
One quick and easy way your CivCom could get involved (depending on their calibre!) is networking with local businesses and business leaders. Our last CivCom chair did some work with our Chamber of Commerce which saw us get a few IT freebies from local companies who were upgrading IT/printers etc. Our current chair is a business type and saw to it that we got some new IT and teaching aids delivered to the Squadron. Whilst it’s not “direct” fundraising, it means we’re not spending “fundraised” money’s on things to support training. I’ve recently seen a Squadron “marketing” themselves in this way using LinkedIn - and I was quite impressed that somebody on their team had taken this initiative (or been delegated that initiative!) to do this as it did generate quite a bit of interest and discussion without seeming overburdening or negative reactions from the group members.
If your area isn’t that affluent, and your short of AT kit etc, see if there’s a Local Authority “kit pool” you could tap into. I’m pretty sure this is becoming more common - and might be one for your CivCom to look at. Equally, things like ROG http://recycleoutdoorgear.com/ or Rohan’s “Gift your gear” program - http://giftyourgear.com/gift-your-gear-rohan/ - mean that you can top up your kit without too much grief and agro. Again, another job your CivCom could do on your behalf!
We, as a squadron, have never done the CarBoot Sale thing. We’ve not done “car washes” either. However, if we did, I’d be delegating the Civcom to do the leg work on it!!! It’s only over a number of years (25 years in the case of some of our events!) that we’ve been building up the fundraising we do - and cherry pick the remaining events that are presented to us. We ALWAYS signpost anything we’re knocked back to other local squadrons first though. One such event occurs on a weekend we traditionally keep free of a squadron exercise - the Squadron which subsequently picked it up have been doing it for 5 years now, and from it have built up a good reputation and are getting offers from elsewhere as a result.
Another useful - and often underused - link which the Civcom have is their link to the Wing Committee. Are they willing to spend anything on you (or your cadets!) to help you out? Even as a short term loan to subsidise costs - particularly useful if you need to pay a deposit for an event in advance, or don’t have enough fuel to fill your bus to get you to a fundraising event. Sometimes the CivCom may be willing to do this personally, but sometimes, the Wing CivCom might be willing to. And before people go “pah - it’ll never happen”, we have done it twice and it saved us considerable grief and agro!
Hope that helps - I’ll add more as and when I come up with ideas!! 
Thats really given me a tonne of stuff to pass on to my Civ Com to get working on. I think they are willing to put the leg work in (with a little coercion)but lack the initial idea generation!
Thanks again guys, fantastic response! If anyone has any more ideas then let me know
speak to HQAC as they have a new Group Captain who could come down for some fundraising…
HQAC should tell him to get on his bike…and get out and about.
A word of caution if you go down the grant route for large capital expenditure, read the small print of what they will and will not give money for. I went through 10 before I found one that would for IT kit, but they did want 3 quotes and lists.
Also what they want after, OK not a hassle to give a photo or fill out a form etc, but if you don’t have to it’s a bonus.
The only problem now is most funding streams have dried up, but there are still places out there. However it may well require a level of input from the CO to do the who we are, what we do etc etc.
Indeed - having recently been through the Sportivate process, it’s quite long winded followup work involving logging all participants on a central hub, registering each time they do events, exit routes and progression into continued sports, a case study, some photos, and a final report! Was it worth it? Yeap - but it did take me a good 4 hours at the start and end of the project, plus one hour a week to maintain the records. Not too dissimiliar from SMS - but at least we got a bag of cash at the end of it!!!
Agree with that - Sportivate is a bit of a nause, but it contributed nicely to £13k of funding for our canoeing / kayaking gear.
On the subject of fundraising, how do your wings raise extra cash on top of subs?
By not spending anything?