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Raising cash doesn’t need to take a lot of time or planning. These simple ideas will get you started in no time. Just pick one that sounds fun and raise a few pennies – even a small amount will go a long way.
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| Easy first time fundraisers |
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| Collection box |
| Download the collection box, cut it out, stick it together and place it on your desk! Place your spare change in the box and get your family or work colleagues to do the same. |
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| Dinner Party |
| You could theme it on African food or get everyone to bring a dish. You could use a website called Dinner 4 Good to invite guests and collect donations online. Easy peasy! |
Coffee Morning |
| Simple, easy to arrange and can be held anywhere. You could combine it with a cake sale or craft sale. For more coffee morning ideas visit IdeasFundraising |
| | | Car boot sale or jumble sale |
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| Clear out old junk and get a pitch at your local car boot for a small fee. |
Sell unwanted items online |
| Sell unwanted items online and donate the profits, or a certain percentage, directly to Self Help Africa. You can sell through Ebay for Charity or Jumble Aid. |
Practical presents |
if you’re celebrating a birthday, anniversary or special day, why not ask for donations instead of presents? You could set up a donation page on Just Giving. Or you could ask guests to buy practical presents like goats, bees and seeds from our online shop.
Use Everyclick as your search engine
Everyclick lets you search the web and raise money for free every time you click. Start searching Everyclick to support Self Help Africa.
Collect at a local supermarket
Supermarket collections are a great way to raise both funds and awareness for Self Help Africa without asking your friends and family for sponsorship. We would love it if you could organise a collection in a supermarket near you. We have put together some guidelines to help: |
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At work boredom busters |
Guess the baby competition |
| Ask colleagues to bring in baby photos of themselves and post them on a notice board. Charge people £1 to guess who’s who and offer a prize! |
Bake off |
| Appeal to your colleagues’ competitive spirit and love of sweet things with a bakeoff bake sale! Charge a small fee to enter the contest and gather and have their baked goods judged. Provide a small prize for the winner, then sell off all the baked goods. You can either charge per item, or just ask for donations for the items people choose to buy. The bakers could include copies of their recipes with the baked goods that are sold |
Head shaving, beard shaving or leg waxing |
| Get sponsored for shaving or dying your hair a funny colour. Or do both! Email us for a sponsor form or set up a sponsor page on Just Giving. |
Cross dressing Fancy Dress Day |
| Put a twist on traditional dress up days by having a cross-dressing day. Ask the men to wear high heels, dresses and wigs and let the women wear suits or baggy shirts and trousers for £5 each. Bound to keep you thoroughly entertained all day long. |
Give up smoking, chocolate or swearing |
| Pop in a £1 in a cup every time you give into your vice! |
Grow a beard or moustache |
| and get sponsored! |
Great get-togethers |
Barn dance |
| Find a venue and a band, charge an entrance fee and have a raffle or a bar. |
Have a party |
| How about a theme? 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s, Eurovision, a letter of the alphabet, fancy dress, karaoke, bingo, murder mystery, clothes swapping, or a games evening. Charge an entrance fee or ask for a donation. |
Cheese and wine evening |
| Taste homemade wine and have prizes and cheese donated. Try a Guess the Wine’s Country game. Charge an admission fee or place donation tins around. Or you could find a friendly wine merchant and invite them to supply the venue, the wine and a wine expert in return for an opportunity to promote and sell their wines. |
Quiz night |
| Easy to organise and very popular. Add a raffle with donated prizes to raise extra cash. Organise the venue yourself or see if you can collaborate with your local pub or community centre. Quiz Zone is a great website for questions. Steve’s website is helpful for table questions and dingbats. |
Auction of promises |
| Get friends, family, and local businesses to donate their services such as cooking dinner, gardening, massage, golfing, fishing or tickets to local attractions for the highest bid. And make an evening of it! Go to IdeasFundraising for more ideas on auctions. |
Choir concert |
| Rent or borrow a church or hall and invite local choirs and an audience. |
Fun stuff for young stuff |
Sponsored walk, skip, run, silence or read
Challenge yourself and ask friends or parents to sponsor you – contact us for sponsor forms.
Crazy clothes day
Pay £1 to wear home clothes to school for the day. Or wear funny hats, socks, backwards clothes or wellies to school.
Bucket of pennies
Spend a month or so trying to fill a bucket full of pennies or try to fill a smarties tube full of pennies.
School Disco
Have fun dancing the early evening away with a school disco.
Paint a goat with pennies!
Create a large drawing of Goat, Pig or Chicken (or any other livestock that families in Africa benefit from) and cover the animal in pennies – you can even chose which animal your donation will go towards at our online shop.
Face Painting
Set up a face painting stall at a school fete and charge £1.
Guess how many sweets in a jar
Fill a large jar with your favourite sweets and charge 50p for friends to guess how many are in there. The winner gets all the sweets!
Sunflower growing competition
Sunflowers are really important for farmers in Africa. They can grind the seeds into oil and sell it to pay for essentials. You could plant your own seeds, give a prize to the tallest, and sell the sun flowers to friends and family for £1.
Hold a green-themed party
Have green drinks, food and outfits. You dress up as Aliens, caterpillars or trees!
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Al fresco fundraising |
Garden party or BBQ
Invite friends and family to enjoy food in the sun. You could set up garden games or races to keep everyone entertained and get some live music on the go.
Jailbreak
24 hours. No cash. How far will you get? You and a partner have 24 hours in which to get as far away from your starting location as possible.
Duck Race
Sponsor numbered plastic ducks, find a stream and race your ducks. The first duck across the finish line wins a prize.
Raft race
Contact your local authority for advice. It will involve a lot of preparation but is definitely worth it! Perfect to set up within a Lions or Rotary Club.
Open garden
Show off your hard work by opening your garden to friends and family. You could ask neighbours to do the same and offer guests a choice of gardens to look around – we can help you produce a booklet – just email us.
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Get Creative |
Art, photography or pottery competition or exhibition
You could choose a theme, charge a small fee to view the displayed work and then auction it off
Knitting, jewellery or face painting
Take your talents to a craft fair, coffee morning or fete.
Make a book or calendar
Ask friends for their favourite recipes, photographs, local walks, local history, or anything else you are interested in. Put together a small book or calendar and sell it to friends and at local events.
Hold a concert or gig: Do you know anyone talented musicians, singer or bands? Find a pub or community centre and invite all you know.
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Energetic events |
Tennis, football, golf or kite flying tournament
Charge teams to enter and offer prizes to the winners.
Dog walking
Get a puppy sponsored on Just Giving for its first ever proper walk!
Sponsored run
Find a local 5k, 10k, half marathon or full marathon. Go to the Runners World website to search for an event in your area.
Swim the English Channel
In the swimming pool! Work out how many lengths of the pool 560 km is. Swim the length over a number of weeks or as a team and get sponsored.
Sponsored bike ride
Challenge yourself to go somewhere different or further than you’ve been before. You could pick somewhere with a funny name like Great Snoring or Happy Bottom.
Parachute jump or skydive
Something you’ve always wanted to do? Find your local centre at the Parachuting Society website. It costs about £280. Plan in advance, save up and get sponsored!
Break a world record!
Or at least try to! Get inspiration from The Guinness World Records.
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Seasonal soirees |
Halloween or bonfire night
Host a fancy dress day at work, a Halloween party or bonfire night celebration with warm soup and a pumpkin carving competition.
Easter
Have a street party, decorate eggs, roll eggs down a hill, hold an egg and spoon race, and have an Easter egg hunt.
Christmas
Sell handmade cards, decorations or biscuits. Ask a local supermarket if you can pack bags. Ask your local authority for permission to go carol singing. Ask family for donations instead of Christmas presents.
National cheese, doodle, smile, talk like a pirate day
Celebrate in style with a party or sponsorship.
Shrove Tuesday
A perfect excuse for a pancake party!
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