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Blog / October 29th, 2020

Fundraising – a guide to the resources available

Introduction

There is a wealth of resources available to leaders on the topic of fundraising, both internally produced by Girlguiding and from external organisations. However, with volunteer time so precious, we appreciate that sometimes you just need to know where to find the information you need quickly, what has worked for other leaders and some ready to go resources. This guide looks to bring these items together.

If you would rather print this information than read online you can find a PDF version of this guide here.

For more advice, guidance, or clarity on anything contained within this resource please contact the Girlguiding Anglia Membership and Insight Team on the office contact details.

Policies and procedures

Before you start any fundraising make sure you have read the relevant Girlguiding policy available as a live document from their website. If you have any questions about the policy, you can contact the Girlguiding Fundraising team or review the Code of Fundraising Practice from the Fundraising Regulator.

Useful direct links

Getting started

Girlguiding provides some handy step by step resources on fundraising for your unit or area including; linking to advice and guidance from the Fundraising Regulator, risk assessment templates, customisable posters, gift aid advice, regulations around managing money and thank you certificates and badges. We also asked leaders at our last Facebook Interactive event what worked for them.

Like every activity we take part in you will need a risk assessment. If completing your fundraising online make sure you follow you read the safe online guiding page which includes the specific parent or carer permission forms and tips and advice for online activities.

There is also now an online fundraising guide including how to set up your unit on an online fundraising platform. Make sure you give enough time to go through the registration process, including proving charitable status. Alternatively, you can ask for funds to be paid directly as you would for subs, just make sure they are recorded correctly in your accounts.

Useful direct links

Unit fundraising champions

Unit fundraising can also be an excellent flexible role for parents and supporters of your unit. Although many parents may not want to volunteer in a unit or cannot commit the time one-off fundraising projects or a separate fundraising team can really appeal to some parents. Although you’ll need to put some effort in to get it started the benefits of engaging parents and other local people with your group can be great. Advice from the UK fundraising website is:

  • Be clear on what the group can do
  • Keep the structure informal
  • Establish protocols with the wider organisation (district/division/county etc)
  • Don’t set them up as a separate group – it’s still your unit and your charity

Don’t be despondent if on the first couple of times of asking you don’t get a response. Studies have shown that, on average, it can take three times of being asked before a potential volunteer responds.

Partnering with local businesses

Girlguiding encourages units creating local partnerships to fundraise, either asking for one-off items, professional experience, volunteers or donations. Advice from and contact details for the national partnerships team can be found on the Girlguiding website page including a link to the partnership screening policy if you are looking to set up a longer-term partnership.

Partnering can be particularly successful around Christmas with many businesses looking to support local charities.

Useful direct links

Accessing external grants and funds

Grants are often available from both within and outside of Girlguiding. Whilst it can be very intimidating to complete your first grant application if you are clear on your fundraising need and the benefit of your unit to your members and the local community it can be a very successful way of raising funds. Grants are particularly useful if you want to give your girls access to new adventures or replace/buy new equipment. Unfortunately, they don’t generally cover day to day running costs and external grants usually can’t be used to cover subscriptions.

Girlguiding provides a comprehensive guide to for trusts and foundations including links to possible funds and funding databases. You will also find your local volunteering centre has a wealth of information and the most up to date knowledge on local grants. To find where this information is held use the gov.uk website to find your local council contact. Some councils send round regular newsletters so it’s worth finding out and signing up for information even if you don’t want to access grants at this time.

Useful direct links

Items you may need when applying for grants

Leaders fundraising ideas

We’ve been asking our region volunteers what has worked for them. Here are their ideas for fundraising in your unit.

Quiz night!

Quiz nights were always a favourite with tickets sold to enter and usually a raffle or two. Easy to transfer online this has still been found to be a fun way to raise some donations, engage parents and you can still run a raffle – just be prepared to be post person with the prizes!

One leader provided their guiding themed quiz as the basis for a one-hour quiz on Zoom or, for a free to use option, Skype. Used with Guides, Rangers and their families as teams, add in some more general knowledge questions to make it longer if needed or amend to make it suitable for a younger audience. You can ask for donations, set an entry fee or just use it to engage with families.

Sponsored challenge

Sponsored challenges work well remotely as well as face to face; it’s also a great opportunity to engage the girls in choosing their own challenge. Girlguiding provide a template sponsorship form to support, so all you need to do is set the time, date and advertise. Again, Girlguiding provide resources on their website to help.

Easyfundraising

Easyfundraising are the UK’s biggest charity fundraising site, you set up an account and then ask your supporters to shop online through the site. Retailers then make donations to you on their behalf. Not the biggest funds generator but every little bit helps!

Create a challenge badge

As a longer-term project, units love to work on challenge badges for the 40% non-programme element of guiding. If you or your girls have an idea why not turn it into a challenge pack and badge? Girlguiding have a great page on designing a badge and will even order it for you if you wish. The biggest advice given was to talk to your commissioner first – it may be that your local district, division, or county website can host your badge and their social media promote it.

Thank you

Once you’ve completed your fundraising take advantage of Girlguiding’s new thank you certificates. Fill in the details online and who you would like it sending to and they will send out an official thank you by email or post.

Ready-made fundraising event kits

For more ideas and templates for fundraising events visit the Girlguiding fundraising downloads and resources page.

During our Facebook Interactive session on 5 September leaders shared the following ideas that had worked for them:

We usually have a division bridge walk on a particular day (we are based near a river) and this is used as a unit fundraiser. We have gone virtual this year – so girls can walk at any time in September and then their leader can report back and award them a badge. Hoping this way even more girls will take part as they can choose a nice day to walk! G. Lake

Selling our unit challenge badge usually brings us in a good amount annually which is used to subsidise unit activities (so not for census and is in a different account). Badge sales are very much down on the norm for obvious reasons but I did re-write the challenge so that it was suitable for home use, and so have sold at least some badges and kept a trickle coming in over the summer. C. Carvosso

Don’t forget to claim gift aid. I use the gift aid received to take the girls out once or twice a year. M. Russell

We challenged our Brownies and Guides to a 50-mile challenge over August where they could either walk or bike with family members. Haven’t got all that money in yet, but I believe we’ve raised over £800. E. Munday

I sew badges on for £1 per badge into our unit funds, or £10 to move all from the top to a camp blanket when they leave Rainbows. C. Stevens

Each guide was given £2 to grow, raising money for the charity Shine (helping sponsor children’s back to school bags in Zambia).

Our girls baked, made bracelets, organised bake sales at school, washed cars and much more. The 14 of them raised a grand total of £180 for the charity!

I know this wasn’t for our unit but would be a great idea to do for units! S. Pedley

Useful direct links

Badges

Generic Fundraising all section badges are available from the (national) Girlguiding shop. The Anglia retail team would also be happy to advise should you wish to design and create a badge specific to your area or event.

The Anglia retail shop is contactable: