Helpful Tips for Fundraisers
Here are some helpful tips on how to get the most out of your fundraising pages.
Setting up your group and page
Your Personal Page is an online tool that makes it easy to ask friends and family to join your team or support you by making a donation.
Personalize your Pages - Fundraising is more effective and more fun when you make it personal. Although we have provided some text to get you started you should edit it to reflect your team or personal reasons for supporting education for children in difficult times. A personal story or explanation will mean a lot to your donors.
Pictures - For your group page think about a group photo of your team or school logo. For your profile or fundraising page, pick a photo of yourself or something else that your donors will recognize right away.
Set Strong Goals - Don't forget to set both personal and team fundraising goals. Your goal should be something challenging but realistic; you can change it at any time if you need to. Group leaders should check in with members about the group goal - they may think you should raise it!
Stay Involved - Use your Updates to keep energy and motivation high. Provide updates
on how your personal effort is going, news about offline events to raise funds or how close you are to your goal.
Choosing projects to support
You will be more successful in your fundraising if you choose one or two projects you care deeply about and can focus your enthusiasm on. Consider a group theme by location or topic when selecting projects your group will support and talk about it in your group description.
Inviting Members
Fundraising can be a lot of fun when you do it with people you know. You can invite anyone to be on your team - friends, classmates, teammates, family or co-workers. They can all build their own personal fundraising page in your group and contact their friends and family to help the group raise money. Be sure to ask as many people as you can to help you.
Inviting Donors
Inviting your contacts to donate to Partner projects through your page is what its all about. You are offering them an opportunity to help, and helping makes people feel good, so don't worry about asking.
You can send invitations through your page admin via email or you can use your own email to ask your friends to donate.
Other ways to tell people about your page:
Add the link to your page to your email signature like this
I am helping to educate children of conflict
You can join me at: your URL
Tell people about your page when you are talking to them in person or on the phone - or just give them the web site address and your group name where they can find you easily.
Check your page regularly to see who has already donated and who might need a reminder.
Rallying the troops
Group leaders set the tone for their members and can make fundraising more fun with a little friendly competition or prizes.
Having a timeframe for fundraising and checking in with members will also help everyone focus on their goals.
Group leaders are also responsible for making sure that member pages contain appropriate content and for removing anyone that violates their rules.
Remember to say thank you!
When people make a donation through your fundraising page, remember to thank them with a personal email or phone call. A heartfelt thank you from you makes people feel even better about their contribution to educating children of conflict. You can also use this opportunity to suggest that they let their own circle of contacts know about your page and their donation.
Here is an example of what you might send:
Thank you for helping me meet my fundraising goal and donating to an EPCC partner project through my fundraising page. Your donation will make a real difference in the lives of children around the world and it means a lot to me to have your support.
I'll let you know when we reach our goal so we can all celebrate together.
If you know of anyone that would like to join you in providing education for children of conflict, please let them know about my page: http://educationpartnership.org
Be creative and have fun!
Like everything else, what you get out of participating in a fundraising group depends on what you put into it. By being part of a group, you join a caring community of energetic people that are doing something real right now to help children in the most difficult circumstances rebuild hope, rebuild lives and rebuild nations. That is something to be proud of and enjoy.
