If someone mentions fundraising for a charity does your heart sink as your thoughts drift to Skydiving or running a marathon? If you’re nodding your head, we absolutely get it. Most of us wouldn’t want to jump out of a plane and training for a marathon isn’t many people’s idea of a fun thing to do.
However, there are three super-simple and (almost) effortless ways you can raise funds and the only muscles you would have to flex are the ones in your fingers!
A Facebook Birthday Fundraiser
Have you ever noticed that as your birthday approaches that Facebook gives you the option of creating a ‘birthday fundraiser’? It’s simple to set up and there’s no catch. Facebook really does give your chosen charity all of the funds that are donated without taking any fees for themselves.
When you see the notification from Facebook (normally it’s about two weeks prior to your birthday) simply click on the link. You’ll be asked to select your charity, so type in Bridge2Aid and choose it as your option.
The next step is to enter how much you want to raise. Remember, you’re asking your friends and families and you don’t want to overwhelm them. We recommend keeping your target realistic as the donations aren’t capped at your target amount and are still accepted once your target has been reached.
A good example of this is one of our trustees, John Milne, recently held a birthday fundraiser and set his target at £150.00. Thanks to the generosity of his Facebook friends he soared past his target and raised £250.00.
Finally, before you hit the green light on your fundraiser, tell your friends why you are raising money for Bridge2Aid and what it means to you.There is a set text already to help you out but it’s completely editable and we recommend that you personalise it, tell your story and make the fundraiser unique to you.
Even if only 10% of our page followers created a birthday fundraiser and raised £100 each that would mean we had an extra £45,000 each year.
Amazon Smile
Love it or loathe Amazon is here to stay and, if you do buy from Amazon, you could be raising funds at the same time.
Instead of using amazon.co.uk simply switch to smile.amazon.co.uk . After you set up Bridge2Aid as your chosen charity you’ll see exactly the same pages and items for sale as you normally would on your Amazon account but 0.5% of the item cost¹ will be donated to Bridge2Aid. Remember to use the smile.amazon.co.uk link each time you shop otherwise they won’t count.
If you use the Amazon app on your smartphone head into the settings and look for ‘Programmes and Features’ . Here you’ll find the settings to switch on Amazon Smile. Once it’s activated all of your qualifying purchases will donate 0.5% of the item cost.
Give As You Live
Give as You Live is another free way to raise money when you shop online using their app or by visiting their website.
Following a simple signup process you are then linked to over 4,500 stores. Pretty much anything you
would want to buy online could contribute to a donation. The only ‘catch’ is that you must visit the online retailer that you wish to purchase from via the Give as You Live website. This way the retailer then knows that you’ve been ‘referred’ by Give as You Live and pays them a commission fee. This fee could be 1-10% or sometimes a fixed amount. Give as You Live then donate 50% of their commission fee to your chosen charity (hopefully Bridge2Aid) and the charity then receive any monies raised every three months.
So, there you have it. Three easy ways to make money for your favourite charity and you don’t even have to get up off the sofa to do it. We’d call that a no-brainer, so please, next time you’re browsing we’d love it if you’d be generous enough to fundraise (effortlessly) at the same time.
Thanks for reading,
Annie
¹Qualifying purchases only
