Concern - Need advice!!!

cavemeister

My flatmate is trying to raise 4,500 Euro for Concern. If she raises the money, she can travel to Africa to climb Mount Kilamonjaro (sic)

She is new to the whole raising money scene and I thought I would put it out there.....

Anyone ever raised money before?? How did you go about it?? She really needs help in trying to get the money together by July 1st 2010...

Really appreciate any tips!!!!

mikedragon32

4.5k is a big ask for fundraising, you can run plenty of fundraisers, but friends, family and colleagues get charity fatigue quite easily when someone is running several events and being asked to support. Another factor to overcome may be that some will see this as not fundraising in the truest sense, but folks being asked to subsidise your friend's holiday, so that needs to be considered also.

Race nights, table quizzes, speed dating nights etc will raise plenty of money. Coffee mornings in work (if there's a large enough staff) are good too. Remember if you're doing any of those, a raffle can be run too. Local businesses will be quite happy to throw you bottles of wine or a few bits and bobs to use as prizes.

Your friend could run a series of dinner parties where everyone instead of brining flowers/chocolates or whatever donates money - generally people are asked to contribute the cost of a dinner in a restaurant. The beauty of it is that you don't need to produce haute cuisine, just something simple and you should get about €200 just for having a few friends around. A few of those over a month and you've got a quarter of your target.

Best of luck.

loyatemu

mikedragon32 wrote: »

Another factor to overcome may be that some will see this as not fundraising in the truest sense, but folks being asked to subsidise your friend's holiday, so that needs to be considered also.

tbh this is generally my major reservation when I hear that someone is climbing Kilimanjaro\hiking the Inca trail\building houses in Soweto "for charity" - what is the rationale behind these fundraising + holiday type events? why not climb the 10 highest peaks in Ireland or some similar local challenge?

€4500 is a very large sum of money for one person to raise in less than 6 months.

cuddlycavies

loyatemu wrote: »

tbh this is generally my major reservation when I hear that someone is climbing Kilimanjaro\hiking the Inca trail\building houses in Soweto "for charity" - what is the rationale behind these fundraising + holiday type events? why not climb the 10 highest peaks in Ireland or some similar local challenge?

€4500 is a very large sum of money for one person to raise in less than 6 months.

Totally with you on that. A holiday in Africa is hardly martyrdom. Half of the €4.5k goes to the trip and tour organiser. I've seen the sums re the Inca trail.

matt-dublin

i would have to say that the cost of these things are normally paid for by the person who is doing it, the fund raising should all go towards charity.

IMO, sounds like a free holiday attempt, if she was really trying to do it for charity she would pay for the trip herself and get sponsership with all proceeds going to concern / haiti etc...

the only thing i would contribute towards funding would be something like the nial mellon challange where your paying the fees for people to go over to south africa and build houses for people.

paying for an adreniline junkie to go climb a mountain for charity doesnt seem quite right.

loyatemu

matt-dublin wrote: »

the only thing i would contribute towards funding would be something like the nial mellon challange where your paying the fees for people to go over to south africa and build houses for people.

I don't quite get this one either - they have builders in South Africa (for all its problems, SA is actually quite a wealthy, domocratic country) and, I imagine a plentiful supply of cheap labour. Why do they need a bunch of (predominantly) middle-class Irish non-builders to come over and build houses?

(and, OP, I apologise for dragging this thread off-topic with my cynicism...)

Rasmus

http://www.concernchallenge.org/challenge/profile.php?chall=32

This might be the fundraising event? I have to say that I would not be comfortable sponsoring someone in a charitable event when approximately only 50% of the proceeds reach the people and situation thats needs to be aided. In that other 50%, half of it goes to expenses (travel costs, dinners, hotels, tranfers etc) and the rest goes to training of the people that block us in the streets, making us feel guilty for not signing up to a direct debit, when they make about 15 euro an hour. I will be honest in saying that I do not like the way Concern operates, with the way so much of their income is spent on staffing and training, but that could be said for many of these corporate charity companies. There are so many ways to raise money for those less fortunate in developing nations right here in Ireland though. You just need to get a letter of permit from the Irish Red Cross, sponsorship documentation and a Garda permit, and propose an event. If it's promoted well your friend could enlist more volunteers, the more the merrier and that means more money for Tanzania etc. A sponsored cycle in Wicklow might not be as exciting as around Kilanmanjaro but it would be profoundly more appealing to anyone donating that their hard earned money is going to a good cause through the right channels.
Thank you for posting this OP. It's an interesting topic. I do feel that it's a free holiday though, and this exploitation is on Concern's part, not your roomate's.

cuddlycavies

Rasmus wrote: »

http://www.concernchallenge.org/challenge/profile.php?chall=32

This might be the fundraising event? I have to say that I would not be comfortable sponsoring someone in a charitable event when approximately only 50% of the proceeds reach the people and situation thats needs to be aided. In that other 50%, half of it goes to expenses (travel costs, dinners, hotels, tranfers etc) and the rest goes to training of the people that block us in the streets, making us feel guilty for not signing up to a direct debit, when they make about 15 euro an hour. I will be honest in saying that I do not like the way Concern operates, with the way so much of their income is spent on staffing and training, but that could be said for many of these corporate charity companies. There are so many ways to raise money for those less fortunate in developing nations right here in Ireland though. You just need to get a letter of permit from the Irish Red Cross, sponsorship documentation and a Garda permit, and propose an event. If it's promoted well your friend could enlist more volunteers, the more the merrier and that means more money for Tanzania etc. A sponsored cycle in Wicklow might not be as exciting as around Kilanmanjaro but it would be profoundly more appealing to anyone donating that their hard earned money is going to a good cause through the right channels.
Thank you for posting this OP. It's an interesting topic. I do feel that it's a free holiday though, and this exploitation is on Concern's part, not your roomate's.

+1

chocgirl

I'd be very reluctant to donate to this and I can see that most people would be when they could donate to Concern directly and cut out the expense of someone's African experience.

cavemeister

Guys,
My flatmate really appreciates the feedback - Obviously, she does not want anyone to think that she is getting a free holiday on the back of a charity - For this reason, she is fronting all the costs for flights and accomodation which we can all agree is pretty fair! Every penny she raises will be for Concern.
She is a very active person and saw the chance to climb Mt Kilimanjaro as a huge personal challenge while also ensuring that money and awareness be raised for her charity in the process. Anyway, just thought I would feed this back in and guys, if you do have any tips for her, she would greatly appreciate it.

Blandpebbles

Why don't we just get a group together and do it?

Concern, Trocaire etc.. are too religon based for my taste as well as the nagging feeling that the money isnt going anywhere.

loyatemu

Blandpebbles wrote: »

Concern, Trocaire etc.. are too religon based for my taste as well as the nagging feeling that the money isnt going anywhere.

Concern are non-religious and 88% of their income is spent on aid (source), don't know about Trocaire.