Top Tips for raising your sponsorship!

Raising money shouldn’t be pressured and there are lots of easy ways to raise your sponsor money. Below are some ideas to help you.

Gift Aid

Encourage everyone that sponsors you to gift aid their donation: that way for every pound you raise, an extra 25p will be donated at no extra cost to you.  For example if someone sponsors you £50, the Hospice would receive £12.50 extra for no additional effort!

Online Fundraising with Justgiving.com

Create your very own online fundraising page!
Creating an online fundraising page allows you to reach all your friends, family and work colleagues wherever they are. It also collects the money and sends it directly to Cotswold Care for you. It’s so quick and easy to do.

Visit our justgiving page to set up your own fundraising page. It only takes a few minutes to set up.

• If you don’t have one already, register for a Justgiving account, following the instructions on the screen.
• Add a photograph and some text about yourself and your challenge.
• Email the link to your page to everyone you know and they can visit the page and sponsor you online.
• Please also send a link to isla.mclean@cotswoldcare.org.uk so that we can note the page address for our records.

Justgiving pay the money direct to Cotswold Care so you don’t have to run around after the event trying to track down your sponsors.

Facebook and Twitter

As well as being a fun way of keeping in touch with your friends, Facebook and Twitter are also great tools for spreading the word about your support of Cotswold Care Hospice and increasing your sponsorship.

By becoming a fan of our Cotswold Midnight Walk page on Facebook, you can post it to your profile and let everyone know what you are doing and if you have a justgiving page you can promote that too. If you are on Twitter, follow us and get all the latest updates and see who else is taking part.

Matched Giving

Approach your employer to match your fundraising pound for pound as many companies now do this. They can claim a tax break too. If you need us to send a letter or form to enable this, just call the fundraising office on 01453 886868.

Where does your money go?

At Cotswold Care Hospice we are reliant on raising £4,750 every day to keep our doors open and events like our Cotswold Midnight Walks are critical in enabling us to do this. Your entry fee helps to cover the costs of holding the events so the money you raise through your sponsorship is spent directly on patient care and the services that support its provision, so you and those that sponsor you can be confident that all the hard work will make a huge difference to our patients.

Every single penny helps and to give you an idea of what your efforts will achieve, some examples are below:

• £5 will help pay for a patient meal: on average we serve over 225 meals a month and so every £5 donated goes a very long way to helping us care for our patients.
• £15 will contribute towards a bereavement counseling session given free of charge to patients and family members and carers.
• £25 will help pay for a Day Hospice Therapy workshop
• £50 will help pay for a for someone to receive a remedial reflexology session  
• £100 will help fund a visit to our specialist day hospice. Every day counts at Cotswold Care Hospice, with an average length of 18 day hospice visits per patient, you will be making a tremendous contribution towards the cost of essential care for patients and their families.
• £200 will help pay for a night visit from a Hospice at Home nurse, allowing patients to stay at home and offering much needed support for family members.  
• Top Tips from Last Year’s Walkers
• Set a goal, decide how much money you think you can raise and have something to aim for, be ambitious, most people are surprised by how much money adds up
• The earlier you start your fundraising the better to give people as much notice as possible
• Approach as many people as possible and get them to spread the word about what you are doing
• Approach your employer to match your fundraising pound for pound as many companies now do this. They can claim a tax break too
• Get people in your local community involved: tell them all about the Cotswold Midnight Walk and get them to pledge money or raise awareness of your fundraising
• Hold fun and easy to organise events like cake sales at work or a raffle to boost your funds
• Encourage everyone that sponsors you to gift aid their donation: that way for every pound you raise, an extra 28p will be donated at no extra cost to you. So on sponsorship of £50 that would be £14 extra for no additional effort!

How to raise £50 in 10 days!

• Day 1: Put your own £5 in
• Day 2: Place a container at your local store or café
• Day 3: Ask two of your co workers for £2 each
• Day 4: Ask three friends for £2
• Day 5: Ask two relatives for £2
• Day 6: Ask a neighbour for £2
• Day 7: Ask two people from your local church or community group for £2
• Day 8: Ask your boss for £10
• Day 9: Ask two local stores to donate £10 each
• Day 10: Have a rest!

• Collecting Tins: Great for the workplace, reception or workshop. To order your tin, just call 01453 886868 and ask to speak with a member of the fundraising team.
• Competitions: Have fun competitions in the home or office
• Crafts: If you have a talent, make something and sell it to others eg. hand bags, necklaces, cards, candles etc.
• Garage Sales: Use your garage, shed or car boot to display your wares or even have a Bring and Buy
• Guessing Competition: Guess how many sweets in the jar? Or Name the Teddy: great old favorites!
• Hire Services: Hire out what you do best i.e. mow lawns, handy man, massage or even accounts
• Open Garden: Green thumbs can invite people to visit their spring garden and charge an admission fee. Sell some plants as well or incorporate a coffee morning.
• Slave for a Day: Sell someone you know by giving them tasks for a day eg. ironing, answering telephones, coffee runs

• Trivia Night: A great social gathering and you could charge team entry
• Cosy Night In: Invite friends and family over to yours for a night in and charge them the equivalent to what they would have spent on a night out eg. Dinner, a dvd night, a bingo night or a pamper night