Fundraising Ideas for Volunteers

Is volunteering something that you’ve always wanted to do? Is it a relatively new thing on your bucket list of achievements to complete in life? Either way, for most people, fundraising is involved in the build-up to your trip of a lifetime for a host of reasons.  

The cost of programme fees, flights and raising money for your chosen charity can seem like a mountain to climb when you see how much you need to cover the cost of your overseas volunteering trip. Don’t let that worry you though, because this is where the fundraising comes into play and will help you hit your targets, which can be loads of fun along the way!  

We’ve picked out some fun ideas for you that you take away with you and use to help you raise lots of money for fantastic, worthy causes.  

Charity Sports Events

Putting together something like a charity football, hockey, rugby or netball match is a cool idea because of the numbers of people you can get to be involved with the event. You don’t necessarily have to play if you don’t want, but if you get people together for a game, then they can share the event and have their friends and family come along to support too. before you know it, there’s a chunk of your sponsorship money done, all while raising awareness and bringing people together for a good time!  

Host a Quiz Night

You’ve got people being active with sports, so why not get them all out to help your cause by using their brains in a quiz night? You can sell tickets per person, or get people to enter teams. The good thing with events such as quiz nights is that you can ask local businesses to contribute towards prizes for winners. You can also run a raffle from the event with more donated prizes to be won, and the cash raised then puts you closer to your fundraising target.  

Put on a Concert

Most people have musically gifted friends or know someone who can put them in touch with a DJ and a few bands. Bring together some talent in the music world and make it a really fun time for everyone. Charge a small admission fee and have some collections throughout the course of the night to help boost funds. Speak to a local pub or club and see what they can offer you; a lot of the time, they’ll happily let you run the night for free as they are getting people in to come and buy drinks/food, so it’s a win-win! 

Organise a Pet Show

Who doesn’t love a pet? Dogs and cats are a great crowd-pleaser, so if you organise a pet show then you can gain some real traction when it comes to your fundraising. Offer prizes for pups and their owners as well as letting people take selfies with the pets; this can help your fundraising to get more donations.  

Set Up a Fundraising Page

Speaking of getting more donations, setting up a fundraising page can be a seriously helpful step in your fundraising adventure. This means that you don’t have to worry too much about relying on cash donations only. It’s a useful way to keep track of your progress, as well as sharing your story to more people. 

Share What You Are Doing on Social Media

Along with your fundraising page, sharing your story across social media opens up the chances of raising more money for amazing causes. You can set up a dedicated page to your journey, or use your own personal profile to promote what you are doing to help change lives for the better.  

Sharing on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are going to be the main options as well as sharing stories on Snapchat when you’re running an event. This increases engagement and gets people talking about what you’re doing in the hope that they will spread the message and support you too. 

Use Your Talents

How’s your cross-stitch? Are you awesome at caricatures? Can you capture some breath-taking sunsets through the lens? If you have a talent that you can use to put towards the fundraising plan you have, then why wouldn’t you get it on board? Perhaps you can set-up an Etsy page and use social media to make some sales, or maybe you can host an auction and turn it into a larger event.  

Hopefully, our small handful of fundraising ideas gave you some handy inspiration before you jet off to volunteer. If you have some tried and tested ideas that you think budding volunteers might have lots of fun doing too, then feel free to share them in our social media comments!