How your Scouts and Guides can get the most out of fundraising online

Fundraising can be daunting, especially when getting started, here’s our tips for members to get the most out of an online campaign.

25th March 2019

Fundraising is often an essential part of Scouting and Girlguiding. Whether it’s to upgrade your facilities, earning the funds for your adventures and activities or even if it’s working towards a new badge and raising money for other non-Scouts or Guiding causes.

Recently, Scouts announced that it is partnering with online fundraising site, GoFundMe, on a new badge which will encourage the youngsters to fundraise for their chosen charities and causes with the aim of continuing Scouts’ increased involvement in their community compared to non-Scouts.

Online fundraising can be quite daunting, especially when setting up your campaign and sharing it with others.

Take a look at our tips on how to get the most out of your online fundraising campaign that you can then share with your Scouts to get them started:

Share on Social Media

Simply spreading the word by sharing your fundraising campaign on your social media channels is enough to get the number on your GoFundMe page closer to reaching your target.

But there are also other ways to make the most of sharing on social media to boost your donations.

Take Twitter for example, many local areas have specific hours on a week day/night where they use a specific hashtag to make people aware of things that are happening in their community and encourage users to get involved. As many retweets as possible can boost your chances of success as well as finding other people who may also want to get involved.

Alternatively, if your fundraising campaign is alongside an activity, you could also create your own hashtag to share pictures, information and any other updates.

Make use of social media to spread the word and boost your Group’s fundraising efforts!

Tell a story

Often people will be more compelled to get involved with something, and even more so when it comes to donating, when they relate to the cause that it’s raising money and awareness for.

Write an introduction about why you are fundraising for your particular cause or charity and if you feel comfortable enough, why it’s especially important to you.

Hold a traditional fundraising event too

Speaking of fundraising with an activity, this can also help to bring in more money for your cause.

Holding a bake sale, book fair, clothes swap or anything else that involves people coming along means that you can make money from their attendance as well as making them aware of your campaign online.

You can then also put the money raised towards your final total.