Busy bee update

Not that I expect to have much of a fan base, this blog is more for me to learn and find time to develop my real passion for fundraising, but I am quite disappointed that recently I have let my blog slip. Can't believe my last blog was 1st January!

Why have I let it slip? Well life really! I think like most things it is about moderation and prioritising, and blogging has not been a priority. I have been raising awareness of the services provided for Maggie's with my new job there, working hard, learning to drive, going out and socialising more with friends I am losing touch with and of course spending lots of time with my new boyfriend! :)

However, I will not let this lack of bloggage continue and will set up 3 blog posts for the coming week as I have a lot to report including:
-Fundraising for Maggie's
-Different ways to fundraise
-Donor and Fundraising Relations
 

My year in Fundraising (2014)

So where to begin? I hope I don't miss anything out

Bungee Jump for Aberlour!

After raising over £300 for the fantastic Aberlour Childcare Trust (http://www.aberlour.org.uk/), I completed a terrifying bungee jump, which made me vow to try not to do anything else so frightening! I raised money with minimum effort, which was a change from how I raised my funds to climb Mt Kilimanjaro the year previous. I sold things on ebay, organised a tea party (hand massages, bakes and raffle) and through kind online donations.

Marie Curie - Office and Fundraising

Ok, I didn't help out for long, but gained a decent amount of experience from volunteering with Marie Curie Cancer Care. Not only did I learn how a fundraising office works, but I helped them to promote their BGTP (Blooming Great Tea Party) event which they do annually. I even organised my own tea party, which although it only had 2 people show up, I  still raised the minimum amount of £100, so I am happy with that. Fair enough I fundraised online, and sold on ebay to boost funds, but it still counts, right? One friend, Kelly also baked and raised money from it.


More for Aberlour!

I realised the great work this charity did after my skydive, and I am so amazed at the work they do to support families. Over this year, I worked as a receptionist for Drugs Action, who work wonders to support those affected by drugs and alcohol addiction in Aberdeen city and shire. From my work there, I came into contact with the collaboration between Aberlour and Drugs Action with Families First. For more information: http://www.aberlour.org.uk/how_we_help/services/424_families_first. In my time fundraising for Aberlour, I had my first experience of corporate fundraising, by supporting a family event organised for Aberlour and Homestart by french oil company, Total. I also provided PR and social media support for a mother's and baby group who organised a zumba event, and raised a phenomenal amount for Aberlour.

Some final bits I have done to promote fantastic fundraising:

• Raising awareness of campaigns close to my heart from mental health charities and Macmillan
• Supporting friends' fantastic fundraising events such as: Paul Greene who did a fab kiltwalk for Aberlour; Hannah Cosgrove Adams who did 2 runs for Race for Life and Baker Hughes - both 10Ks (she is doin more this year too); Ruth Clark's volunteering and fundraising for International Service and now for Raleigh International Service
• Supported bare faced selfie, where I wore no makeup (hard for most girls especially one with hang-ups about their skin like me). I also donated £5 to a favourite cancer charity, Friends of ANCHOR.
• Most people participated in the ice bucket challenge, but I was ill at the time but still chose to donate £10 to the great cause!
• I volunteered for the Royal Voluntary Service after graduating university, while looking for a job.

I have also had some wonderful highlights personally including meeting some great people from working as a consultant for Molton Brown and Philosophy counter in Boots and Drugs Actions.

I had trips to Glasgow including seeing Katy Perry live with my close friend, Kirstin Dorward and on training (being reunited with Julie Sutton).

 I survived university with exam and dissertation stress, which was the worst emotional turmoil I have gone through. However, I got out alive and managed to get my honours degree. Not the grade I wished for, but I still managed to find employment.

In the last month, I got my ideal job as fundraising coordinator for Maggie's, who work to provide emotional, social and practical support for those affected by cancer with the use of a local centre that makes visitors feel at home. 

Not only that, but I also met a great guy, who I wouldn't normally mention after 6 weeks of dating, but already we have had a total of 7 dates or more, and I can see the future with and exchanged the amazing "I love you" words! I love you, Jamie Finlay Lumsden. Here is to another lovely year! 2015, it will be difficult to beat this year, but with plans to abseil, see Black Keys live and have my first city break with the boyfriend, I know it will be getting close.

Twitter

I am 22, and have grown up in the era that has created social media, so I know what it is and I know its effect, but I decided to write this post. In my new job in fundraising, I feel I can't do enough. My knowledge is important, but  I feel it needs to constantly be revised and double-checked. Therefore I decided to write a post specific to twitter.

I have seen two great posts recently about twitter:
1. How your charity can boost twitter engagement
2. 3 simple ways to drive donor engagement on twitter

The first post details six great tips to improve upon twitter engagement. In my own words, here are the tips provided, and how I feel that these are relevant:
1. Use image psychology, which research has demonstrated creates the highest-click-through rate. I believe the evidence is shown in many posts that are not just for charities, but individual profiles. For example, when I posted an update about graduating university, it was scrolled-past, but when I posted a picture I got over 70 likes!
2. Analyse how the target audience identify themselves and create tweets specific to them. If you want retweets, to be favoured or to make any impact, you need to see what is popular, and to engage best with the audience.
3. Be simple in your ideas. There is no need to re-invent the wheel. If competition do certain services, there is no shame in promoting, and keeping yourselves unique. Use hashtags that you use regularly (I have noticed charities do this to promote their campaigns e.g. #NoMakeupSelfie)
4. Reverse psychology can work to your advantage. If you occasionally suggest not to read something, or not to donate to something, people might really want to.
5. Studies show that readers like to read sentences where the first letter of each primary word is capitalised. I have not personally done this, so I am not too sure!
6. Post tweets that you aim to get extra clicks to or retweeted, so be sure to take the effort to organise a Twitter marketing strategy and post tweets that speak directly to your supporters.

The second and final link instructs three simple ways that Twitter can help to engage and boost your relationship with your audience through retweets, replies and direct messages. It separates how to do all three perfectly.

Retweets:
As described in this post, it is essential to get retweets in order to build "your credibility by associating with other great ideas or organisations and expanding your reach by connecting with followers across the Twitterverse." To make it even easier to retweet, the article suggests that you aim to keep tweets to 115 characters or less. This allows followers an extra 25 characters to add personalisations when they decide to retweet your post!

Replies:
Kindful states: "Replies on Twitter are the best way to create an ongoing conversation with Twitter followers and increase your donor engagement online." Unsustainably, the post says in order to make it work successfully, you need to be on twitter constantly! It suggests checking twitter once an hour, to ensure there is never a missed opportunity to respond to tweets that are relevant to you and your audience. Most helpfully, it continues to provide the following guidance: "It’s important to note that where you place the @username in your reply matters. If you place it at the beginning of your reply as shown above, it will be visible by your intended recipient as well as any of your followers who are also following that recipient. If you place the @username somewhere in the middle of your reply it will be seen by the recipient and all your followers. This can be helpful if you want all your constituents to see a response to a common question about your organization."

Direct Messages:
DMs are great to connect to followers directly in a more private setting, as well as driving more traffic to your online fundraising campaign.This is the perfect way for you to reach out to potential donors in a more personal and discreet way. There is still a 140 character limit, so this means you need to be extra concise, while conveying compelling content. Some organisations may choose to send automatic direct messages to new followers, but to be unique it can be more compelling to stand out in your communications.

 

All about the fundraising

Here are a few posts that are worth examining:
1. Why face to face fundraising is so valuable
2. How to go above and beyond your next event's fundraising goal
3. How your friends affect your charitable donations online

An interesting read from speaking to Annemarie Delvin from Sense Scotland, who wishes to describe the success of investing in Face-to-face fundraising. It doesn't just examine the dreaded door-to-door but also the move into more private site activity. She states that: "Many of the donors we sign up on the doorstep through our partner Fundraising Initiatives become longstanding supporters.." Delvin describes that this is due to two main reasons such as it being local and "on the donor's doorstep" as to speak, and also because field agents are well trained in how to conduct themselves in face to face fundraising.

'How to go above and beyond your next event's fundraising goal' is a long-winded post, but a valuable read that I suggest anyone who likes to fundraise, or who works in the charitable sector. It discusses registering in a way that promotes peer-to-peer fundraising, and can be described as a 'staple in an organisation's fundraising strategy'. The post is helpful in providing suggestions like using registration and fundraising as an option on nonprofit fundraising software to automatically create a fundraising page for every participant who buys a ticket to your event. It allows more explosure, and helps to set the relevant goal. When charities set a fundraising goal, they need to answer the following questions first: What are you hoping to fund? Is it going toward a specific programme or project? These questions will all help to define the campaign goal. The charities will also need to gauge participator involvement by working out how much each person will need to raise for success (baring in mind that the majority who register may not fundraise). It is so important to utilise registration and fundraising. For continued success, charities need to equip participants with the relevant resources including: fundraising tips, clear and concise how to guide, sample social media posts, photos and/or videos of fieldwork for fundraisers to utilise on their page and branded graphics and assets for personal fundraising campaigns.

It is interesting to read some of the statistics relating to the friends who donate online: "The majority (70%) of social media users would take some kind of action in response to a friend posting a story on social media about making a charitable donation. Moreover, while only 3% of respondents said social media was the most effective way for the charity itself to request a donation, the number jumped to 19% when asked if they would likely donate money to a charity if they saw a friend post about a recent donation." It is exactly how I believe to be true. People don't tend to donate if you post a link, but if you tell a story or post pictures to inspire people, they tend to want to donate. This is why I believe comic relief is so effective; it isn't negative, but instead shares stories of the success that comes with donating to such an excellent cause.

I hope you enjoy the post and any feedback is appreciated.

Kind things to find time to do

Anyone who is in the charitable sector, or interested by the sector finds time to do good. This is why I liked the following articles:
1. 100 easy ways to brighten someone's day
2. 109 random acts of kindness you can start doing-today
3. Why generosity is key to everything

There are so many things you can do to brighten someone's day, but some are just common sense and good manners, such as send thank you letters, deliver print outs to coworkers (if getting something from the printer anyway) and holding the door open. However some are nice gestures that can make someone feel better. For example buying a drink for a coworker; I remember working in one job where a guy who almost daily buy one friend a smoothie and expect nothing in return. Another good idea is buy for someone; I had someone say as a new mother she went to a photobooth and the manager paid for the pictures. Kindness from a complete stranger is even more heartwarming. At the same time I disagree with some such as let someone cut the queue. What is the point in that? When it is busy that makes nobody happy!  It also promotes impolite behaviour.

 The next article makes you realise how many nice things you could be doing. It details kind things to do such as: partaking in a beach cleanup, helping the elderly in different ways, volunteering, giving blood, adopt from an animal shelter, directing lost tourist, mentoring or helping people with bags/luggage. It suggests things you would never consider too such as emailing your boss or lecturer to say how much you like learning from them, giving an umbrella to a homeless person when it rains, listening to a friend vent or organising a holiday for your parents. One of my favourites has to be smile; I believe it can make anyone seem more approachable and cheer anyone up. I have always been taught  to smile when I am down and smile when I am nervous or stressed, or even to make a better impression (e.g. to encourage an interviewer I am approachable and friendly when applying for a job). Another favourite is to be kind to someone you dislike; I believe people are often disliked for good reason and a decision to not warm to a particular character is not taken lightly. Just because someone else is rude, does not mean you should stupe to their level. Being nice is the perfect revenge to someone who is truly mean.

True generosity is when you expect nothing in return, but unfortunately I believe it is rare to find a tuly selfless act of kindness. Even the nicest of people do things to make themselves happier. They may volunteer in a third world country to see the positive effect of their effort as well as helping to reduce world poverty. However, there can only be positivity in being generous as research shows in link 3. For example, it is said that happier people are better employees as they tend to work harder and be much more productive. By brightening people's days, it can be seen to benefit your career!

I hope this inspires you to do some good, and if it does, I encourage you to visit: http://getinvolved.org.uk/ or you can google for similar sites.

Campaigns worth celebrating

Don't get ahead of yourself, this isn't a year evaluation of campaigns. That is still to come! Instead I chose to look at recent campaigns I have seen, and to evaluate them. I know it is not many but please let me know what you think!

1) Kidscape - Don't Say Don't Send
This new campaign for the children's charity aims to combat cyber bullying in order to work in making young people consider their online behaviour more. It is all about installing the ideology in cyber space that if you wouldn't say something face-to-face, why say it online?


2) Cancer Research UK - #SmokeThis
The national cancer charity is asking their social media followers to take a phone of themselves with two fingers up as part of its #SmokeThis campaign. Abigal Brown is head of health marketing for Cancer Research UK, and she said: "We hope the campaign is a catalyst for a strong sense of collective empowerment amongst our young people in the face of a corporate juggernaut."



3) WWF - #PenguinDanceBattle
The campaign tries to benefit essential conservation work that protects the habitat of Adélie penguins. This christmas campaign wants to raise awareness of polar regions by getting people to share their best penguin dance moves. This is so much fun to raise awareness of the daily threat penguins have because of commercial fishing and climate change. A representative of WWF-UK said: "We want people to have lots of fun with our Christmas challenge but there is a serious message here."

4) #HomeforChristmas

This is a joint campaign between Missing People and A+E Networks UK led by the voice of Stephen Fry. The appeal has shows a collection of people's stories who have had their loved ones missing for  many years.

5) Macmillan - DRTV
Lynda Bellingham was a longstanding ambassador of Macmillan, but in her late days she also had her own Macmillan nurse. For their recent campaign she recorded the voiceover, which has helped raise £20,000 in text donations alone!


These are all fantastic causes, look them up if you haven't heard about them already!

Christmas Fundraising

This is just a short post to write some great things I think are happening over christmas to fundraise for valuable charities:

1) Supporting cancer - Maggie's christmas cards at £4 for a pack of 10 where the money goes to directly help the running of the local centre. There are also carol events going on in most centres. Enquire about your nearest centre
2) Help the homeless - Cyrenians have collected in a rucksack appeal, but are now doing selling of christmas cards, strEAT alternatives cookbooks and collecting for a shoebox appeal for service users over christmas.
3) Text Santa
4) Sponsor someone for the year, what better present for a family one? A lot of charities are promoting this
5)  Save the children have also done a christmas jumper appeal encouraging people to give £1 in every school, church or work place to get involved in festive fun

Sorry it is short, but no excuses for not reading!