A Celebration Fundraiser

I love birthdays and I love entertaining. So, as I approached my 70th birthday I was arranging several small-scale get-togethers with different groups of friends. I was conscious that many people feel they need to bring a gift to such an event. Yet I really didn’t want lots of bottles or flowers or other gifts that I really didn’t need…

I was aware of several friends who’d done a birthday fundraiser for charity, often via Facebook or JustGiving. One friend, an occupational therapist specialising in arthritic hands, celebrated her 60th birthday by abseiling down the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth to support Arthritis UK. The concept seemed like a great solution to my dilemma, though I wasn’t quite so brave!

There are seven charities that I support monthly through my Stewardship giving account, one of which is Faith in Later Life (FILL). As I contemplated which charity to support for my birthday fundraiser FILL seemed like a great match for a 70th birthday.

I contacted Alex and Rachel to explore the idea further. They were delighted and told me about the fundraising facilities on the FILL and Stewardship websites. They have some helpful FAQs on the donations page.

I made a plan (see below) and went ahead. It was so exciting as the donations grew. Stewardship emailed me each time there was a new donation: it was like unwrapping wonderful birthday gifts. Everyone was so generous. Most people were able to Gift Aid their donation, which added an additional 25%. Amazingly the total has reached £1,553 (which included £220 Gift Aid) after Stewardship deducted a small fee. The donations ranged from £15 to £60 with one hugely generous anonymous gift of £500.

So how about you? Will you be celebrating a significant birthday or anniversary in the coming year? Might you support Faith in Later Life in a similar way? Here’s what I did:

1. Set up my fundraising page. Both Stewardship and JustGiving allow you to easily set up a fundraising page to raise money for Faith in Later Life.  They lead you through the information required. In case its helpful here’s what I wrote.

2. Invited friends to my various birthday events. I explained I didn’t want any gifts: however if they wished to make a donation there was a link to my fundraising page on the Stewardship website. I also posted a link on Facebook. As a result several others, including some of my lovely neighbours, gave. I received numbers of encouraging comments about what I’d done.

3. Monitored progress: 22 friends generously donated. Some had never heard of FILL and asked me about the charity. I’m hoping some might even make further donations to FILL in the future!

4. Thanked friends who donated and posted the total on Facebook. Alex also wrote to thank donors on behalf of FILL. NB some gave anonymously so we couldn’t thank them.

I’m thrilled by the outcome and would love to encourage others to consider doing something similar.