Pandemic Fundraising

The pandemic has changed nearly every aspect of how we live our lives. Besides social distancing and a lack of entertainment there are affects of the pandemic that aren\’t being talked about such as fundraising, charity, and cash.

Check your wallet or purse right now and look for any cash. For most of you, it\’ll be empty, but for those of you with a stray £10 note; when did you leave that note in there- how long has it been since?

I\’d be willing to put money on it being in there since February or March last year. This begs the question…

At What Point in the Pandemic is it Time to Let Cash Go?

To answer that question I am going to look into how a lack of cash can affect us at SFC.

If there\’s no cash, then charitable donations can be harder to make. This means that charities and CIC\’s will see reduced income as people don\’t have spare cash for charity boxes.

Think about the amount of times a member of a charity has packed your bags at the end of a checkout but you\’ve had no extra cash to give. Then think about the way we are moving into the digital age as we begin to phase out cash entirely meaning that there won\’t be a job for bag packers with charities, and there won\’t be anyone stood outside on the high street asking for donations.

Think about the amount of money these charities are missing out on.

With the coming of the digital age, there should also be a move between physical fundraising through bag packing and other means of physical fundraising. There are already ways in which you can fund-raise digitally, for instance, at SFC we have began using Crowdfunder, a website that allows you to create profiles for individual goals that you set.

How Does Sports For Champions use Crowdfunder for Fundraising?

We use Crowdfunder within our campaigns to create custom pages for each school we host an event at. Each school has a custom fundraising video from their own athlete that can be posted on social media. This can help drive up donations as it puts a face to the name and shows that our athletes care.

If you\’re a school you can expect us to offer you a Crowdfunder page with these features.

We also have a plan in place to further promote these pages through our social media platforms. We start by posting about the campaign, followed by a second follow-up post to ensure that people have seen it. Finally, we ask that the institution also uses their platform to post about the Crowdfunder page.

This campaign will give each page a unique personality as they will be handcrafted for each event. The athletes will also contribute to this page making it worthwhile as they are invested in fundraising!

We hope that each school appreciate the effort put into each page. With all that said…

Is This the Future of Fundraising?

The answer is no. This is because, fundamentally, fundraising is a strategy based on compassion and people\’s attachment to a cause. The truth is that this will always be easier in person where you can present body language and generally receive more donations as people feel inclined to donate in person.

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