Make it work for you in less than 5 minutes
Quick - use this link to get images or html code to create a link on your website and then just let your staff volunteers get on with some brilliant fundraising.
PR - encourage staff to put your company fundraising events on our calendar.
Now - read through our hints below, if you can't stop to do it all straight away, why not schedule a half-hour slot in your diary to start really getting the most out of this site...
Why use this site?
Benefits of employee volunteering include better workplace moral and staff retention, as well as improved leadership, decision making, communication skills and team building.
There is no other independent website designed to meet the needs of the 16 million volunteer-fundraisers in the UK.
Volunteer-fundraising is recognised as the most popular form of volunteering in recent government research. While a donor gives money to a cause a volunteer-fundraiser generates that money as a result of their activities.
Will volunteer-fundraising bring our staff the same benefits as other forms of volunteering?
- Successful volunteer-fundraising events require effective communication skills for both internal and external audiences; many fundraising events need a crowd.
- Anyone who has organised, for example an auction or golf day, will tell you that it requires strong organisational and leadership skills.
- The lone volunteer-fundraiser, preparing to run a marathon for example, will develop in areas of personal time management, self motivation and problem solving.
- Volunteer-fundraisers tell as many people as they can to support their activity and are likely to take a very public pride in your company’s support.
- Their impact in the community is every bit as important as the volunteers who give time and skills; every volunteer minibus driver needs funds to maintain the bus.
- Volunteer fundraising is very flexible; staff can be involved with a charity over a week, month or year and still perfectly match the needs of the charity beneficiaries.
Get the most from this site
Once you have set up links so your staff can find this site, you may want to promote it in your staff magazine or website pages. We are more than happy to provide you with editorial, please contact us and let us know what you need.
For companies that wish to promote their own internal volunteer-fundraising programmes, such as match-funding or charity of the year, we offer a co-branded site with banner text and the option to select which pages are co-branded. You also control the logo and text that appears on the header and footer of template documents such as letters; sponsorship forms and gift aid declarations. Co-branded sites are available to all Corporate Members of the Institute of Fundraising as part of their membership package.
We want your staff to:
understand the law and best practice that governs their activities, this is important for your reputation, the safety of your staff and helps maintain the publics’ high regard for volunteer-fundraisers, it is part of what the Institute exists to do
be better informed about running activities, enjoy the process more and achieve greater success, this boosts staff morale and maximises help to the charities they support
inspire newcomers and ‘returners’ by promoting new and wide ranging activities
build our national body of knowledge by encouraging volunteer fundraisers to share their success stories
Visitors to how2fundraise.org will be able to create their own profile and leave information about their fundraising activities; they can post questions and share answers and write how2guides. We will employ a fulltime editor to ensure that all content meets our industry-leading standards for fundraising advice, it remains current and is widely promoted.
The site offers, free of charge:
- How2guides on running fundraising activities, detailing relevant law and best practice
- Know-how guides on issues such as “asking effectively”, “food safety at events”
- Question and answer forums
- Me & my fundraising, personal profile pages
- A calendar of volunteer-fundraising events being run by UK charities
- News centre and polls
- A directory of suppliers
- Information for charities, companies and suppliers on volunteer-fundraising
We very much hope that you will see the site as part of your strategy to encourage and support volunteering.
