These online fundraising ideas are for you to raise funds individually and organise sponsorship events with friends and family.
These ideas can also be used by firms to organise online staff fundraising events.
Funds raised by online fundraising events can be added directly to your individual or firm fundraising page on idonate.ie. Simply send the link to all involved!
Remember, if organising any of the online events below, simply add your idonate.ie page to the chat box, encouraging people to donate and watch it increase live online.
Donate your commute: why not donate some of your savings on your daily commute to your individual or firm idonate.ie page
Donate whatever you’re not spending money on (daily coffee, pricey lunch breaks, lunchtime shopping, petrol, pints)
Donate your birthday: if you can’t celebrate due to social distancing, why not invite them to make a donation to your idonate.ie page. Invite them to a zoom party to celebrate, asking them to do so before and during the party.
Home challenges – involve the kids!: if you’re at home with children, set them a challenge and sponsor them for it. Cooking, cleaning, or making something creative. You could add 1 euro to a jar for every challenge and see how it builds up over time. Thy would draw the money raised on a thermometer drawn to show the increasing amount they are raising.
Grow a beard challenge – vote on the best beard! All voters donate a small amount to your page.
Out of Office emails/Email Signatures: add the Calcutta Run signature with a link to your individual or firm idonate.ie page.
Online Pub Quiz – Invite your friends or if a firm, your staff to grab their favourite drink and snacks and join you on zoom or preferred platform live for a fun online quiz. Choose a quiz theme. You can make the tickets affordable and run the quiz weekly to keep the funds coming in. Offer prizes.
Virtual Book Club – Encourage a group to set up a virtual book club with their friends. The group or staff would find a regular slot for their virtual book club and decide how frequently they’d want to host them. Club meetings would be hosted on video calling platforms such as Skype, Zoom, and Google Hangouts.
Ask your book club members to make a donation to your online fundraising page ahead of each group meeting. You could ask them to simply donate the amount that they would usually spend on drinks if the meeting was being held outside, or to donate the amount that they would spend on getting the bus or taking the car to the host’s house.
Virtual Class or Workshop – With so many pictures of food posted online, it’s not a big leap to offer a cooking class to your supporters.
(How about Facebook Live or Instagram Live?) Put on an apron and channel your inner Jamie Oliver. Or invite a professional to donate an hour or two of their time to a good cause and stream the class from the comfort of their home – with all the proceeds going to your cause.
Or how about yoga, meditation, exercise, knitting, a foreign – or just about anything else? Think about what your audience would enjoy the most and go with that. Offer tiered donation levels for watching the class, various take-out dishes, gift cards, etc.
Virtual Concert – Bring musicians together and host a concert or a mini-festival. Work your network! Live stream the performances and ask people to purchase a ticket to view them. Not only does this bring in the much-needed funds, but it helps bring people together in a positive and uplifting way.
Webinar or Talk – Host a webinar to educate and keep a group up to date. Invite friends, clients and suppliers and ask them to donate to your idonate.ie individual or firm page.
In addition to being informative, webinars and talks can also be great for fundraising. Reach out to speakers, experts, or community leaders, and ask them to put together a short webinar related to your mission or current events.
They’d donate their expertise and you’d charge your supporters a small fee to access the webinar/talk.
Make it clear that the fees are charged to raise funds. Consider offering donation tiers to get the most out of this virtual fundraiser and offer more people the opportunity to access the webinar/talk.
Online Gala Dinner with a surprise guest – Can’t do it in person? Host it via video call. Ask each attendee to create a festive atmosphere on the screen (dress up in their finest outfit, add party hats, tiny decorations, mini-umbrellas for drinks, or even food and drink mixes). Invite a well-known guest or someone unexpected to pop in and sing a song, make a speech or just hang out.
You can also ask the guests to donate the money they would have spent on travel, a new outfit, a bottle of wine, or a gift if they attended the gala in person.
Online Yoga, Pilates, Tai Chi classes – organise for your friends, family or if a firm for your staff and ask them to make a donation to your idonate.ie firm page.
Online Bingo – organise for family/friends or a fun firm-wide online bingo night!
Virtual Coffee Break – Partner with a business and run a virtual coffee break (or a virtual happy hour) with employees donating the price of their favourite coffees, snacks and drinks. Support local cafés that are struggling. Deliver a snack pack to staff that sign up to the coffee break. Or tell the staff to go to a central café where they can collect a coffee as their name is on a coffee break list.
Online Auction
To run an online auction, set up a page where all of the items available can be reviewed and bid on. Coordinate bids beforehand or live online and then announce the winners during another virtual events such as a pub quiz, meeting, webinar, or gala dinner.
Take some time to help people understand why you are raising funds. This will make them feel more involved in the process. When people feel connected to a cause, they are more likely to bid higher.
Put a twist on it and only auction off gift cards or merchandise from local businesses and restaurants who have been impacted the most by COVID-19.
Virtual Craft Workshop – Crafting is an excellent way to get your friends, family or staff engaged, and it can also provide much-needed entertainment for families. Decide on what your craft will be and call a craft maker and think about what supplies you will need.
Create an event page where people can register, pay, and even invite their friends. You will also need to select your platform for participants to log on to. Then, send out emails and create an event on your social media pages.
Send clear instructions to the registered attendees before the event so they know how to log in and which crafting supplies they need to gather.
If possible, put together ‘crafting supplies boxes’ containing everything the participants need for the workshop. Recommend where these can be purchased, collected or send a small pack to family, friends or staff.
Virtual Movie Night – Set a time for everyone to start virtually watching a movie together, while also joining together in a chat room. Then, have someone from your team answer their questions and facilitate discussions during the movie. Choose a movie that’s linked to your cause – ideally a documentary. When promoting the event, make it clear that this event isn’t just about watching a movie, but rather supporting your cause.
In addition to (or in place of) tickets, you can also have a “donate” button displayed, subtly encouraging people to donate. As the movie progresses and people learn more about the cause, they will be more likely to give.
Game Night – A game night is one of the easiest virtual fundraisers. Pictionary, Trivia, Bingo, Codenames, online board games – there are several options to connect and play virtually.
Which online game would your audience be most excited to play to support your cause. It should be a multiplayer game with scores, and there should be some kind of time limit, so your tournament doesn’t go on indefinitely.
Then, once you decide on the date, time, tournament format, and what game you’ll use, you can start getting participants registered and ask them to donate to your company fundraising page on idonate.ie.
Free “X” With a Donation – Offer a free and desirable gift to anyone who makes a donation to your online fundraising page on idonate.ie. Choose a gift that would be attractive. Books, artwork, vouchers, discount codes. Procure these physical items as donations through partnerships with businesses.
If you’d rather avoid handling physical gifts, you can offer things like access to an exclusive webinar, a free consultation session, a video download, a digital book, a printable poster, an audio file, an image, or some other digital gift in exchange for a donation. You can even offer different rewards for various giving levels.