Raising Money for TB Alert through your company

Celebrate World TB day

World TB day is 24th March, and an ideal time to put on a fundraising event for TB Alert. Although this is on a Sunday in 2002, you could always celebrate it on the previous Friday. You could for instance suggest a Theme day – where staff pay £1 to come in dressed in red for a day (to match TB Alert’s logo) instead of their usual suits. You could add to it by doing a raffle during the day. One of our TB experts would be delighted to come in and give a lunchtime talk to the staff all about TB and TB Alert’s work as a focus for the day. Do you have a staff canteen? You may be able to persuade them to theme their lunch on that day – providing a curry would be ideal – you could then put up posters around the canteen showing TB Alert’s work in India. Then perhaps in the evening you could retire to the pub for a Pub Quiz with questions based on the countries where TB Alert works (we have projects in India, Bangladesh, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi – as well as the UK).

Sweepstakes

If your office has a sweepstake, ask if TB Alert can be the beneficiary (with the winner taking half the proceeds as a prize and the other half going towards your TB Alert Fund). If you don’t do this on a regular basis, why not instigate special occasion sweepstakes for the Grand National, Wimbledon or the FA Cup?

Have a cake sale

Bake cakes/biscuits to sell during break/tea time at your office. Take advantage of those work-induced hunger pangs - if you’re not an expert cook you must know someone who is!

Hold an auction of promises

Simple to arrange, just get people throughout the company to offer “promises” to be auctioned – such as:

Making tea and coffee for a week
Cooking a gourmet meal for the buyer and their partner
Doing someone’s filing for a week
Making a cake of the buyer’s choice
Babysitting on a Saturday night
A morning at the buyers disposal to do their housework or clean their car

Other ideas we have heard of were a wine lover arranging a wine tasting for 6 people, a hairdo in a local salon, a Red Kite specialist taking a group on a nature walk in the Chilterns, an amateur photographer offering to take portraits of the buyers family, and a budding artist doing a painting of the buyers favourite holiday photo! If you can get someone with the gift of the gab (there’s always one in every office!) to act as auctioneer it makes for an entertaining hour or two as well as raising significant funds!

Hijack the office party!

Ask for a donation of a couple of pounds on entrance to any office party, make sure that you keep everyone informed about what you are doing and the work of TB Alert, so that they know what they are supporting

Collect Loose change

Did you know how many millions of pounds in 1p and 2p coins there are in circulation? Time to take advantage of this, keep a collecting tin on your desk, and encourage anyone stopping for a chat to contribute. Or if work in an office where the air can sometimes get blue – have a swear box and charge people for each swear word.

Publicise your activities

Use your company newsletter, intranet or even the good old noticeboard to tell everyone what you are doing and how you are getting on. Try to give them a sense of involvement in your challenge with regular updates, and these are also great places to advertise any events you have organised, as well as pitching for extra sponsorship!

Nominate TB Alert as your company’s Charity of the year.

Many companies choose a different charity each year and raise money through events as well as a donation from the company Charity Fund. Usually the charities are chosen through nominations from the staff. If you you would like to put TB Alert forward as a nominated charity, give us a call on 0845 223 5293 or email fundraising@tbalert.org, and we can provide you with information about TB Alert and our work. If an application from us is required – just let us know the name and phone number of the person to contact and we’ll do the rest.

Ask your company to match what you raise by doing a sponsored challenge in aid of TB Alert

Many companies have schemes where they will match funds raised by employees for their favourite charity – and they may even more than double your money. For more ideas about sponsored challenges click here.

Put your Managing Director in Jail!

“Jail and Bail” is a great way to raise funds for charity whilst having a bit of fun AND achieving local publicity for your company. Basically (with his or her permission of course!) you arrange for your Managing Director to be “arrested” and put in “jail” this can be your conference room, or even your local jail – if its for a good cause you will find the police are often up for a laugh too! The arrested person then has to raise a set amount of bail money by calling their business contacts, friends and family to pledge a donation. Of course you could make this harder by having the staff pledge money to keep him/her in jail! For more information about how to arrange this call us on 0845 223 5293 or email fundraising@tbalert.org.

Corporate Events

If you are the director of a company, or working within Sales or Marketing, you will already know that Corporate events are a great tool to build relationships with new clients or strengthen the bond with existing customers. Why not encourage your potential customers to attend by including a fundraising element to the event? Raising funds for TB Alert whilst having fun will increase your company’s profile and strengthen your business portfolio. For further information contact us on 0845 223 5293 or email fundraising@tbalert.org