Ideas

• Auction of promises - instead of auctioning items, ask your friends, family or work colleagues to pledge their time, skills and services to be put up for auction. People can bid for someone to spend the day as their handyman or for a nights babysitting.
• Car boot and yard sales are a good excuse to have a clear out. Ask friends and family if they’d like to de-clutter their attics to and donate items for sale.
• Something to celebrate? Have a party and ask guests if they would to make a donation to Home-Start instead of buying a present.
• Host a quiz night at your local pub, community centre, school, cafe and charge a small entry fee to take part.
• Hold a raffle - you could contact your local shops, pubs and restaurants to donate items or vouchers as prizes.
• Supermarket bag packing - Get a few people you know to volunteer for a couple of hours. Offer to help pack people’s shopping in exchange for a donation. Contact your local supermarket as early as possible to arrange and time and date because slots often get booked up well in advance.
• Host an amateur poker tournament playing to raise money. Set a buy-in price and then split the pot between the winner and Home-Start UK.
• Seed Bank: In the springtime, ask local gardeners and garden centres for donations of seeds, seedlings or bedding plants and host an afternoon of garden sales.
• Rent a karaoke machine and host a party at home, or speak to a local restaurant or bar about hosting for the evening. Charge an entry fee and have a prize for your winner.
• Plan a scavenger hunt and charge teams an entry fee to take part. Create a list of items and photos the teams must obtain. Hold it in your local area and include some interesting local history facts or unique attractions. Add bonus tasks to make it even more fun, such as getting a photo of the entire team jumping. Set a time limit and impose a penalty of -1 point for each minute a player is late. Arrange for somewhere to reconvene and total up how many points each player’s scored. The winner gets a prize or bragging rights.

Join in other events:

Find out what local events are going on around you such as village fetes, coffee mornings and school fairs and ask if you can hold a stall. You could sell home baked cakes, hold a tombola, or run an activity like hook-a-duck for the children.

Matched giving:

Ask your employer if they operate a Matched Giving Scheme as this is a really good way to increase the money you raise from sponsorship. If they agree to support you, why not get the whole team involved in some fun fundraising in the workplace?

The usual procedure is for you and Home-Start to fill in a simple form, which you will then hand to your employer. After the event Home-Start will confirm the amount you have raised and your employer can send a cheque to us to support our work.

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