People and families can fall into hardship for all kinds of reasons. From a poor harvest to having to pay medical bills, to an accident, to a natural disaster, life can cause serious problems for people all over the world that they may not able to resolve on their own. So what can an individual alone do to help a person or family in need?
Holding a fundraising event for your cause is a local solution that can be created with limited resources that can provide an immediate income boost to your cause. Instead of any donations or profits made at an event going to an established community organization, the money will be given directly to the person or group in need of support.
Fundraisers can be powerful timely support systems for people in need. In some situations, the income raised through the event may be the only source of money available to the family. This makes any contribution vitally important with the ability to make an immediate impact on their lives and wellbeing.
Contrast this with applying to a charitable foundation and it becomes clear how valuable individual local fundraising events can be. Financial assistance requests made through grant proposals can often take three months or more to be decided upon, by which time it may be too late.
Another challenge that individual or family causes face is that they are often ineligible for grant funding themselves, rather they will need an appropriate organization to apply for support on their behalf.
One more reason for favouring local fundraising efforts over grant funding is that most charitable funds will not support individuals directly and by the time any proposal has been appraised, several months later the families situation may be very different.
In an urgent local situation where there does not appear to be any organization, company or government that is able to offer support, then we highly recommend taking matters into your own hands by staging a local fundraising event. It may sound difficult but if you follow our suggested plan, you’ll be able to quickly raise valuable funds to support your cause.
- Find a venue
- Set a date
- Invite you and your beneficiaries friends, family, colleagues and neighbours
- Make some posters detailing the event and hang them around the local area
- Speak and write to companies based in the area to ask if they can support your event or fundraising
- Ask your friends to cook so that you can sell food at your event
- Ask everyone who comes to donate a prize which can then be either raffled or auctioned off
- Arrange for someone to speak about the cause you’re fundraising for and ask the audience to put their hands in their pockets to support the cause
