Freegle Funding Group Report - 2017 01/04
Freegle Funding April 2017
Freegle Funding report 10/01/17- 06/04/17, covering messages 824 -945.
We have 49 members as at 06/04, new members very welcome! Topics discussed as follows:
Newletters
Jacky continues to forward 3 funding newsletters to the group.
Application to Transform Foundation
Edward spotted a competition to win £18k from the transformfoundation.org.uk ; it wasn’t particularly suited to us, but Edward applied, as it was a fairly quick process. It was rejected, but they have told us that they will shortly launch a scheme for smaller organisations.
Online Offers
Following the previous funding report, Mark (Skipton) offered to look at doing suitable online/ affiliate/ offers, on a percentage commission of the income brought in. It was agreed that any offer had to be appropriate and also good value.
Necessity for Funds
When the last report went out, it was suggested that if we spent less, we would not need to fundraise. This is not so as we have certain unavoidable costs, and it also does not allow scope to develop. Mhairi offered her help to find a fundraising volunteer and drafted a role description. Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/ document/d/1CrGswr-i50UOgu6kl_ YmcVTWYjehk6OeVQuyq5GhqZ4/ edit?usp=sharing A promising volunteer has come forward.
Opportunities
- Dominic spotted an appeal for small charities. The top prize was £450, but it was felt that this would not justify the work involved to get it.
- The Digital Awards application was unsuccessful, but has been put in a spreadsheet, hosted on Freegleinfo@drive .Thanks to Jacqui, Chris and Edward
- David sent out some information regarding training on fundraising.
- A hasty application was made by Edward, Chris, Ollie and Liz for money for Give and Takes to Cumbria County Council for Kendal Freegle. It was successful and £350 is being paid.
- Uber partnership – following bad publicity, it was decided not to proceed.
- Chris suggested a limerick competition, which generated a few responses, which can be found at http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Freegle_Limericks_and_Poems
- Liz from Enfield was sent details of a grant from Cambridge City Council, but seemingly too late for the deadline.
- A contact of Edward’s has suggested that we look at Savoo as a new way of attracting supporters through online shopping. Edward is exploring the possibility.
- Dominic raised the national Waitrose scheme and it was suggested that we should explore this further.
Fundraising via FD
- Following discussions on Central and Tech about Sheila’s suggestion of an admin message asking for donations, a couple of options were circulated and Edward is trialling them to see which is most successful. It was suggested to send them out no more than twice a year.
- Edward tried asking for donations on a group basis, using an estimate of activity to apportion a target. There is some text to make it clear that the funds are for Freegle generally (otherwise they'd become restricted donations, which would have to be accounted for and tracked separately). Initial results from the first few days are encouraging. Several times more people are donating (as a percentage of those we ask). The average donation people make is a bit smaller, but the overall result is that we seem to get around £60/day compared to £30/day. It's too soon to say whether this effect will continue over the whole year, but it was very encouraging to receive a single donation of £50 from a member of Dartford Freegle, enough to pay for that group for the year.
Liz
Lewes, Battle and Funding
Links
- Freegle Funding Group
- Previous report Freegle Funding Group Report - 2016 10-2017/01
- Following report Freegle Funding Group Report
