Keeping a hospice charity afloat can be tough. Hospice and palliative care is a topic some people find hard to talk about, but that’s why good fundraising and awareness raising are so crucial. It’s important to embrace a multichannel approach to raising money to make sure that you keep your doors open and support as many people as you can. What can you do to raise more funds to enable you to grow and expand? If you are struggling to think of innovative ideas to raise funds right now, take a look at these six creative online ideas to get you started.
1. Impart Knowledge: Webinars
A webinar is a great way to share knowledge and expertise with people around the world: harnessing your organization’s internal resources to educate and inspire people. Webinars are a low-cost way to raise money online and can be a great way to offer staff personal development opportunities. Here is a whole ebook that takes you through the basics of running a successful webinar.
Webinar ideas:
- Create webinars with helpful tips about working for a charity, and information on how to get involved with the charity sector. Especially content surrounding how to manage a charity day-to-day would be useful (including how to deal with paperwork).
- Get an online influencer to run a webinar on your behalf and act as a silent sponsor.
How to make money:
Simply charge a small, one-off payment for a specific video, or offer a monthly subscription fee for unlimited access to your webinars. Promote your webinars through social media and email to reach a wider audience. If you have not already created social media accounts for your charity, find out why social media is so important for your charity and how you can embrace it.
2. Monthly Income: Open an Online Store
Why not create a source of continuous online income that you can rely on to support your charity?
Consistent, monthly donations are so important to help you budget and plan for the future – supplement your monthly income with online merchandise.
How to make money:
Open an online store selling branded merchandise, or even products made by patients, staff, or other service users.
You can either use a simple online store builder, or open a store on Ebay to cut down on hosting and web maintenance costs. Make sure your store can be easily found and keep it updated with fresh products to keep things interesting.
Product ideas:
- Charity Christmas cards
- Vouchers and gift cards for local services
- Small mementoes and tokens (photo books, photo frames etc.)
- Sweets and treats (gift hampers are great)
- Cuddly toys & relaxation gifts
- Bridal products
3. Apply for Online Grants
Search the web for grant opportunities around the world and see whether you qualify.
There are loads of charitable foundations and local bodies who want to support vital hospice work that happens within the community. Hospices are also popular charities for trusts, but if you are a smaller hospice you will need to go out and promote your cause to raise awareness. It’s worth investing time and money into extensive online research.
- Make sure you read any application information carefully to ensure that you qualify.
- It’s a good idea to have a quick email exchange or phone call before submitting an application.
4. Get Creative: YouTube Not-for-Profit Programme
Online video is becoming more and more affordable as a way to fundraise online. Get your creative juices flowing with YouTube who offer a channel for charity organizations to promote any campaign videos using their not-for-profit program. You have the option to put a ‘donate now’ button on your video to raise more money online.
You need to market effectively and create content that people will want to see – great content grabs people’s attention and will multiply donations fast. Think about how you can bring your hospice work closer to people’s everyday lives or share some human stories from your work.
How to sign up:
Craft a compelling campaign video and upload it to your YouTube channel. Apply to Google for Charities and then enrol your charity to the program using the instructions in your confirmation email. Get your video posted and monitor your reach.
5. Be Traditional: Crowdfunding
Reach out to people where they are and encourage online donations through crowdfunding or online donation platforms.
- By setting out monetary goals for discreet projects (buying new bedding, getting in some new equipment etc.) you will be able to create a sense of connection with anyone who donates.
- Crowdfunding also means that you can reach a global market with the click of one button.
- This is a great way to raise money both as an organization, and as an individual, and you should encourage any of your existing fundraisers to use online fundraising platforms to help them simplify the fundraising process and maximize the returns.
How to make money:
Simply create an account and explain what you and your charity are all about. Write about what your organization does and what the money will be used for. Provide as much information as possible to increase donations and always follow platform requirements. Use websites like Go Fund Me and Just Giving to get you started.
6. Share Your Voice: Blogging & Sponsored Content
Selling your expertise through content is a great way to get digital PR (or even payment). Reaching out to websites as a charity is all about raising awareness and sharing your voice to get your message heard on other platforms.
- Reach out to relevant websites and companies and ask to write valuable, relevant content for their readers for a small fee. Or, ask for some free awareness in the form of a link or social media shout out instead (both can be super valuable). Develop these relationships for future opportunities to share your expertise.
- If you want to, you could open your own blog to guest bloggers or advertisers to raise funds online. Monetizing your own blog can be a great way to earn some extra income and offer fresh new content to your readers. Inform contributors of your specific requirements and invite them to get in touch about potential guest articles.
Ensuring that you have a steady stream of income for your hospice charity will give you room to grow and expand, and will provide more support to the people who need it the most. While making money is important, never lose touch with your cause and core values because this is what makes your charity unique.
Which of these online ideas will you try first? Let me know in the comments below.
About the author
Kayleigh Alexandra is a Content Marketer & Startup Specialist. She is passionate about writing for the startup and entrepreneurial audience, and has recently been part of setting up an exciting project at MicroStartups.org. All website profits are donated to charities that help people reach their full potential. Find out more on Twitter.
Leave a Reply