# New year, new opportunities to give

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2004/01/13/new-year-new-opportunities-give/
- Published: 2004-01-13T00:00:00+00:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Festivals and seasonal holidays are easy and useful hooks on which to hang a fundraising
appeal, especially online.**

JustGiving.com, the online donations service for charities, has made use of the 
New Year by encouraging its users to turn their New Year resolutions into sponsored
activities in aid of their favourite charities.

Christmas is the popular season for charities to launch an appeal in, but there 
are plenty of other opportunities. Bonfire Night, Valentine’s Day, April Fool’s 
Day, patron saints’ days – all afford an opportunity for some charities to make 
a fundraising appeal. JustGiving’s campaign demonstrates that New Year’s Day is 
just as good a holiday or festival to embrace for fundraising.

## Advertisement

Their e-mail message, accompanied by a pair of steaming and well-used trainers, 
reads: “Have you been overindulging? It’s time to sort yourself out. Get friends
and family to sponsor you to stick to your New Year’s Resolutions and there will
be no excuse left… To find out how easy it is to set up your own web page so you
can raise money for a good cause while doing yourself good too, just click the button
below.”

It’s too late of course to plan a New Year’s fundraising campaign for 2004, but 
we’ve given you almost 12 months to think about next year’s campaign.

One idea is to emulate The Legacy Promotion which, just before Christmas, encouraged
charity supporters to make a New Year’s resolution to leave a legacy in their will.

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