Glühwein fundraising
Howard Lake | 29 November 2011 | Blogs
I came across the flyer below the other day through one of my Austrian contacts on Facebook, and to put in plain English it promotes a Mulled Wine Day where you drink “Glühwein For Charity” and all the money goes to two selected charities. Glühwein is really cheap to make and the costs for the businesses involved are not that great, and in addition you can’t get drunk on Glühwein as the alcohol percentage is very low.
There have been occasions of restaurants in the UK organising fundraising initiatives like Pizza Express’s Venice pizza dish with proceeds going to the recent (?) disastrous flood in Venice. However, I don’t think there has been an initiative with a big pub or restaurant offering all proceeds of a day to be donated to a charity.
There are several German Markets in the UK from mid-November until Christmas day every year and hundreds of Brits visit them to enjoy some mulled wine along with bratwurst sausages. In Germany and Austria it is very traditional for people to visit mulled wine stands in the Winter and enjoy a few cups, especially when the surroundings are covered in snow. It is so common that they even go during lunch breaks, so to organise a fundraising initiative based on a local tradition like this sounds genius!
Now the question is could we do something similar or even greater here in the UK? It doesn’t have to be based on drinking (although it could help a lot) but it should involve major British pubs or restaurants and be based on a local theme and tradition. Could we, for example, have a “fish and chips” day once a year with involvement from key chain restaurants and pubs, celebrity chefs (Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsey, etc) and relevant charities, promoting British cuisine and culture and maybe ethical fishing, or something along these lines?
It could be a key date such 12/12/12 to mark the start of something very special or whenever it’s fishing season to cope with the demand for an eventful day like this. Or I guess to keep the costs down for participating business and ignite a larger proportion of giving and philanthropy from donors, organise the “Cup of Tea” day?
I would be really interested to get the dialogue going on here and hear your thoughts on this one too. Is there something like this going on already and if not could we pull the strings to organise something?
Vasileios Kospanos is a marketing professional experienced in social media, B2B & online marketing, & website development. Passionate about fundraising & good music. Views here his own.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.