Five Halloween fundraising campaigns for 2015
Howard Lake | 29 October 2015 | News
With Halloween activities this year likely to spread over both Friday and Saturday, here are some charities making the most of this occasion for fundraising and promotion.
1. Bat Conservation Trust
The Bat Conservation Trust’s Bat Conservation Week is certainly well-timed. Here are some of their fundraising activities:
Help us help bats this #Halloween @ChrisGPackham https://t.co/bSHel9wSOJ #lovebats #battyHalloween pic.twitter.com/tek9bKxrkD
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— Bat Conservation Trust (@_BCT_) October 28, 2015
It's Bat Week! Treat yourself to a bat mug. 10% is donated to @_BCT_ https://t.co/TN5nLlLSfo #bat #wildlife #BatWeek pic.twitter.com/arIGcKOfQT
— Creature Candy (@CreatureCandy9) October 29, 2015
Halloween pumpkin gone batty! Donated Halloween candy fund to @_BCT_ https://t.co/MDLp1wqDf0 #Bats @JustGiving pic.twitter.com/HvuM9wBry7
— Dr Kimm Curran / kimmcurran.bsky.social (@kimmcurran) October 25, 2015
2. World Vision and Carve a Heart 2015
World Vision’s #carveaheart campaign includes shareable images and a Powerpoint for churches.
World Vision is using Halloween to give people the chance to turn an event on which “millions of children face a night of fear” into one that “helps spread our love to those children living in some of the most challenging conditions.”
“World Vision is in the world’s hardest places tonight and every night. Right now, we are comforting children as they wake from nightmares of abuse, helping girls and boys forced into marriage or hard labour and protecting children fleeing bombs and disasters”.
Their Carve A Heart campaign invites people to carve a heart into a pumpkin and to make a text donation.
[youtube height=”450″ width=”800″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgKAl3S887U[/youtube]
3. St Ann’s Hospice and Halloween Dog Walk
Autumn and Halloween is as good a time for a sponsored walk as any, so St Ann’s Hospice is holding its Paws Spooktacular 5km sponsored dog walk on Halloween.
4. Diabetes UK and Dress Diabolical
Diabetes UK’s chief executive Chris Askew dresses diabolically for the charity’s new Halloween fundraising campaign.
Diabetes UK is making the most of people’s delight in dressing up for Halloween by encouraging them to take part in its new Dress Diabolical fundraising campaign.
The charity is focusing on younger donors for the event, based on research in a YouGov poll of 2,122 people that it commissioned.
Thirty six per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds will be dressing up or wearing face paint this Halloween, and a third (32 per cent) will be attending or hosting a Halloween party. This compares to just five per cent of the over-55s who are dressing up and seven per cent who are going to or hosting a Halloween party.
The charity’s focus is borne out by Tesco’s statistics. It says that, at this Halloween, it will sell more than 200,000 glow in the dark fangs, 170,000 tubes of fake blood, 170,000 witch hats and 150,000 witch brooms.
5. Givey Halloween
Online giving platform Givey is running a daily Halloween competition for charities. Send a tweet this week to @giveyhq with your favourite Givey charity and tag #giveyatreat for a chance to win one of their daily donations.
[youtube height=”450″ width=”800″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJ4AfWcPabk[/youtube]
Halloween and safety
Halloween isn’t fun for everyone – and that’s not just people who work night shifts and are in bed when the door is knocked by trick-or-treaters.
Tesco has issued safety advice about children’s Halloween costumes and the risk of them catching fire, and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home is reminding us to keep animals and pets safe and away from the noise of both Halloween and Bonfire Night.
The dangers of potentially lethal electrical appliances is also being highlighted at Halloween by Electrical Safety First, the only charity in the UK dedicated to reducing deaths and injuries caused by electrical accidents.
It has launched an interactive game, A Killer Lurking, created by Code Computerlove. It challenges UK consumers to identify potential lethal appliances by tapping the areas of the screen. You have 30 seconds to find all of the potential culprits.
Emma Apter, head of communications at Electrical Safety First, said:
“Alongside some spooky Halloween messages, facts about the real horrors of ignorance around product recalls pop up throughout the experience, highlighting statistics around fires or accidents caused by faulty fridges and freezers, TVs and innocent looking small appliances like kettles that could result in electrocution or an electrical fire.”
More from charities at Halloween
If your charity isn’t fundraising at Halloween it can still make the most of public interest with a Halloween-related initiative. Here is RSPCA explaining how to photograph your black cat:
[youtube height=”450″ width=”800″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZR4d39h-P0[/youtube]
Similarly Cats Protection took advantage of #BlackCatDay on Thursday to dispel some myths around black cats:
[youtube height=”450″ width=”800″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j6WIj-IJZ8[/youtube]
Prostate UK also joined the conversation about cats with this appropriate image and tweet:
Cats may have nine lives, but men don't. Grow a Mo and Save a Bro. #Movember #NationalCatDay @TheMustacheCat pic.twitter.com/n0PGVQ6hza
— Prostate Cancer UK (@ProstateUK) October 29, 2015
• Have you got an effective or unusual Halloween fundraising campaign? Share it in the comments below.
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.