Four ways companies can use contactless giving at Christmas
Howard Lake | 24 November 2019 | Blogs
The peak months for giving to charities are November and December, which is primarily due to established seasonal fundraising campaigns. With £10.1 billion donated in total during these months in 2018, according to research conducted by CAF Online, it shows that this time of year really is the season of goodwill.
Work parties offer up the perfect atmosphere for charity fundraising as Christmas is, of course, a time for giving and spreading joy. A theme for giving tends to be ingrained in Christmas events, with the vast majority of companies having a chosen charity that they will raise funds for. But with contactless or text giving, via a raffle or silent auction, additional one-off support for smaller charities can be easily set up.
So with Christmas just around the corner and arrangements for corporate Christmas fundraisers and parties being finalised, now is a good time to consider how to maximise the goodwill. According to Eventbrite, the average cost of a festive corporate event comes in at £42.48 per employee, so if everyone donated £5 on the night it would still only be a fraction of the total spend.
Here are just four ways to make the most of festive goodwill to the benefit of some of the UK’s smaller charities.
1. Festive bake offs
With little cash being carried these days, a contactless donation machine can be used to raise funds in exchange for baked goodies
Christmas Jumper competitions – another fun way to encourage donations is via a Christmas Jumper competition. With a contactless machine to take donations for those wearing the jumpers money can be raised easily.
2. Text raffle at the Christmas party
This is a really effective and simple way to achieve donations. By giving everyone a really easy to remember keyword such as ‘Christmas party’, text donations can be made for a scale of amounts to be set by the company e.g.: £5, £10, £15. Prizes can be creative such as an internship at the company (for younger relatives) or an extra day’s holiday, or a pub lunch on a Friday.
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3. Silent auction
It may be an idea to host an online silent auction of something money just can’t buy. As above, internships are a great way of showing corporate social responsibility since they can really set an individual up for a successful career but are often only available to relations of the board members. Hosting a live online auction with bids across the room (and beyond) really can gather attention and interest.
Contactless giving from DONATE
4. Secret Santa
We’ve all been there, what on earth would Norman in accounts want for a fiver? Instead of asking employees to buy something no one will want why not use the £5 for a text raffle using a unique memorable keyword and text number to donate to your organisation’s chosen charity, that way you’re giving to someone that genuinely needs support this Christmas, as opposed to growing the office mug collection.
If perhaps this year you’re not having a large Christmas bash, you could still host a number of charitable office- (or even organisation-) wide events. You could:
- host a festive quiz
- hold a sweepstake as to who can eat the most sprouts for example
- or even have a most outrageous Christmas costume competition.
- even donate your final hour’s salary of the year to charity.
All of these ideas can benefit from contactless technology within the office and really help make Christmas about sharing and giving to those who need support.
Bart Leonard, Trustee at National Funding Scheme DONATE.
The National Funding Scheme, DONATE, offers a variety of contactless giving solutions, like contactless giving points, online auctions and text raffles, which offer so much more than fundraising. They offer the opportunity to set-up your own charity fundraiser individual to your organisation and cause, and they work exceptionally well at events.
Recently, DONATE identified that its contactless giving technology suite is up to 17 times more effective than cash donations, showing that the technology is proving to be the way forward across sectors.
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.