Charity Running

Hello all, Are you a runner/ triathlete who has raised money by going around the workplace asking for donations. Guess2give is a new way to to raise money and get those sponsoring you more involved. Set up a sweep stake on how long it will take you to complete your event, its only £3 per guess, 50p of each bet goes into a prize fund, whoever guesses closest wins the prize fund. I have just completed an event and found this a fun way to raise cash. If your charity is not listed contact the site and they will do the rest.

I would be interested to know in these times of austerity are you finding it more difficult running and competing for good causes. 

Comments

  • Why would people in the workplace bother with this when it can just be done with a piece of paper and a tin for the money?

    I'm always suspicious of any "service" that uses "2" instead of "to".

  • Does it cost the charity to register to use the "service", or does it take any cut of the funds raised? The charity I fundraise for doesn't use any of these sites, as they cost a lot to set up and in monthy fee, and take a big cut of the funds raised. Unfortuately, people are so used to them now it's quite hard to raise funds other than through people you see every day!

  • So its a sweepstake like IM says Roses tin and some paper...to make it really posh keep the Roses in there draw a number and a choccie win and maybe win situation

  • WilkieWilkie ✭✭✭

    If you want to get hi-tech, have an Excel spreadsheet!

    And call me a cynical old bag (NOTALL AT ONCE!), but your very first post is promoting this 'service'.....

  • The pen and paper a tried and tested method, its served me well over the years. As someone who has done regular events people can get tired of going around asking for cash. I found the advantage of using a website was that I was able to appeal to a wider audience sending an email to most of the workforce with a link to my page, also to friends and family who live around the country. Admittedly I still have friends and family who think the web is witchcraft. I suppose whatever method you use if you are going to take part in running events then do it for a cause, you only have to watch the news to see less people are giving to charities.

    Sorry for not talking about the colour of my new trainers on my first post

  • chaz.it just looked very like you had something to do with the company........in the past when people come on here and the first thing they do is to praise something then it usually turns out that they are something to do with the company...................which in turn puts people totally off the product/ website as they feel that the copmpany was trying to con them....

     

  • E mmyE mmy ✭✭✭
    Everything seren and Wilkie said...
  • @chaz - declare your interest.  Which of the founders are you?

  • The one with the Ford Focus and the 50 year old secretary, rather than the one with the Porsche and 20 year old bimbo
  • Not a founder although I do know one of the chaps who set this up, he has worked in the charity sector for many years. I work for the government in the public sector. The weekend gone I and 5 colleagues took part in a charity run and having knowledge of this site decided to use it to raise funds, colleagues used other methods also.  I found it a positive experince which raised money for a good cause. this is a genuine post to raise awareness, not to offend. I am getting nothing from this in fact the founder has no idea I have posted this. 

  • It's very bad form to spam about someone else's business, especially without their knowledge.
  • I make no apologies for that, I used the site, I ran the race, I raised money for charity. Job done. Im not promoting some multi national company here, I thought I was raising awareness on another method to help a good cause, best intentions and all that.

    If I raise a debate about how people are raising money all the better, use any method you please, as I have said I have used various methods over this years this happens to be the latest way I have raised cash for charity.

  • MillsyMillsy ✭✭✭
    So how does your friends company make money out of it?
  • they take quite a bit by the look of it................if you raise £30.............£5 goes in prize money.......but istead of £25 for the charity.........less than £20 goes to the charity.plus any gift aid that might be collected if they pay tax and supply the details needed etc.........so that looks like out of £30 they take over £5.............thats a big chunk form the charities,,,,,,,,,,,,,you can buy a lot of paper and pen for that

  • Perhaps I should contact him and let him know about this post and he could go into detail, I suppose like most fund raising companies/ websites a percentage must go to the running of the company. From what is on the website they do not charge charities monthly or annual fees.

  • MillsyMillsy ✭✭✭
    Ouch, so they are making a tidy profit for themselves. Nice work if you can get it.

    Not sure if I missed anything but I don't think that bit of "vital" information was mentioned in the original post.
  • @chaz - it's spam.  If you'd been on the ball enough to have included a link in your post I'd have deleted the message and bozo'd your account.

  • Hi everyone.

    I'm the founder of Guess2Give and was contacted by Chaz about this thread.

    I'm happy to answer any questions about Guess2Give and respond to the points above if you feel it's appropriate.

    The one which appears to be the main issue is that Guess2Give is a for-profit company, which is correct. Over 70% of the money that goes through our system goes to charities (including the winings which mover 70% of people donate back) and the majority of the remaining money goes to 3rd party providers such as age and UK identification (necessary to adhere to gambling laws to ensure everyone is over and UK based), address checks, HMRC fees, gambling commission fees, payment merchant fees and payment transaction fees.

    Our aim is to generate millions of pounds in new revenue from this new source of income for UK charities via our model of very low margin, very high volume. Of course we're nowhere near the volume required to be self sustainable yet as we only launched in April but so far we have over 100 charities (inc Cancer research, Marie Curie, Macmillan, Save the Children) that use our service for free (no sign-up or monthly fees like many services) as they recognise that creating online sweepstakes for people to use generates new income. This new income is proven by the majority of our users being younger than a normal charity supporter, therefore it provides the opportunity for long-term value for the charity if they can engage with those new supporters.  Even if they don't, then the additional income is more than they would have generated previously.

    Of course, develpoing and implementing a new concept that doesn't exist anywhere in the world is costly to overcome issues with gambling, HMRC, charity regulations etc and gaining everyone's approval takes time and money, not to mention the technology platform.

    I hope you don't mind me responding to this thread and shedding light on some of the issues raised, and, as I said initially I'm more than happy to answer any questions about Guess2Give if you feel it is appropriate.

    Mark

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