First off I must stress that I LOVE fundraising! I never would have had the chance to explore Peru without fundraising as funnily enough as a 16 year old I didn’t have access to £3,500 (the amount I raised in 18 months in order to go)! However, I can see why some of the people giving me money were reluctant to hand over their hard earned cash when all I was doing was washing their car, packing their shopping, passing over one of my home-made cakes or running a sweet shop; and for these people’s generosity I will be eternally grateful.
With this in mind, I’m always up for helping people out but as a student this means giving my time rather than my money (for those of you who live in England you will understand the ridiculousness that is Student Finance, but that’s for another post) but recently I’ve started to feel a bit differently about the subject. As stated in my last post I am in a play this term at uni. It is a very gritty piece of drama and the director demands an equally gritty set, however this means his designs are waaayyyy over budget so we had to have a fundraiser to make up the difference. Now, it’s one thing giving money to someone trying to help out a charity, paying for medical treatment or going abroad to change someone’s life but parting with food money for a set to be a little bit more extravagant is on another level.
Like lots of people in England who get the same amount of money from the Government l live on a LOT less than minimum wage so when it comes to fundraisers for student productions I am slightly weary of handing over money that pays for bills, rent and food, and that’s the only money I have. But as I am actually in this play I dragged myself over to the venue. Before I even walked through the door I had spent over £7 baking cookies to be auctioned off and then when I arrived handed over £3 for entry followed by £1 for a single raffle ticket (not even a strip, just 1 raffle ticket!!). After all that I left an hour later to go home and do work! So I was £11 out of pocket, had less ingredients in the house and I didn’t even get to try one of my cookies!
So that is why I can’t decide my opinion on fundraising… let me know!
Lauren x
brummie on a budget 
Whenever I have done any fundraising, I have found that you make more money by taking it out of the circle (if you get my drift). Asking the same people for money time and time again gets weary so getting strangers to the cause to dip into their pockets usually yields more dosh. But then you have to get creative. xxxx
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Very true – by the time my brother came to fundraise for China (straight after I’d been fundraising for 18 months) we’d used up all of our family, friends, neighbours and parent’s colleagues so he found it a lot harder than me!
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