October 05, 2012

Fundraising at work made easy

Fundraising is paramount to the life-saving work that we do as the nation’s heart charity. Without our valued supporters across the UK putting both their time and effort into raising vital funds we would not be able to beat heart disease together. 

Raising money for the BHF can be fun and can include your family, friends or work colleagues, whether that be asking for their support with donations or involving them directly in your fundraising activities.

One example of how fundraising in work can reap rewards is that of milk&more staff and the generosity of their customers that has recently helped to bring the total amount raised us by milk&more up to £250,000. This has been largely made up of customer donations, collected by their 2,000 strong fleet of milkmen, as well as individual fundraising activities.

David ‘Awesome’ Warwick, one of milk&more's milkmen, ran the London Marathon this year in order to raise funds for our vital work. Here, he offers his top tips to successful fundraising:

The BHF is a cause close to my heart and it has been a great experience raising money to help the millions of people in need of the charity’s help

“I was lucky enough to secure one of four places made available for milk&more milkmen to run the London Marathon this year and I jumped at the chance of signing up. I have run the marathon in the past and was thrilled to be able to run it once again in the name of the BHF and raise a significant amount to contribute towards such a worthy cause.

“Work can be a fantastic way to tap into contacts and increase the amount you can raise for a cause. As I work closely with local communities and have great relationships with my customers, I decided that the best approach would be to draft up a letter that the rest of the milk&more milkmen could distribute to their customers. I didn’t stop there though, I also asked my fellow milkmen to sponsor me and managed to raise close to £9,000 for the BHF!

“It is also important to thank those who have sponsored you with donations. I made sure that we sent out a thank you letter to everyone who supported us to help to show them their donations were appreciated and where the money would go.

“Another key fundraising tactic that I found worked particularly well was to wear a BHF t-shirt and share the news of my forthcoming fundraising endeavour with potential sponsors to keep it front of mind and encourage them to put their hands in their pockets.  I also found that the best possible way to garner support is to make people aware of the ways in which any fundraising money donated will make life-saving changes for people who need surgery, care or support. I achieved this by having information about the BHF’s projects and campaigns at my fingertips and sharing it with people whenever possible.

“The BHF is a cause close to my heart and it has been a  great experience raising money to help the millions of people in need of the charity’s help."

Dairy Crest and milk&more depots around the UK aim to raise £500,000 for us to help support the 2.7 million people living with heart disease.