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FUND RAISING FORUM

This forum is split into two sections, the need for funds for Planning Sanity as a national organisation, and a help section for local communities fund raising for their own campaigns.

Planning Sanity has been refused charity status, due to our work connected to lobbying for changes in legislation (deemed to be too political), we choose to make no compromises, or to sell out, simply to register as a charity. Although this reduces our ability to raise the funds needed to provide the services we believe are needed by communities like yours who are desperately attempting to preserve land and buildings precious to their communities.

Whilst at no time do we want to start restricting the services we are able to offer, but sometimes we have to be realists, no organisation can survive and expand without funds. Unfortunately all our activists are themselves working to capacity, not only in helping local communities through the work of Planning Sanity but also on their own local campaigns. We therefore have to rely on donations and membership subscriptions, although we are constantly looking for new ways to raise funds. Therefore if you have found the help and assistance we have provided of benefit to you and your local community please now consider supporting us in one of the following ways.

1. A donation to cover the costs of materials or services supplied, support future work, research and lobbying for changes in planning legislation, or you may donate to one of our specific funds such as our legal fund. Donations can be a one off sum, or a regular monthly/annual/weekly donations, in order that we can plan with certainty what funds are likely to be available, thereby ensuring that projects can be implemented to ensure we target our resources as fruitfully as possible.
2. Joining Planning Sanity, either as a supporter, or as one of our growing number of activists and advisors.
3. The organising of fund raising events and activities, such as benefit gigs, sponsored walks and so forth, either as a joint fund raising event with your local campaign, or to benefit Planning Sanity or one of its current campaigns (more info on current campaigns from our help line). Planning Sanity can help out with the supply of sponsorship materials, such as forms and posters.
4. We are particularly keen to secure one or more sites that can be used for bootfairs and other major fundraising events. This can be in partnership with local groups, or as shared profit events with landowners. Providing any such event does not cause major problems for local communities.

5. Commercial/personal sponsorship of parts or all of Planning Sanity activities including WEB space. This could be very much a 2 way thing, with obvious benefits to sponsors, apart from direct online advertising, we would welcome talks on any aspect of sponsorship, both corporate and individual (within the realms of ethical sponsorship - we will not accept sponsorship from company's with unacceptable records on the environment, animal rights, social or human rights issues). But most certainly we would welcome sponsorship or advertising from ethically acceptable sources.

6. Buy your 'BOOKS' online through our book shop, not only books on planning, but on any topic or subject you choose, we then pick up 15% of the purchase price. This service is provided via The Book Pl@ce who have 2.5 million titles on offer. But remember you must always access their WEB site via our link for us to qualify for the commission. See our Book Forum for some recommended books on planning or go direct to The Book Pl@ice search engine.

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   If this proves popular we will be looking to include other ethical trading links (suggestions welcome) as a way of funding our activities.

7. As part of the future projects that we are looking at is to et up an online campaign shop, a place where groups or individuals can purchase any materials needed to run a successful campaign. We have started this process by signing up to Paypal in order that we can accept online credit card payments, the next step is to source supplies at a reasonable price, and to set up the soft ware, once this is complete please then consider shopping with us in the sure knowledge that your purchases will be helping Planning Sanity to provide the necessary services.

The activities of Planning Sanity at present include:

1. the creation of an online resource base;
2. a resource base and library for those needing information and advise by mail;
3. telephone advisory service;
4. case assistance and help on an individual basis (within our limited resources);
5. help with public inquiries and village green applications (within our limited resources, or through a cost effective charging structure (example: a charge for representation at public inquiries)).

It is our hope that we will be able to improve on these services and to extend them to include assistance with legal costs in challenges to adverse planning decisions. With this in mind we ask you to give serious consideration to the level of support that you can offer to Planning Sanity within your own limited budgets.

Planning Sanity are also keen to hear from local groups wishing to affiliate to Planning Sanity, in order that those opposed to adverse planning and development schemes can benefit from the strength that will be created from the collective voices of community groups nation wide.

Funding a Campaign

To an active campaign with many members the sky is your limit, if just one person volunteers to take on the role, it is more difficult for smaller groups who often will find that they are still having to do the same work as a larger campaign, and the first area to suffer is fundraising as everyone, rightly wants to be doing the work of stopping the development, the fact is that arguably the most important job is fundraising, so ignore this chore at your peril.

The simple idea is the most profitable, I once was involved in an animal rights campaign where they held a small summer fete in a private garden, there was about 20 stalls, with the theme of bats, from throwing bean bags shaped like bats, knocking down tin cans painted with pictures of bats, to traditional pick a straw with bat logos on the tickets. This raised a staggering sum (many thousands of pounds), for a very pleasant afternoon having fun.

You can find many companies in the yellow pages that will supply the materials for such events as race nights. Pubs and social clubs are usually very happy to supply the venue for free, all you have to do is advertise and organise on the night, if it is combined with a meal you can raise quite a lot before you even start on the races.

Another sure fire winner are SweepStake cards, these can usually be purchased for about 10p you sell horses on the card for either 50p or £1, normally they have about 100 names, with 50% going in prizes, so a full card at £1 would give a clear profit of £49.90, if several people are selling cards it can soon mount up, and people will usually buy either 50p or £1 worth of tickets at a time.

One campaign I was involved in hired a carraige on a charter train from Manchester to the Edinburgh Festival, this gave a profit on every ticket we sold of £10, the carraige had a maximum of 64 seats, anyone wanting to arrange such deals contact Nick Harvey at 'Green Express Railtours' Tel 01484 422920. There are also many other similar charter companies, all of them like Green Express use trains from yesteryear including some steam excursions.

Social functions are always popular, an evening music event tailored to your taste with a meal, either by booking a social club or at a private home can bring in major funds, as well as be entertaining, although those providing the meals can find it hard work.

A number of years ago a group I was involved with raising funds for a village hall where we organised what we billed as the worlds largest raffle, we ended up with about 360 prizes ranging from free holidays to gift vouchers all provided free by companies, although we wrote about 800 begging letters, it was still nearly a 50% take up of prizes, with many companies having standard prizes they dish out, airlines for instance will send you an airbag with their name on it. tickets were sold for 10p and we raised several thousand pounds, now a days tickets would be sold for 50p.

Sponsored events are always good. A gentle 5 mile walk around all the local places that are under threat from developers gives you two opportunities, one to highlight the large number of threatened greenfield sites, and secondly raising hard cash to defend them. As you see a sponsored event does not have to be a marathon, or major sporting activity, it can involve any activity, even knitting, or painting.

One Derbyshire group made a calendar in 2002, they persuaded a local printer to produce the calender for free, they took the pictures and made up the artwork, the calendars sold for �5 each, with a print run of 500, they sold out giving them �2500 clear profit, as the printing was donated.

Carnivals are always worthwhile, if they will let you participate, the normal deal is that 50% of any money collected on the floats goes to the carnival organisers and 50% to the group that collected it. Thus an opportunity to highlight your campaign with a float, as well as bringing in some funds.

Events such as bootfairs, craft and antique fairs are another good earner, but if they are outside you are at the mercy of the weather, a regular monthly bootfair in a village hall about 15 years ago, used to net our group about £200, half on stall charges and half in entry fees, it was always a sell out, and after paying for the hall we still had about £140 profit for each event, with teas taking that up to a profit of about £180, this took a Sunday morning for two committee members, one for the tea bar the other to take money on the door, and was never arduous.

If you have a reasonable number of supporters and volunteers then a good easy earner is the 100s Club. This is simply another form of raffle, except the person always has the same number, and it is limited to 100 tickets, and is normally a once a week draw, but with a 50% prize fund can earn a regular £50, which can be sufficient for smaller campaigns such as phone masts. It is also an opportunity for direct contact with supporters, to pass them info, get letters signed and to encourage them to lobby MPs etc.

There are many other novel ways of fund raising such as the sale of bricks. You could produce T-Shirts if you feel that sufficient numbers will buy them. There are also many online fundraising schemes where you get paid for every time someone clicks on a link, just do a search on Google.

Perhaps the most novel fundraiser I ever was involved in was the production and selling of thousands of clucking chickens, we took these out on a bonfire night to a major firework display and sold thousands in complete darkness. They consisted of a piece of string rubbed in resin, tied to a matchstick which was then threaded through a hole in the bottom of a paper cup, that had foam chicken shapes stuck on them, when the string was then run through the fingers it made a loud clucking noise like a chicken, we raised several hundred pounds.

Manchester Green Party raises nearly all its funds by holding meals with entertainment about 3 or 4 times a year. This is good because it allows for upporters to meet socially, provides a specific taste n both food (nearly all their members are vegetarians or vegans) and entertainment (folk music seems to be the most popular with that group). Sometimes as many as 30 supporters buy tickets, after expenses they have about £3 to £4 profit per ticket.

There was the proposed tall building development that would cast a shadow over a large residential area, who organised a coin chain to highlight the distance the shadow would fall. This entailed getting passers by to add coins to the chain, thereby a double whammy, funds and highlighting the problem

The message is think what is most likely to go down well with your supporters, what are their tastes, what is likely to be the less arduous. And most of all how much do you need to raise, and how quick do you need to raise it. And finally how much time do you have to dedicate to the task of fundraising.

DO NOT FORGET TO SHAKE THE BUCKET AT EVERY MEETING - Always get the most colourful member of your team to take on this role, and do not be affraid to put it under peoples noses, with a meeting which has 50 members of the public, it should be capable of seeing about £100 in the bucket, although at some better attended meetings the amount has been very poor.

There are some legal issues with raffle tickets, you need to licence your raffle (there is a licence fee) with the local authority. But not if the raffle is a club (see 100s club), or it is in connection with an event. So you can sell raffle tickets at a fete without a licence. If you want to do street collections you are required to obtain a licence from the local authority, and you can then only collect in the streets named in the licence.

Links

• 'Green Express Railtours' - Organisers of train excursions, some on steam trains, book a coach, sell the tickets, and make a good profit. A train coach has 64 seats, at £10 commission per seat this would give your group £640 profit, and an enjoyable day out as a bonus.
• UK Fundraising - Organisation helping those raise funds many useful links and suggestions, as well as the latest fundraising news, such as grants available.
• Community Fund - National Lottery community grants.
• Charity Commission - Forms and other info on registering a charity.
• Institute of Fundraising - Professional fundraising managers association, not for most groups, but thoe who want to raise serious money might look to appointing a professional fundraiser, although obviously they have to be paid, most with some up front payment. But nevertheless a useful site.
• Fundeo - A Private company providing video films of 'Snail Races' (not sure of the ethics) and bingo packs, amongst other products. Also has many useful links, as well as a legal briefing on fundraising.
• Guardian Unlimited - Useful fundraising resources.
• Buy At - Set up your own online shop with many brand name and high street names, earning a commission on every purchase that originates through your site. No cost involved to the group or charity. Our own online shop can be accessed at Planning Sanity Shopping Mall where any purchases you make will benefit Planning Sanity, so if this is not a way that you want to raise funds for your group, then have a look and and if you buy you will be funding Planning Sanity.
• Sponsored Abseils - This is the one if you really like jumping off tall structures
• Hole in One Promotions - Insurrance for major prizes such as cars and houses used in raffles to gain major funding.
• Ready Made Events - Sky diving and other sponsored events organisers.

Planning Sanity Service Donations

Unfortunately due to the failure of the vast majority that use our services to make any donations towards our work we have been forced to introduce a more stringent minimum donation scheme for a number of the areas of our work. If our financial position improves in the future then it is our intention to withdraw this scheme. All those requesting us to undertake this work will be expected to make the appropriate minimum donation set out below, work up and above the appropriate level has a suggested additional minimum donation of £15 per hours work, except where a set donation is indicated. All funds raised from these new suggested minimum donations will be used to further our work and to expand the activities of Planning Sanity.