Events Fundraising presentation from Sir Erich Reich and Gina Thomas, Classic Tours, at Enlighten Conference on Monday 26 November 2012.

1. HOW TO RAISE MORE FUNDS
FROM CHALLENGE EVENTS
Sir Erich Reich & Gina Thomas
Classic Tours

2. Classic Tours – Our Credentials
Originators of charity challenges
45,000 participants
1000 challenges
800+ charities
20 years
Over £75 million raised!

3. Why Offer Challenge Events
• Raise MORE funds
• Motivate your supporters
• Attract new supporters
• Increase awareness of
your cause

4. Who Do They Appeal To?
• All socio economic groups
• Generally more men on bike rides / more women on treks
• 35 – 55 year olds - bike rides
• 45 – 60 year olds – treks
• Younger supporters - shorter events with lower sponsorship

5. Challenge Events – Key Factors
• Many of the UK’s 180,000 UK charities have never tried
this type of fundraising
• Large section of society never done a challenge event
• Majority of funds raised from new sources
• Family, friends & colleagues get involved
• Supporters often become lifelong ambassadors

6. Where Are We Now?
• Economic climate – demand for lower sponsorship
• Mass participation events popular
• ‘Olympic effect’ – boom in cycling
• Rise in obesity – get fit & healthy on a challenge
• Internet & mobile phones – changing how we
communicate
• Social media – can now engage & interact with
challengers & reach their friends & contacts

7. Our Top 10 Tips to make
challenge events work for you

8. 1. Choose the Type of Event
• Bespoke Challenges • Corporate Challenges
• Consortium Challenges • Open Challenges

9. Bespoke Challenges
What?
Exclusive challenge for 30+ supporters of ONE charity
Benefits
• High potential fundraising return due to group size
• Supporters are a captive audience on the event
• Free place for every 30 recruited

10. Consortium Challenges
What?
4-5 charities team up to find 30+ supporters between them.
Benefits
• Good potential fundraising return
• Offer a challenge without the commitment of filling a whole
group
• Limited charities involved often from the same sector ––
feels like “your” event
• Operator usually does the mailings & admin.
• Free place for every 30 participants recruited

11. Corporate Challenges
What?
Exclusive challenge for 30+ staff of your corporate
partner(s)
Benefits
• High potential fundraising return due to group size
• Bonds the company and its staff to your charity
• Encourages team building & offers the company great
PR opportunities
• Free place for every 30 recruited

12. Open Challenges
What?
Range of challenges open to supporters from ANY charity
Benefits
• Fundraised income for little effort
• No minimum number of participants to find
• No risk & no financial outlay
• Classic Tours does all the admin.
• Free place for every 20 recruited (in a calendar year)

13. 2. Choose the Right Destination
• Look at your database – try to profile who is your typical
supporter - their age, sex and income.
o Bike rides generally attract more men and the average age
is 30 – 50
o Treks generally attract more women and the average age is
40 – 60 (excluding Kilimanjaro)
o Short haul challenges like London to Paris attract a younger
market and are ideal for corporates.
• Look at any links you have with certain countries
• Do you have a project anywhere that could be visited?

14. 3. Give Yourself Time
• Allowing yourself enough time to market the events is
key.
• For a long haul event you need at least 12 months from
launch to departure.
• Aim to have your group signed up 6 months before
departure so they have time to fundraise.
• The time you have available each week to support your
fundraisers will help them raise over and above the
minimum amount.

15. 4. Design a Marketing Strategy
• Identify your target market - who are they? Past
participants, supporters you currently have, new
supporters.
• Message – what’s unique about your challenge –
highest mountain, see a project, raise funds to build a
school. Highlights and Benefits.
• Method – how are you going to tell people? Do you
have a budget? Who can help you?

16. 5. Marketing Ideas
o Website o E-shots
o Newsletter o Use Incentives
o Mailings o Social Media
o Corporate Supporters o Get Trustees on board
o Email footer o Other events you can
o Speculative ads promote at e.g.
o Word of mouth annual dinner.
TELL AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN!

17. 6. Get Online!
• Google Grant – you get £6300 worth of Google
advertising for free as a charity! For details see:
www.google.co.uk/grants/
• Facebook & Twitter – set up a group just for this event
or for your events in general. Update regularly with
images and stories. Encourage signed up participants to
join in and “meet” others.
• Set up online fundraising page for your supporters e.g.
Virgin Money Giving.

18. 7. Convert Your Enquiries
• 2.5% -4.5% of enquiries should immediately convert to bookings
• 10%+ conversion is possible
• HOW?
o Send out Registration Pack ASAP
o Follow up EVERY enquiry –up to 3 times if there is a possibility they will sign
up
o Become an expert on the challenge –product knowledge training
o Provide help & advice with fundraising
o Promote Info Days held by Classic Tours

19. 8. Retain Your Supporters
• Provide strong fundraising support – tried and tested
fundraising tips, info about the charity, sponsor
forms, collection tins etc.
• The more support you give = more fundraising income
• There is a natural drop drop-out rate of around 10% -
reduce this by helping and encouraging participants
• Keep in regular contact and thank them on behalf of the
charity.

20. 9. Find Celebrities & Champions
• Celebrities can really help raise the profile of an event.
They don’t have to participate, they can endorse
it, tweet about and encourage their fans to take part.
• Champions – if you have some really proactive
supporters encourage them to bring a team. Ideal for
corporate partners. Offer a special offer like a
discounted reg fee if they get a team of 5.

21. 10. Knowledge is Power!
• You need to understand the event you’re selling. How
high is that mountain, how far do they cycle, where do
they stay.
• Talk about it with passion and enthusiasm.
• Read up on the destination and what’s happening in
that country. Take note of special dates.

22. Case Study
Zoe’s Place Baby Hospice, a small charity based in
Liverpool, operated their first ever bespoke challenge
event in February 2012. It raised £112,000!
So how did they do it….

23. Why Cuba?
As this was our first ever overseas challenge we were looking
for something really special that would give our participants
an incredible and unique experience that they would never
forget.
Cuba ticked all of the boxes being culturally so different to
anything we know over here but also such a beautiful
country to travel around.
A bike ride seemed to offer the best way of seeing the
country whilst at the same time giving them a huge personal
challenge.

24. How did they market the event?
• We launched 12 months prior to the trip departing.
• Community and corporate support - able to promote the
event directly to a large number of local businesses and
community members .
• Targeted mailings - made contact with local gyms and sport
groups to encourage participation.
• Arranged presentations at large workplaces such as call
centres.
• Local celebrity on board from the start – really helped.
Attracted the attention of local newspapers and radio.

25. Who Participated?
• 21 participants who raised/exceeded the set
sponsorship
• 1 unfortunately had
to withdraw just
prior to the event
due to injury.
• Of these
approximately a
third were existing
supporters.

26. How did they raise £112,000?
• A few of our participants were themselves wealthy.
• However we were very fortunate to get participants from all
walks of life who all exceeded our target of £3,200.
• The way our participants raised the funds varied greatly, some
deciding to run large scale events (caberet, karaoke nights) whilst
others did more traditional bucket collections, bag packs.
• Many of our participants who were perhaps concerned at the
outset about how they would raise the target were really
motivated by just how quickly they were able to get up to the
target. One participant who did bag packs with family and friends
in local supermarkets raised on average over £500 each day so in
no time the target was raised.

27. Challenge Events – You can do it!
• Choose the right event to work for your charity.
• Devise a marketing strategy.
• Allow yourself enough time to promote it.
• Support your participants and they will go over and
above the minimum amount.
• Challenge events can raise substantial funds for your
charity.

28. Thank you!
For more information on any challenges:
www.classictours.co.uk
020 7619 0066
info@classictours.co.uk