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Fundraising Events and Managing Donations
March 2025
Charities and Organisations raise a staggering amount of money each year by hosting a variety of events.
Famous Charity Fundraising Events in History
Live Aid raised a staggering £30 million back in 1985.
Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life is the biggest mass participation charity fundraising event – the UK’s largest mass-participation charity fundraising event, raising £31.3 million in 2023, making it the highest-grossing event of the year.
The London Marathon, in 2024, broke the world record for the biggest one-day fundraising event. Over £67m was raised as more than 53,000 people took part in the 26.2-mile race through the city. The total surpasses the record of £66.4m, set by the same race in 2019.
If you are looking to run an event to raise funds for your charity or organisation, your first point of call would be to look at the fundraising regulator guidelines for events – https://www.fundraisingregulator.org.uk/code/specific-fundraising-methods/events
Types of fundraising charity events
Charity Sporting Events
Sporting events such as half marathons, fun runs, park runs, assault courses, 10km and 5km races are among the biggest sources of funds for charities. Walking events also feature highly. Collections can be made both at the event itself through portable contactless donation devices, as well as with funds being raised before the event through sponsorship and online donations through systems like Dona’s online donation webpages.
Community Fundraising Events
- Car boot sales: collecting entry fees with a portable contactless donation device can save time and increase fundraising income. Donations can also be collected by moving from pitch to pitch with a mobile Dona device.
- Dog or horse shows: if your attendees are mobile then you can be too, take donations ringside.
- Fêtes and shows: village fêtes, street parties, county shows and agricultural shows can be really successful ways for communities to fundraise. Station volunteers outside of marquees or around areas where visitors may congregate to collect more donations.
- Indoor events: fun, interactive examples of indoor events that can be successful fundraising drives include live auctions, bingo nights, cake sales, and games or quiz nights. Card donation machines can be passed around the room for donors to simply ‘tap to donate’.
- Gala events: local businesses can donate to sponsor tables through Dona’s online webpages, while Dona donation machines can be stationed at entrances and exits, or passed from table to table for collecting donations from guests.
Fundraising Festivals
Festivals can be a wonderful way to fundraise, attracting large numbers of visitors and raising awareness of your cause. Entrances and exits are great spots for donation terminals as well as on stands, take donations where people are flowing through.
Types of festival include:
- Music festivals
- Food and drink festivals
- Film festivals
- Theatre fringe festivals
- Arts festivals and open studios events
- Literary or educational festivals
Benefits of using a card donation machine at your next event
- Allows more people to donate that do not carry cash.
- More hygienic than handling cash for volunteers, staff and donors.
- Safer for volunteers and staff to carry a handheld donation machine than cash – minimises the risk of theft.
- Traceable donation trail making reporting with HMRC reports easy.
- Quicker donations with digital donations as no cash handling, no change needed thus reduces queues and preparation.
- Means more donor contact information is collected for future marketing, with donor consent.
- More data means better analysis of donor behaviour and trends for future campaigns.
- Gift Aid is easier to obtain and has been shown to boost donations amounts.
- Average donation value is much higher than with cash.
- No staff needed for self-service donation machine stands.
Key preparation for your event
- Setting up a webpage: Dona provides a free webpage where you can promote up to 20 different campaigns or projects that you might be collecting for.
- Add a link to the webpage in your email campaigns and on ticket sale sites.
- Add your event to Facebook and other social media, and include your webpage link.
- Post your QR code on your socials ahead of, during and after the event.
- Add your QR code to your event flyers, posters and newsletters.
- Create signs to show clearly where donation terminals are located.
- Ask event hosts to mention where attendees can donate.
- Add your donation card machine locations to event guides.
Helpful Features for Your Events: How Dona Donation Card Machines Can Help
- Offline mode for outdoor areas with no Wi-Fi or poor connectivity: essential for those ‘in the middle of nowhere’ type of events and dips, black zones where a Wi-Fi connection is not possible.
- Long battery life: Up to 10 hours of battery, when used offline, to ensure your donation terminal is up to the job throughout your event.
- Tap and Go: For faster set-amount donations, this function makes donating quick and easy, meaning no more queues and digging around for change, just select your donation amount and tap your card.
- Pause your donation terminal until your next event saving your charity money: if you only run events quarterly or seasonally, our terminals can be paused until your next event, meaning you save money but still have access to this fundraising boost when you need it most.
Talk to the team at Dona Donations to see how our card donation machines can help boost your fundraising and help you achieve your targets.
Call our UK sales team – 020 8038 0820