Many of you will be familiar with the name of one of Andrea’s Gift’s most successful fundraisers, James Bate.

James aged 34, decided to raise £75,000 for Andrea’s Gift when his wife Samantha was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2005.  James actually blew the target and has raised almost £80,000 in an eight month period!

Sam’s story is featured in Everyone’s Gift, Samantha Bate

Here is James’ fundraising story which might help you to come up with ideas of your own for raising money.

How to Fundraise Effectively

In brief you have to:

Choose an Event

• Think of a main event for the focus of your fundraising. It doesn't matter if it is not original or has been done a thousand times. It is how you market it that is important. For example the national 3 peak 24hr challenge.

 Put a Team Together

• Invite a group of people to share your challenge. This will help with motivation, and is absolutely key to maximising fundraising – you can’t do this solo.

Set a Date

• Don't make it too soon as fundraising will be easier before than after the event. Also planning will be very time consuming. Recommend 6 - 12 months.

Set Your Target

• Think BIG. The bigger your target the more money you will raise as you continually strive towards it. If your target is too easy and is achieved too quickly, you will lose any marketing edge to encourage sponsors/donators to help hit your target. This could cost you thousands!
• It is better that you don't achieve a target of £50,000 after raising £30,000 than to have a target of £20,000 which is reached prematurely and no funds raised beyond that!
• Bigger targets have more clout. Sponsors/donators may well be more generous when they see a huge target and will certainly take you more seriously.
• Talk to Andrea's Gift to help identify something tangible that your target will help them achieve. You are more likely to get donations towards say a new brain tumour research lab than towards the upkeep of the charity.
• Factor your target on the amount of people in your team too. Expect each member to raise approx £2000. Now double or triple the figure you have based on clever marketing and strategy!

• Give your campaign/event the professional touch. Ask a designer to put a professional brochure together, describing your event, your target and your aims. Try to be as eye catching as possible. Suggest the designer does this free of charge as a way of donation and also ensure they are aware of the 'free' advertising they will receive if their logo is on the back and the brochures are read by hundreds of businesses and individuals.
• Ask a local printer to print you x1000 brochures again free of charge as a way of donating and 'free' advertising.
• Ensure your team has a stock of brochures and a standard charity letter-headed cover letter appealing for sponsorship.
• Ensure that anyone you or the team approaches from now on is presented with a brochure and cover letter that they can take away.
• Choose who you and your team will target for donations. Everyone in your team should target a list of their own local businesses, shops, schools, sports centres, gyms etc. Good sources would be solicitors, accountants, estate agents, banks.
• If a shop won't donate anything, then ask if you can put a charity shaker on their till.
• Schools - ask each team member to approach at least one school (ideally their own school from days gone by) to see how they can support the campaign - maybe the schools can hold jumble sales, sponsored walks, non uniform days etc donating all proceeds to your campaign.
• Approach the press. Start with the local and regional press for their support throughout your campaign. Nationals may pick up your campaign from the locals. This is great advertising for your campaign.
• Ensure your entire group gets the same support from their local press etc.
• Encourage each member to run their own events in the run up. Perhaps organising sports events at their local clubs or sponsored walks etc.
• Plan a 'send-off' publicity party on the day of your event (or day before). You can run a raffle or similar at this event. Ask local shops to donate prizes. You can sell raffle tickets to friends, relatives and the general public prior to the event. Advertise the shops who have offered to sell them in the local press. Sell the raffle tickets to passers by at your 'send-off' party to squeeze some last minute cash out of the public.
• Ask all your team to approach their place of work and colleagues for donations - or see if they will hold separate events to help you achieve your target. Advise that you all put a link to your JustGiving webpage to your email signature.

And Finally

• Keep your campaign open after your main event. You'll be surprised how much comes in after.
• Don't pay for anything where it can be avoided. Be cheeky. If you don't ask, you don't get. Most businesses will offer free service or at least discounted rates.
• Enjoy yourself and remember that you are helping future patients and their families so that they do not have to suffer in the same way.
• Enjoy the lead up and the event, you have to have fun doing it – that’s compulsory!

 If you want to know how all of the above worked out, please read on!

How we put the plans into action

Like most people Sam and I were simply getting on with our lives, we were young and healthy, we married in 2003 and our daughter Sophie was born in March 2005.  Then everything changed when Sophie was five months old and Sam became ill and was diagnosed with a brain tumour. 

It is only at that time do you feel so utterly helpless and want to hear that there are many treatment options available and things are going to be OK.  To find the opposite is true and that research is under-funded and has been for years are not the words you want to hear.  Sadly this is the case for too many higher grade brain tumour patients.

We decided that we wanted to make some sense of the situation, and if we couldn’t make it right for us, then let’s make things better for others in the future and I contacted Andrea’s Gift to say that I was planning to do an event later in the year.

My guess is that for the many people reading these pages, you feel that way too.

So we decided to embark on a fundraising project that would help to establish a dedicated brain tumour research centre in Leeds.

Our plan was to pull together a team of 20 friends and family members to walk the national 3 peaks in June 2006 and for each of us to raise sponsorship, our aim was to raise £20,000.

Then I spoke to a friend of my father who has achieved some amazing fundraising efforts and he said don’t set your sights too low.  So we decided to up that figure to £75,000 thinking that if we didn’t achieve that target, we would certainly raise more that the original figure.

Around this time Andrea’s Gift were talking to the Yorkshire Evening Post who were planning to run a week long campaign in the newspaper to raise funds for the Leeds based research centre.  The reporter, Katie Baldwin was delighted to use Sam’s story to launch the campaign and did a three page article on the family, it was a great start to the campaign and was published in March 2006 to mark Brain Tumour Awareness Week. 

We created an online donation page on the Andrea’s Gift Justgiving site at www.justgiving.com/3peaktrekkers so we had a permanent record of what was happening, all monies are collected automatically online AND gift aid of 28p in every pound is collected too and added to the pot.

Very sadly, one week after the campaign was launched Sam became very ill and died shortly after.  Sam’s death made everyone even more determined to have some good come out of this awful situation.

We agreed as a team that we would try to have everything donated by local businesses – printing of brochures, fuel for the mini buses, mini bus hire, printing of raffle tickets, posters etc.

We contacted all old school friends through Friends Reunited and told them of Sam’s story and what we were doing and asked for their help and sponsorship.

We asked the companies we work for to gift match our efforts (an easy way to double your sponsorship).

The story was picked up and covered by Look North which gave us huge publicity – the more publicity you can get the more support you receive.

Support from Friends & Strangers

It is amazing how things take off; we received support and help from hundreds of people including:

• Some friends of ours run Heaton Squash Club in Bradford and they agreed to stage a tournament for us.  Two of the world’s leading players, Lee Beachill and James Willstrop came along and gave a fantastic demonstration of how squash can be played!  This event raised over £2,000.
• Catriona Goldhammer owns a glass shop in Harrogate called Glass forest (www.glassforest.co.uk) and after reading the story in the YEP offered to name one of her beautiful glass figurines after Sam and to donate a percentage of the sales of “Samantha Jayne” to Andrea’s Gift.  To see the figurine follow the link to Glass Forest www.glassforest.co.uk/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=186&catType=1
• Singamijigs is Sophie’s nursery music group and they staged an event whereby all children and parents were invited for a charity musical show on a Saturday whereby tickets, tea and cake sales were donated.  
• We have some friends who were about to christen their daughter and asked for donations instead of presents – this raised around £1,000. Other friends did similar things for their child’s birthdays and ran raffles, raising similar amounts!
• Some of our former neighbours decided to hold a picnic and fundraising event and the proceeds (over £1,200) would be split between Andrea’s Gift and St Michael’s Hospice in memory of Sam and Sheila, another neighbour who had lost a battle with cancer. 
• Steve Price contacted me after seeing Sophie and I on Look North to say that he had applied for a community award organised by BT, the company he works for in Leeds.  Steve had lost his son to a brain tumour in December 2005 so the story and the campaign were particularly meaningful.  Steve received the award and a further £15,000 was added to the pot. 

Making a Scene

When we set off for the walk we made a big noise in Harrogate.  Sir Jimmy Saville came to see us off; we invited all the local press and radio stations to get lots of publicity. 

We sold raffle tickets in many shops in Harrogate, and many shops donated lovely prizes. Sir Jimmy drew the prizes on the day and the street collection raised around £1,000!  There was a fantastic atmosphere to set us on our way.

I was also nominated for an award with my company O2 in Leeds, for 'Work in the Community'. The ceremony took place in October and I received £1,000 prize which boosted the coffers even further.

With the Gift Aid contributions we have raised £79,602.21 with a further £350 from O2 who have pledged a gift match before the end of the year.

Before I began this project, I would not have thought that it was possible to raise so much money.  People are very generous and supportive, especially when the cause is such an emotional one.

It just goes to show that anything is possible if you are determined and confident in your approach.

Written by James Bate

Comment from Carol Robertson, Andrea’s Gift

From the first time I spoke to James I knew he was a very special person and when I met Sam and Sophie I knew that I was among some incredibly energised, enthusiastic and creative people who would not be beaten by the cruel blows life was throwing at them.

The £80,000 James and his team raised means that we can move ahead much faster with our plans to establish a dedicated brain tumour research lab.  We are working at this project commencing early in 2007 rather than the 2008 date we were previously working towards.

Without long term research we are never going to find a cure or effective treatments. 

James together with his family and friends should feel very proud of their achievements, sadly they could not change the prognosis for Sam; we hope that in future years the power of research will make the prognosis so much better for others affected by this dreadful disease.