Student Group Fundraising
If you're part of a club, society, volunteering project or a network, this page will cover the key things you need to know about fundraising. If you're interested in College RAG, follow this link.
For anything not covered on these pages, or any questions you have about fundraising in your student group, please contact Jasmine Pledger, Student Citizenship and Employability Development Coordinator at j.pledger@yusu.org
You can navigate to relevant sections using the contents below:
Why Fundraise?
Fundraising is about more than just the money: it's the experience you have, friends you make and causes you fall in love with along the way.
There are so many ways to raise money at York that could suit you as an individual or your student group. Whether it's participating to physically challenge yourself or face your fears, or perhaps fundraise for a cause you're really passionate about. Whatever the reason may be, you can gain a host of professional skills along the way such as relationship building and communication, and also make a huge impact to local, national or international charities too.
Who can I Fundraise for?
The law that applies to Students' Unions and our groups dictates that we cannot donate money to other charities, political parties, campaigns or trade unions, unless we follow specific rules about donating.
Don't let this put you off! This doesn't mean you can't fundraise for a worthy cause, it just means you need to make sure you follow our processes so you can stay above the law.
How to Fundraise
Once you've decided you'd like to fundraise, you've got a number of things to think about.
Would you like to fundraise for a charity, or for your student group's own funds?
If you're fundraising for a charity, which one?
Would you like to host a one-off fundraising event? Or are you hoping to run a term-long fundraising appeal?
How will people donate to your cause? Will you collect donations in cash, take donations from ticket sales, or set up an online donations page? (see below)
All of these questions are different points to consider throughout the process. Once you've figured out who you're fundraising for, and what you're going to do, you can consult our How to Fundraising Guides to ensure you do everything required to make your fundraiser a success. If you need ideas and inspiration, you can visit our pages on fundraising ideas and top tips.
Ways to Fundraise
When it comes to actually raising money for charity, you have a number of different options, and this might come down to the type of fundraising event you are organising. The different options available to you are:
Collecting Cash Donations
Collecting cash donations is the traditional way to raise funds at events, and using collection tins or buckets are often an additional way of people throwing in their loose change to donate to your cause.
However, from a sustainability perspective, coins and notes are damaging to the planet due to the emissions they produce in their production so we'd recommend limiting using cash or collecting cash donations where possible.
Ticket Sales
Whether all of the profits from your fundraising are going to charity, or a proportion of ticket sales, you can use the YUSU website as a platform for all of your ticketing.
If you wish to have all proceeds from ticket sales to go to charity, set up the ticket to go into your own funds, and then complete the payment request form to donate to charity.
If only a percentage or a certain amount (eg: £1 from every ticket sold) will go to charity, then after you've sold tickets, you just need to contact YUSU Finance to request a transfer of funds.
SumUp Card Reader Donations
If your student group has a SumUp Card Reader that you may be able to utilise to take contactless donations from attendees at an event. You would just need to contact YUSU Finance to instruct them to transfer the funds after the event, and notify anyone donating that their donation is subject to a 1.69% transaction fee from SumUp.
JustGiving
YUSU has a JustGiving page that student groups are able to set up a page on. Any funds raised will come into YUSU's accounts and be deposited directly into YUSU's RAG accounts and out to the charity of your choice, or into your groups own funds.
Check out our 'How to' guide for JustGiving on details on how to set up an account.
Fundraising for Charity: The Process
Being part of a sports club, network, volunteering project, society or media group provides you with a great opportunity to fundraise for a cause you care about whilst having an audience of supporters who can promote your events, support your ideas and help you reach your fundraising goal. You may choose to fundraise for a charity your group is connected to, for a one-off cause such as Comic Relief or Children in Need, or for the YUSU RAG Beneficiaries. Whichever charity you choose to raise money for, use the information below as a flowchart to guide you through the process.
Choose a Charity
•Research potential charity partners
•Contact the chosen charity (they may be able to provide some resources or support)
Choose a Fundraising Event/Activity
Consider:
•What you want to do
•How it will raise money
•if it will be enjoyable (you need to enjoy it too!)
•Any associated costs that will come out of the fundraised amount (eg: hire of space / equipment)
Plan your fundraising event
Complete (if applicable):
•Events Management Forms (EMF)
•Room Bookings
•A budget for the event
•Risk Assessments
Set up (if applicable):
•Tickets on YUSU Website
•Online Donation Pages
•Social media pages or other marketing and promotion for the event
Run your event
•Collect donations (cash/online)
•Follow your event plan and the 'How to' Guides on running your specific event
•Prepare yourself to answer questions about your chosen charity and why people should donate
•Raise as much money as possible
•Enjoy your event
Calculate totals and pay the charity
•Deposit any cash donations in a sealed bucket to YUSU Finance
•Pay/cover any costs to calculate total raised minus the costs
•If using ticket sales on the YUSU Website, request a transfer of funds from own funds to your chosen charity
•If using YUSU's JustGiving page, YUSU Finance will transfer the funds once received to your chosen charity
•If donating directly to the charity, report the amount raised to YUSU
•Celebrate and announce how much you've raised!
Making the Charity Donation
When donating fundraised money as part of a YUSU group, it is best practice to do this centrally through the YUSU bank account. This can be done in a few different ways:
We can set your campaign up as part of the YUSU Just Giving page, so people would donate to your campaign page, the money would come to YUSU, and then YUSU would pay it out to your specified charity.
You can collect physical donations and pay them into YUSU for YUSU to pay out to your specified charity. Any one-off collection money into YUSU to be donated to charity should be paid into the YUSU one-off collections account, through handing a sealed bucket to YUSU Reception.
If you've raised money through ticket sales on the YUSU Website, you'll need to contact YUSU Finance to transfer the profits to your chosen charity, or if a proportion of ticket sales (eg: £1 from each ticket sale) as indicated at the point of sale is to go to charity or own funds, then you need to ensure you let YUSU Finance know about this so they know where to transfer the funds to before any tickets are sold.
You can donate directly to a charity’s online giving page (if you are sure it is reputable and genuine), but this must be profit only i.e. money you have fundraised, and not money that YUSU has given you as part of a budget, grant, or expense. If you pay the charity directly, you need to let us know through the form on the right.
Raising money for your Student Group
As a ratified student group, you may instead want to raise money for your group's own funds, to use for some new equipment or for a group activity. Whatever the purpose of your fundraising, you can follow the same steps as if you are raising money for charity, and make use of YUSU's online JustGiving platform or a bucket to take cash donations at your fundraiser. The key difference here that rather than any funds raised being deposited by YUSU Finance to your chosen charity, they will instead be deposited into your own funds.
There are a few top tips you could consider in raising money for your student group:
Make sure your online fundraising page, or your marketing is personal to your group. You might know why your fundraiser is a worthy cause, but you need to ensure anyone else understands this too. Why do you need to raise money? What will the fundraising enable your group to do?
Appeal to Alumni, if you've got social media pages or networks where you are able to connect with York graduates that were directly involved with your group, then make use and share your fundraising goals and donation pages with them.
Consider utilising the University's crowdfunding platform YuStart or YuFund, which offers developmental grants to groups across the University that you can apply for twice a year (Autumn and Summer).
Ethical Fundraising
Whoever you are fundriaisng for, your fundraising should always be ethical, and there are certain ways to ensure that it is:
You should always let your donors know where the money is going e.g. to a specific charity / to an individual / to a YUSU group.
If you are doing bucket collections, your buckets should be labelled with the charity or group branding. Additionally, your buckets should have a security seal on them. These seals can be picked up from Helpdesk. If the seals become broken during the fundraising process, they are no longer valid. The security seals should be filled out with the charity number and the date on which the funds are being collected.
If you plan to fundraise on public land you must obtain a permit from the local authority. If you are fundraising for a specific charity, it is the charity’s responsibility to obtain these permits for you. If you are fundraising for your YUSU group or campaign, please inform the RAG and Volunteering Coordinator.
You should have information readily available for donors who ask about where their money is going - i.e. you should be able to tell them some facts about the charity/organisation and what it does.
However, do not make promises that you can’t guarantee with regards to the exact investment of the funds, i.e. do not promise that their money will be used to buy xyz if you do not know this for a fact.
Additional Support and Guidance
How to Guides
Marketing and Promotion
Additional Questions?
Do you want to know how to run a bake sale? A Raffle? How to obtain corporate sponsorship?
Follow this link to all of our 'How to' Guides
If you'd like YUSU RAG to promote your fundraiser, email rag@yusu.org or on the YUSU RAG Facebook and Instagram pages.
For any questions on Student Group Fundraising, please contact Jasmine Pledger, Student Citizenship and Employability Development Coordinator - j.pledger@yusu.org