Asking for sponsership money in my office.

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MacLean

Well-Known Member
Location
London
Hi All,

I'm gonna continue plauging the lejog section with yet another thread of mine.

First of all just encase anyone thinks, im not asking for money off members of this forum!

We are doing our LEJOG for a charity who are closely linked with some of the teachers at our old school and I have a sponser sheet for it.

The problem is, is that I really feel very cheeky either doing a mass email round my office asking for sponsership money or going around individual desks putting people on the spot.

My three team mates dont appear to have any problem in asking everyone, however I work in a very quiet library like office full of developers and theres another closed off section that I dont even get to speak to anyone in. So basically theres a good few people in here that I dont even speak to on a regular basis!

How do you all recommend as the best way to approach people and basically ask for money without coming accross as cheeky or rude or pushy?!?

Do you think if its someone I dont speak to on a regular basis then I shouldnt even really by asking them?

Any tips would be nice!

thanks all
 

Norry1

Legendary Member
Location
Warwick
I'd suggest a polite non-pushy email with a link to a Just Giving website.
 

ColinJ

Puzzle game procrastinator!
I gave up trying to raise sponsorship from my colleagues after 3 years of doing it for the Manchester 100. Half of them moaned about me even asking them to sponsor me, but the other half said they would be happy to. I'd send a personal cheque to the charity for £150 (whatever) but then have to spend 2 months after the event pleading for the money from my sponsors. I stood behind one man in a queue at a local shop. He bought a bag of crisps with a £20 note but swore blind to me 5 minutes later that he was 'skint' and couldn't afford to pay me the 50p he'd pledged!
 

CopperBrompton

Bicycle: a means of transport between cake-stops
Location
London
Top tip with either Just Giving or a paper sponsorship form is to ask one of your more generous friends first! The first amount that appears is very influential in determining what other people will give.
 

Mark_Robson

Senior Member
Ben Lovejoy said:
Top tip with either Just Giving or a paper sponsorship form is to ask one of your more generous friends first! The first amount that appears is very influential in determining what other people will give.
Agreed. But I did it in reverse. I asked the least paid to sponsor me first and when he donated a fiver that became the bench mark. I found that waving a form in someone's face to be more effective than waiting for people to come to me.
 

Coco

Well-Known Member
Location
Glasgow
Norry1 said:
I'd suggest a polite non-pushy email with a link to a Just Giving website.
+1

Ben Lovejoy said:
Top tip with either Just Giving or a paper sponsorship form is to ask one of your more generous friends first! The first amount that appears is very influential in determining what other people will give.
+1

In the days before JustGiving I used to start a new sheet if someone put less than the recommended amount :smile:
 

jamesxyz

New Member
I'm getting fed up of asking for sponsorship as I'm not a pushy type. There also seems to be more and more people doing more and more charity events asking for sponsorship (look at how may 'charity' sportives there are now just for cycling alone) so many people in this economic climate are only prepared to gve so much and may have been asked several times prior to you to sponsor someone.

I dislike being put on the spot and being emotionally blackmailed if its a charity I don't particularly support (or not one that I would consider a priority shall we say) so I don't like doing it to others - (Don't like to name & shame but Christian Aid's tactics get my goat - I'm not against the charity at all but if I decide to give my money to another charity and throw my envelope away, when they come to collect it they always ask if I'd like another - putting pressure on me on my own doorstep!)


Here's what I try to do nowadays
  • Pick one or two key events or charities each year and focus on getting sponsorship for them - I tend to do one from my mates and for another I'll ask workmates, and maybe a third I'll only ask family. Other charity sportives I'll just enter and not donate
  • A link to a just giving website id also good as you can just send out an email and if they want to donate they can.
  • Turn it into a competition so there's 'something in it for them' - I work in a school so last year for the GYBR I bought a nice bottle of wine and 1KG of chocolate - I then ran two sweepstakes - one for staff and one for pupils, they pulled a 'finishing time' out of a hat, and the nearest to the total time it took me got the prize. I found it raised much more interest (and money).
 

summerdays

Cycling in the sun
Location
Bristol
My friend put her's on her facebook page and didn't mention it to us at all. So it was very easy to go to the Justgiving page and pay when I remembered rather than having to sign a piece of paper and remember to have money on me afterwards. I think it's less pressurised to just send a link to the page and then leave it at that.
 
Yes, send an email to everybody with a link to justgiving - that way, nobody is put on the spot and if they want to ignore it, that's up to them. Also, that way you know exactly how much money you have collected, I found with sponsorship sheets a lot of the money promised becomes uncollectable after the event for various reasons...;)
 
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