10 Fundraising ideas for your Estate Agency 13 Jul 2019
Nowadays it is so important for businesses to support their local communities with various fundraising events.
The Agents Giving Charity is there to support agents all over the UK who are raising money, whether it is for a tiny local charity, a big National event, or with a personal reason.
By getting in touch with us, you can extend your fundraising further, by getting a grant to help you with set-up costs, by getting more exposure here on our website, or on our social media pages, and you can be part of a much bigger picture.
Together all agents across the UK join together to show how generous we are, putting all of our fundraising amounts into one pot before it is distributed out to the variety of charities we all support, it gives our industry an overall figure to shout about!
Help the Homeless Charities
Being in the property industry does mean that we really do have a duty to help those people who are less fortunate and unable to afford to live comfortably, or even live under a roof.
At the end of 2018, according to the homeless charity Shelter, at least 320,000 people were homeless in Britain, amounting to a year-on-year increase of 13,000, a 4% rise. Even worse, recently published data reveals 124,490 minors were housed in temporary accommodation in England at the end of 2018, marking an increase of 55,440 since the same period in 2010 and a rise of 33 per cent in the last four years.
So at Agents Giving, we support The Trussell Trust with our food drives, in conjunction with The Relocation Agent Network, for #AgentsGivingDay where we encourage agents to offer their offices as collection points for items of food that are needed for your local foodbank? Between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019, the Trussell Trust’s food bank network distributed 1.6 million three-day emergency food supplies to people in crisis, a 19% increase on the previous year. More than half a million of these went to children, that has to be a great reason to join us with this fundraising event?
Organise a Golf Day
The perfect excuse to don some questionable fashion and show off your driving skills. Why not gather a group of keen golfers and set yourself up a competition? The winner gets a trophy and bragging rights for a year, whilst the tournament entry fees go into the fundraising pot. If you have enough beginners who’d love to join in, you could even organise playing in pairs – a beginner paired with a pro so they can learn along the way. After you’ve tired yourselves out with a long walk and an embarrassing number of bogeys, why not boost the fundraising coffers by organising a presentation lunch?
Football tournament
Whether your allegiance lies with Liverpool, Arsenal, Real Madrid or Scunthorpe United, there are probably a lot of you who watch games whilst wondering what would have happened if there’d been a talent scout at your school footie game when your famous shot hit the jumper and rolled in. You can live your dreams! Find yourself someone who knows the offside rule well enough to referee, get some teams with silly names signed up and have a tournament. If you make it an annual event, you can play for some team medals and a year’s worth of bragging rights, whilst also having an afternoon of living out your wildest football fantasies. Best held on a Saturday, make sure there’s a plentiful supply of Deep Heat in the office on Monday for those who accidentally go ‘full Beckham’.
The Great Agent Bake Off or Coffee Morning
Cake, and competition. Arguably two of the property industry’s biggest loves. Choose your own Paul and Prue, get everyone to concoct some baked goods, and have them judged blind. If you really want to make an event of it, how about adding a cake-themed raffle or a generation game (we might be showing our age here!) style cake decorating challenge. With great cake, comes great ‘responsibili-tea’, so you might want to source a big enough teapot!
Holding a coffee morning with tea and cake in an easily accessible hall is a tried and tested way of getting out into the community by having a good old chat. There are many annual Nationwide coffee morning events you can join, such as Macmillan Coffee Morning, but remember to do it through Agents Giving so that we can help support your event.
For some members of the community, events like this are a great way to socialise. If you want to make it a regular thing, how about holding a themed event? An afternoon tea with a volunteer band playing ‘tea dance’ songs, or a morning of art, with a few local artists exhibiting their work. The possibilities are endless!
Organise a team challenge
One of our annual events is the Agents Giving “Love Mud” challenge. Who doesn’t love running whilst being covered head-to-toe in mud having lost both of your trainers in a sludgy puddle two miles ago? It’s even better surrounded by giggling friends and colleagues. If you love a team challenge, get your running kit on and start training for a local sponsored event. Great fun, raising money AND getting fit. What’s not to like? Maybe leave your best trainers in the wardrobe though…
Undertake a personal challenge
Some people are best motivated by setting themselves a challenge which other people will sponsor in lieu of attempting it themselves. Andy Trantum did exactly this back in 2014, paddling over 350 miles in 20 days, and raising over £8000 for charity. If you prefer to keep your feet on dry land, you might feel like attempting the cool 26.2 miles of a marathon, or take in the scenery whilst cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats. If you’ve got a challenge idea, we’re right behind you!
In 2016 and 2017 our Agents Do Strictly competition involved agents learning to dance during their summer, they all delighted in learning how to dance professionally. In 2016 Maxine Lester took the trophy, and in 2017 Jane Gardner did, both incidentally with the Cha Cha Cha.
Charity Fun Day
If you associate football and muddy cross country running with your PE-dodging days, then fear not – we’ve got you! Hard boil those eggs and shake out the potato sacks for a fun-filled sports day. You could hold a ‘nonsense’ sponsor events, have people pay-per-sponge to ‘dunk the agent’ and dish out the tenth-place certificates with gusto! A good old-fashioned day of nonsense fun will guarantee to put smiles on faces and raise lots of money for charity. Or how about a charity Rounders Match and tie that in with a BBQ afterwards?
Our shorts and shades have already been well and truly dusted off, so we think they should be put to good use! Get Ellen from sales to fire up the gas BBQ and Dave from lettings to chop cucumber for the Pimms, rig up some speakers and hire a bouncy castle for the little (and big!) kids and get the whole team and their families involved in a bit of Summery fun.
Get your music on
We know there are so many of you with hidden musical talents. Whether you play the violin like Vanessa Mae, rock guitar like Dave Grohl, or could out-angel Susan Boyle with your cherubic warbling, get thee to a stage! You could organise an open mic night with an entry fee, or if you’re feeling ambitious, a full-blown concert. When people know it’s for an excellent cause, they’ll be much more forgiving of any bum notes.
In 2018 we held an “Agents Got Talent” event in London and we were blown away by how many very talented estate & letting agents there are, so why not organise something similar within your own organisation?
Crafternoon
If knitting and crochet are more your style, organising a calming get-together where attendees can chat, drink tea, and come away having learnt a new skill could be right up your street. You could organise a raffle of crafting equipment and donations from local crafters, have a table filled with crafted items for sale that Kirstie Allsopp would be proud of, and have different stations with a different craft on each to bring out the creative side of your guests! Take a look at Kirstie’s video for Home’start Love Snowflake campaign, that might inspire you!
Alternatively, how about a painting afternoon, just like going back to school, get out the paper, paints, APRONS! You may even be able to auction the art afterwards, you never know, our next Picasso could be hiding amongst you somewhere!
Donate a Coat
Continuing our support of the Homeless or Needy, every year at the annual Relocation Agent Network conference, we ask agents to collect any unwanted, outgrown or unused coats, hats, gloves, parcel them up and bring them along to the conference, where we will donate them to the local London Foodbanks.
This is also something you can do for your own local foodbank charity, check HERE to find your nearest branch.
