Friday 15th March sees the return of Red Nose Day for Comic Relief so it’s time to be thinking of those all important fundraising ideas for the workplace!
It’s the bi-annual event that has been around since its launch date on February 5th 1988 where a whopping £15 Million was raised for charitable causes, which interestingly, in today’s money would be almost 40 million quid!
The money goes towards providing various support initiatives for some of the most vulnerable children and young people in the U.K and around the globe, including promoting positive mental health schemes, better education, sustainable food initiatives and overall health and wellbeing.
Wellspace are proud to support this iconic comic event, and we have been racking our brains for some fun fundraising ideas that focus on health and wellbeing for the workplace.
We’ve come up with one or two suggestions, want to find out more? Read on….
Why do Fundraising for Comic Relief?
The whole point of fundraising on Red Nose Day is to raise money for Comic Relief who support the most needy and vulnerable children, and hopefully, as comedy is at the source of this amazing organisation, have some fun at the same time.
So, coming up with ideas that will generate some cash and where you can have a laugh with colleagues, is not only going to benefit these young people, it is an excellent way of building a strong, cohesive team, where altruism is regarded as fundamental to the culture of the workplace.
Not only will this build trust and friendships, it will give individuals a greater level of self-esteem as they see the worthwhile causes that the money goes towards following their fundraising achievements.
This will in return, have a positive effect on the workplace by increasing employee loyalty, improving creativity, reduce absenteeism and generally lead to an improvement in the overall output of the business.
Team Fundraising Ideas for the Workplace
Fundraising in the workplace is a good way to get everybody involved, although it has to be said, making people feel pressured in to giving up their time and hard-earned cash when they may be struggling themselves can have the opposite effect to raising self-esteem, and the emphasis has to be placed very much on the voluntary aspect of being involved.
Putting people under additional pressure is only going to turn people off from the whole concept.
So, ideas where participation can vary from person to person are always a good thing.
You could start with a 10,000-step challenge. Encourage people to commit to 10,000 steps in exchange for sponsorship.
This is a great way to introduce some exercise in to your daily routine whilst raising money for a great cause. And it’s amazing how quickly those steps will add up if you incentivise staff to take the stairs for example rather than using the lift, or book meeting rooms at the end of the corridor!
Back in the day at the start of the Dot Com revolution, there were companies who used to roller skate around the office! Now whilst this might have some health and safety repercussions and is not always practical, what you could do in homage to these roller-skating execs of the 90’s is arrange a 24-hour skateathon at your local roller-skating rink.
This is a great way to raise funds and the benefits of roller-skating on your health is making it an increasingly popular form of exercise!
In a similar vein, trampolining has had a resurgence in popularity, and there are jump parks opening across the U.K where rows and rows of trampolines allow participants to bounce around and have a great time!
You could do any number of 24-hour events for fundraising ideas in the workplace where you organise a series of tag teams to hold the baton aloft so to speak over a 24-hour period, not forgetting to get the publicity organised to maximise on your team fund raising efforts.
Individual Fundraisers
Alternatively, you may have in your organisation one or two people that are super motivated and participate in sporting events on a regular basis.
It could be that they want to take part in climbing the Eiger, running a marathon across the Sahara Desert, or participate in some sort of global iron man/woman challenge to raise money, but they don’t get enough time to train.
By having a flexible working environment and encouraging these super athletes to take up their challenges not only demonstrates what an understanding and flexible employer you are to your employees, it’s also going to mean some great kudos for the organisation when they complete their challenge!
More Health Based Ideas for Fundraising
For those who prefer a more mentally challenging event to a physical one for a fundraising idea for the workplace, why not organise a 24-hour board games day with a league table for those who join in? Everybody loves a game of monopoly or snakes and ladders, and encouraging positive mental health is great for the overall health and wellbeing of employees.
For the foodies amongst you, if you have a canteen why not swap places with the staff for a day?
Ditch the corporate uniform for kitchen workwear, roll up your sleeves and get stuck in! Your employees would definitely pay extra for the lunch time sandwich if it had been lovingly created by a member of the Board!
Contact us
Okay so we’ve given you a few ideas here for fundraising in the workplace for Red Nose Day, now it’s your turn; if you can think of anything fun and interesting that has a health-based initiative behind it for raising money, we’d love to hear from you. Or if you are interested to learn more about our Wellbeing App that can support you and your employees with their health and fitness goals you can contact us here for more information or call us on 0808 178 0748.
We have an expert team of health and wellbeing professionals who will be delighted to discuss how any of the above ideas can benefit your business and we look forward to hearing from you.
In the meantime, don’t forget to order your fundraising pack and pick up your red noses from any of the participating outlets who support this very worthy cause. Happy Red Nose Day!!
