Climbing the Fundraising Mountain

Jordey Logan is travelling to Tanzania in the summer of 2013 and began his fundraising in November last year. Since then he has managed to raise all the money for his expedition and is continuing to fundraise to help the other members of his team reach their goal too…

So far I have done a couple fundraising events, some with my school and other students going on the trip, such as a carwash which we in total managed to raise £200 earning me about £30, a year 7 stay awake raising about £400, raising me about £100. Things like this are a good idea as you don’t have to do it on your own and it will provide you with some money. But doing an event by myself has allowed me to raise a lot more money for my trip.

The first thing I did by myself was a sponsored head shave since I had been growing my hair for about 6 years, all the way through secondary school , changing it from big curly hair into dreadlocks. Resulting in most of my friends to have never seen me with short hair, helping me raise a total of £450, as so many people where determined to see me with short hair.

The best way of drumming up a considerable amount of money which I realised, are events that include the following two things; something that nobody else has done or something not many do, and things that make people question if you are able to complete it or not.

One event that I have recently done which included both of these things is something called the Everest Challenge, which involved me climbing 997 feet (304m) from Lynmouth to the highest point of Countisbury hill, 29 (and a bit) times continuously to make up the 29028 feet (8848m) to the summit of Everest, which I managed to complete in 26hours 47minutes. And as this event was something nobody has ever done, I managed to raise £3521.51. Meaning I have practically raised all the money required for my trip to Tanzania in 2013.

So from all of the events that I have done so far, I have managed to raise around £4101.51, meaning that I have raised over my target amount of £4000, £3840 for the trip and £160 for anything I require e.g. jabs. But as I still have just under a year left till my trip, I’m going to help as many of my friends going on the trip as best I can to make raising the money required that little bit easier.

One of the main reasons to how I managed to raise such a considerable amount wasn’t just because it was a remarkable challenge, but because of how well I advertised it/let people know what I was doing. A good way of doing this is to create a Facebook page, even though creating a website looks good, nearly everybody will check Facebook regularly unlike a website. Another good way is to put a write up about the event in your local paper and place posters and fliers around where you live. Anything that grabs someone’s attention while informing them what’s happening.

In case you are thinking that you wouldn’t be able to easily go up to people asking for sponsorship, or going into places and asking for them to put up posters and possible sponsor you. Don’t be ashamed as that was my biggest problem while fundraising, but what allowed me to overcome that problem was since I was determined to raise the money for my trip, even if it resulted in my going out of my comfort zone to achieve it. But I promise you now that even if the first time is hard it does get easier the more times you try.

The best advice I can give to anyone is; don’t set challenges which you know you can’t complete, make sure you let as many people as possible know what you’re doing (not just the event/challenge but what the money’s for and what you’ll be doing during your trip). Last thing I will say, which many people have told me, is that you won’t succeed if you don’t try.

I wish everyone else who is fundraising for a trip all the best and hope what I have said helps.

This entry was written by Hannah.

Posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2012. Remember to leave a comment!