Blog

Invest Your Donation

Thursday, 16 August 2018

No matter how important the cause, raising money can be challenging. Sometimes the best place to start is by making your own donation - but this might feel like a small step in the journey to reaching your goal.

What if you could turn your $20 donation into $100 and raise awareness about bringing safe water to rural Zimbabwe at the same time?

‘Investment’ is a scary word that you might associate with buying property or shares - but it’s really a very simple way of taking what you have and multiplying it as much as you can. In the case of raising funds for Safe Water September, investing your donation is a great opportunity to get creative and make a difference.

Set yourself a goal

How far do you think your investment can go? Setting yourself a goal is a great way to plan how to spend your donation. For example, if you want to see your $20 turn into $100, you could spend $20 on supplies to make 20 items. If you sell each of those 20 items for $5, you will have raised $100 for Safe Water September.

How to invest

Ask yourself what you’re good at and what your friends, family and community are likely to pay for. If you need to buy supplies, shop around for great deals so you can maximise the amount you can buy and therefore, the amount of items or services you can sell.

Money can be difficult to handle and easy to lose - so why not cut out the handling of cash completely? Provide people buying from you with a direct link to your Safe Water September profile where they can donate.

Not only is this a great way to demonstrate that their full donation is going straight to the cause, but you may also be surprised by people’s willingness to donate above and beyond what you’re requesting. If someone hands you cash, keep the cash and donate to the website on their behalf for the same amount.

Some creative ideas to get you started

The options for investment are endless, but we’ve thought of a few ideas to spark your creativity!

  1. Everyone loves a bake sale! If you’re an old hand in the kitchen (or you know someone who is), you could spend your donation on ingredients for baked goods. Think cakes, slices and cookies - or if you’re a little more adventurous, have a go at macarons, fruit tarts or sugar cookies decorated with royal icing. You could sell these baked goods at your university, lunchroom or sporting event - just make sure to get any necessary permission before purchasing supplies! Make sure you spread the word about what you’re selling and where your customers’ money is going. Perhaps you could document the baking process on your social media to gain interest early! Don’t forget to use the hashtag #SafeWaterSeptember.
  2. Get crafty! If you’ve got a creative eye for making cards, jewellery, keychains, or just about anything else, you could use your skills to make greats items to sell. You could take these items to church or sporting events and directly ask people if they’re interested in making a donation in return for an item - or perhaps you could post photos of the items to social media with a link to your Safe Water September profile where they can donate.
  3. Wash some cars! Who doesn’t like a sparkly car? This is a great, water-related way to raise funds. It’s very inexpensive to buy a couple of sponges, a bucket and some car washing liquid. It might also make people more aware of how easily we can access water in Australia, and how far safe water could go in rural Zimbabwe. This would be a great option for a youth or church event - get your friends involved and see how many cars you can clean with your initial donation, no matter how small or large it might be.

It costs $20 to provide water for one person in rural Zimbabwe - keep this in mind when pricing up whatever you’re offering! If you’re selling something for $10, let people know that their donation will get one person half way to accessing safe water.

It’s sometimes easy to feel far removed from the projects we raise money for. Providing information like this is a great way of making a donation tangible.

However you ‘invest’ your donation, make sure you let us know! Use the #SafeWaterSeptember hashtag to encourage others and raise further awareness for the campaign and the much needed water projects in rural Zimbabwe.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact the Safe Water September team via info@embody.org.au, or head to www.safewaterseptember.org.au for more information on the campaign. We can’t wait to see what you come up with!


Privacy policy