Hello, it’s Natalie here! I’m on the charity helpdesk and I recently spoke to Chris from The Rona Trust about a really great fundraising idea.
Darren and his crew took an original approach to fundraising by using a music video to raise money. This is not, however, your average music video. It was filmed on a six day voyage whilst in the waters of England, France and The Channel islands!
Chris says, "We set a video launch target of £500 expecting it to take a few weeks to reach and hit it in 48 hours. We are now targeting £2,000." (Wow!)
You can see their fundraising page here: www.justgiving.com/rockstar
It even features on Nickleback’s own website! [Ed - this is how they remind me...]
This page really highlights the potential of fundraising pages; you can use them for any idea you come up with and so can your supporters. Using YouTube and Flickr is quick and easy and makes the page more interesting with video and more photos.
Chris kindly took some time out to answer a few questions about this marvellous idea…
What is your charity and what do they do?
The Rona Trust is a sail training charity based on the south coast of England. We aim to provide through sea training, opportunities for young people to acquire those attributes of a seaman, namely a sense of responsibility, resourcefulness and teamwork.
Where did the fundraising idea come from?
On the second day of a standard sail training voyage, the one CD of music we had was playing for the fourth time and Dean said we should reshoot the video… (and so the idea of fundraising using a music video was born!)
What did you want the page to achieve?
We want to raise enough money to replace the computer systems the project uses to run everything from, anything left over can then go to help fund the sail training voyages.
What sort of feedback have you had?
People love the video and find it’s really easy to donate via the page.
How has Justgiving helped?
Justgiving has helped shorten the time it takes to get people to give money, as soon as they see the video they can open their wallet and donate straight onto your site.
Did it take up much time or resource?
The video took five days to film, and was edited in the evenings during that time. The Justgiving page was really easy to get going and add the video and photos to.
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
A big thank you to all the crew that helped make it happen: Darren, Robin, Chris, James, Dean, Dan, Jo, Hazel, Lucinda, Jim, Lewis, Ashley, Rob, Cat, Liam, Rob, Marc, Ed, Katy, Rochelle, Matt and Jon-Joe.
Well done guys and good luck for reaching that £2000 target!
Want some inspiration? We’ve made a slide show bringing together ideas from fundraisers and charities who have done their own creative fundraising. Access it here – the embedding feature on Slideshare doesn’t seem to be working 
Do you have an unusual and exciting fundraising story you’d like to share? If so please leave a comment or contact us.
