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Fundraising FAQs

Before you start...

We’re thrilled you want to fundraise for us – welcome to Team FoodCycle! From cake competitions to sponsored salsas, we have lots of fundraising ideas for you. Download our fundraising pack here and please get in touch to let us know what you are planning so we can support you every step of the way!

As long as your fundraising idea is legal and safe for both yourself and others, you can do absolutely anything you like to fundraise. The crazier the better! Although we would also like it to be in line with the ethos of FoodCycle – sitting in a bathtub full of baked beans might be a money spinner but would contradict our approach to food waste!

It’s great that you want to support your local FoodCycle Project but it would be even more fantastic if you fundraised directly for FoodCycle, so we can make sure your donation is spent where it will have the most impact.

Our network of projects is funded by a diverse mix of supporters and partners who make our Projects possible in many ways. Some Projects secure multi-year funding from grants and foundations, some are supported by a local or regional corporate partners.

Our fundraising team work hard to secure income for Projects across all our regions but some will inevitably secure more funding than others. It may be that your local Project is already fully funded for years to come (hurrah!), and therefore we would love to use your donation to support other Projects in need and develop new ones.

We also have national partnerships with corporates that donate items we need like fridges or washing machines. Your local Project Team can find out what support is available. We’d much rather get a fridge for free so we can make even more of your fundraising to spend on something we can’t get donated.

Our Finance team do a brilliant job of making sure income is allocated and spent in the correct way and in line with budgets – with over eighty individual Projects this can be resource-intensive. This is why we ask you to consider supporting FoodCycle nationally rather than locally.

Once again, thank you so much for your interest in helping your local FoodCycle project – if you have any further questions about how our fundraising is allocated, please get in touch.

If you are under 16, you’ll need to get a parent or guardian’s permission to fundraise for FoodCycle. Please download our consent form.

Team FoodCycle will be here to back you all the way on your fundraising journey!

We can provide lots of information about FoodCycle, how the money could be spent and the impact donations have to encourage people to support us Depending on your event we may be able to supply a FoodCycle t-shirt or running top
Lots of fundraising resources including collecting tins, banners, templates to make your own leaflets and banners and more And advice and tips from our fundraising team Just get in touch and we’ll do our best to help you!

We want to make sure food poverty, loneliness and food waste is a thing of the past for every community and we ensure we spend our fundraising money where it is most needed. You can find out more about the impact we’ve had here.

Week in, week out our amazing team of volunteers feed the hungry and connect communities and we could not do it without their generous donation of time. However, our Projects still have running costs – from transporting the food to venue hire. We also have to spend money on training volunteers, publicising our Projects, insurance and lots more, so every penny raised is very much appreciated!

Tell the world!

When you fundraise for FoodCycle you are raising money as an independent supporter. You should explain that you are fundraising ‘in aid of’ FoodCycle. You should also make it clear whether any money you raise will go entirely to FoodCycle or whether some will be used for costs. For example – ‘All fundraising at the event will go to FoodCycle, registered charity 1134423’.
We’d love you to shout about how you’re fundraising for FoodCycle but we would like to know if you want to use our logo. Please get in touch to let us know how you plan to use it in your communications.

Local newspapers and radio stations love featuring members of their community especially if your fundraising challenge is a bit wacky or has an interesting story behind it. You can download our template press release to help you contact your local media.

Don't sweat the sweaty stuff

Yes you can! And we’d love you to wear it as much as possible during your training too to get the FoodCycle name out there. Get in touch to let us know about your event and what size top you require.

We have hundreds of charity spaces at sports events across the country, ranging from short fun-runs to full Olympic-scale triathlons. Have a look at our ‘Run for FoodCycle’ page to sign up and for more information on events in your local area.

Unfortunately, we currently don’t have any allocated places in the London Marathon but if you manage to get a place, we’d love it if you’d run in support of us! We have running vests that you can use during your training and on the day of the race and can give you some top tips to reach your fundraising goals.

The nitty gritty

You can run one of these events for FoodCycle but there are various rules you must stick to in order not to break the law. Please get in touch to tell us about the event you are planning and we can help you keep everything above board.

Gift Aid allows charities to reclaim tax on a donation made by a UK tax payer, which means your donations are worth an extra 25%.

If you fundraise for FoodCycle via our JustGiving site they will collect Gift Aid from any suitable donors directly. If you are collecting donations off-line, be sure to ask your donors to complete our sponsorship form and send it into us so we can claim the Gift Aid for you.

Please note Gift Aid can only be claimed on each single donation (so you can’t lump all your fundraising together and make a bulk donation).

The donation cannot be made in return for something, for example, cake sales, raffle tickets and auction bids would not qualify as donations.

Our fundraising team are Gift Aid gurus so please get in touch if you are unsure about anything.

All about the money...

However you plan to fundraise, using JustGiving is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to collect your funds. Check our our top tips on setting up your page and remember to share it with your family and friends!

If you are collecting cash donations you can use our sponsorship/donation form to take people’s details so that we can claim Gift Aid where applicable.

You can find all the ways to pay in your funds here. You may also find it useful to download our cash counting and paying in form.