Virtual Fundraising

It’s almost that time of year where my city does cystic fibrosis (CF) walks to raise money and awareness for CF. Fundraising is my calling, I love it! I also believe there is an art to it. Crafting the perfect Facebook post, walk team names and t-shirts, grabbing the attention of a crowd, and thanking those who participate.

There’s a lot that goes into it behind the scenes, and I love taking part. During the pandemic, a lot of our work had to be converted to online. This actually made donating and participation more accessible for our friends, family, and the general public.

I’m going to talk about some of my fundraising ideas that I’ve done that were a success and a lot of fun!

Virtual fundraising ideas

Viral videos

During the pandemic I had to move my fundraisers online, which initially posed uncertainty. I didn’t know if people were going to participate. It turns out it was a hit! One of the first things I started doing was posting on TikTok. The algorithm shows your video to more people, the more that people interact with it, such as rewatching, liking, commenting or sharing. I found that people were fascinated when I showed visual parts of CF like my treatments, pills, day in the life videos, and those got attention. That paired with a donation link was a great strategy!

Balloon count

Another thing my sister and I did was we posted on Facebook and relied on people sharing the post. We told people that for every $10 donation, we would blow up a balloon in honor of it. We did weekly updates of our balloon filled living room for a month. We ended up with hundreds of balloons and filmed a final video of us jumping in them and popping them. It was so much fun!

65 km

The following year we made a challenge for people to do their own walks throughout the month of May, which is CF awareness month. We challenged people to walk 65 kilometers throughout the month and post updates of them completing the challenge.

We chose the number 65 because of the “65 Roses” story, and we also felt like it was an achievable goal. Some people actually went further by attempting the 65 km in one day! We raised a lot of awareness by other people posting images and videos of them doing their walks so I believe it was a success.

Drastic times call for Jurassic measures

This next idea was a little bit odd, but it worked. My friend had a blow up dinosaur suit and when your friend has a blow up dinosaur suit, you use it! We made a bunch of videos of my mom wearing the suit, going around town with signs about CF.

We said that if we reached our donation goal, she would paddle across the river on a paddle board, wearing the suit. So obviously, people wanted to see that. So she ended up paddling across the river as a dinosaur. That got a lot of attention, and laughs!

Remember, no idea is too crazy!

Have you ever gotten creative with spreading CF awareness? Share your ideas in the comments below!