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A day in the life of our fundraising team

"No two days are the same in the fundraising office."

9am

Tracie and Mel, our database administrators, check the safe in reception every morning for any donations or raffle entries that may have come in through the post. These are taken to the finance office to be processed. They also check for any new online donations or new sponsors for events.m

9am to 9.30am

Most of the team spend some time every morning checking and replying to emails. Today, among other things, Rhiannon has some queries to respond to about our ‘Remember Me’ roses, and Elaine has some emails about the garden fete, which is happening this weekend.

9.30am

Marie and Emma, two of our community fundraisers, have a meeting about the upcoming Prospect Paddle event. We’ve reached our sign-up goal so now we just have to make sure everything is ready.

10am

Elaine receives a phone call from one of our garden fete stall holders, asking about access to the site.

10am to 11am

Mela is busy getting the ‘Remember Me’ roses ready, as they are being arranged in their display today by a group of volunteers from Arval.

11.30am

The volunteers from Arval arrive, so Elaine and Marie go to the hospice reception to meet them and thank them for donating their time.

11am to 12.30pm

Rhiannon spends a couple of hours processing the raffle tickets sold in our charity shops over the last week. At the end of this job, Rhiannon can see which shop has sold the most raffle tickets – this week, it’s our Cricklade shop, who have sold 97 tickets.

12.30pm

Lunch time! Today some people have packed lunches and some are getting food from the Heart of the Hospice café.

1pm

Tracie receives a phone call asking to give a donation, so she asks the caller for their details needed on the donation form and takes a card payment over the phone. It’s important to remember that not all of our supporters have access to the internet or can easily get to the hospice, so we need different ways of being able to take donations.

1pm to 2pm

Mela goes outside to see how the volunteers are getting on with the ‘Remember Me’ roses display and to ask if they need any help. It’s really starting to take shape, which is very exciting.

1.30pm to 3pm

Elaine has a community fundraising event to go to. When people in the community hold fundraising events, one of our fundraising team will go along to show the hospice’s gratitude and support.

2pm

A supporter comes into the hospice with the proceeds from their recent fundraising event, so Marie goes to reception to have a chat with them and thank them for their contribution. Emma has a meeting with Tina from the communications team to discuss promotion for our Fire Walk event.

2.15pm

Another delivery of our ‘Remember Me’ roses arrives, so Rhiannon and Mela go to support the volunteers with putting them on display.

2.30pm to 4.30pm

A volunteer has been coming in to the fundraising office for a few days a week in the last month to help with sorting through lottery paperwork, so Rhiannon helps them with this. It makes a huge difference having volunteer help with this – and using the paper shredder is apparently surprisingly fun!

3pm

Some new sponsorship has come through for our Fire Walk event, so Mel and Tracie put this on the system before sending it through to the finance team for processing.

3.30pm

Mela and Rhiannon go into the gardens to see how the ‘Remember Me’ roses display is looking now that more of the roses have been put out. After months of planning and preparation, it’s very emotional to see them on display, each rose remembering someone’s loved one.

3pm to 5pm

Elaine spends some more time replying to emails about the garden fete and making sure everything is ready for it. As well as emails and phone calls, she also has to go out the gardens to check the space is ready – and thanks to our wonderful garden volunteers, it’s looking neater than ever.

5pm

After a long and busy day, everyone heads home – ready to do it all again tomorrow!

 

Please note that this ‘a day in the life’ piece was written in early September 2023, so some of the events mentioned may have already taken place. Check our events calendar for more information.

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