You will find here a list of unique, funny and interesting ways you and your colleagues can help lonely older people by fundraising at work
We had great fun raising money for Re-engage on our annual Day of Giving and we were absolutely delighted to support the wonderful work that is done.
Sheila, Knight Frank
- Staff yoga session – take over a meeting room for a lunchtime yoga session. Ask a staff member to lead it, see if a local fitness instructor can come in to host or even put on a YouTube video. Ask everyone who joins to make a charitable donation.
- Office Olympics – pit departments head to head at an office Olympics. Create a schedule of events (paperclip linking challenge, office obstacle course, biscuit dunking challenge, bin basketball, desk chair race), sign up your athletes and give prizes for gold, silver and bronze. Ask all competitors to make a charitable donation to take part.
- Step challenge – compete with your colleagues by seeing who can rack up the largest number of steps over a week or a month. Ask your colleagues to sponsor you to reach your target and for competitors to make a charitable donation to take part.
- Cycle-a-thon – if your office has a gym, or you can bring an exercise bike into the office, work as a team to cycle a distance over 24 hours. Ask your colleagues to sponsor the riders and come to cheer them on.
- 5-a-side tournament – book a local pitch or use an outside space to hold a football tournament. Ask the players to donate to take part.
- Pot-luck lunch – Ask colleagues to each bring a dish from a country of their choice. Invite everyone in the office to enjoy lunch together and make a donation for their meal.
- Packed lunch week – see if your office can commit to a week of home-made meals instead of buying food at lunch. Donate the money saved to charity.
- Tuck shop – bulk buy sweets, chocolate bars and crisps and set up an office shop with all profits going to charity.
- Bake sale – get baking and sell your sweet treats to the office. Take it up a gear by turning it into a bake off challenge and asking people to vote for their favourite.
- Bacon butties – bring in breakfast for your office by making bacon butties (or a vegetarian alternative) and giving the profits to charity
- Board game tournament – take over a meeting room at lunchtime over a week and play a different game each day. Participants donate to take part and the winner gets a prize.
- Quiz – create an office quiz: general knowledge or specific questions about your company and colleagues. Ask those who take part to make a donation.
- Guess the intro – create a playlist and bring your colleagues together to see who had the best music knowledge.
- Heads and tails - ask everyone who is taking part to put in a donation and choose either heads or tails. Flip a coin and tell those that were correct to remaining standing, ask everyone left standing to choose again and repeat until you have one winner left. Give the winner half the donation collection and donate the other half to charity.
- Sweapstake – before a sporting event such as the Olympics or World Cup ask your colleagues to pick a country or a team from a hat and donate to take part. Whoever’s country comes out top receives half the prize money and the rest goes to charity.
- Social media silence – challenge yourself and your colleagues to stay off social media for a week or a month. Ask for sponsorship from others in the office, friends and family.
- Pop up spa – set up a make-shift spa in a meeting room and bring in some nail varnish and a bottle of bubbles.
- Bring your dog to work day – set a fundraising target for the office, if it is reached arrange for a visit from a dog to the office to make everyone smile.
- Compliment jar – make a donation to take part and write an anonymous compliment to one of your colleagues, hand them out at the end of the day to spread some happiness.
- Raffle for a duvet day off work – time is precious, see how much your colleagues are willing to bid for an extra day’s holiday relaxing at home.
- Meditation session – create a relaxing area with atmospheric music, fairy lights and cushions for people to take a break from the office. Ask them to donate to spend time in the room.
- Office lock up - transform a meeting room into as prison for the day and make a donation to have a colleague of your choice ‘locked up’ without their phone for a crime of your choice. Give your colleagues the option to match your donation to get out early.
- Extremely difficult baking challenge – find a picture of an extremely elaborate cake online and set bakers the challenge of recreating it. Each baker makes a donation and the office vote on the best and worst creations.
- Dress as each-other day – put names into a hat and each choose a colleague to dress as for the day. Entrants make a donation and the most convincing outfit wins a prize.
- Hideous jumper day – make a donation to don your most questionable jumper, hold a competition to see who has the worst jumper of all.
- Baby photo challenge – ask your colleagues to each bring in a baby photo and compete to see who can match the babies to the adults.
- Unwanted gift sale – see if someone will treasure your unwanted gifts. Hold a competition to see who has received the worst gift of all.
- Office theme tune – Choose an office theme tune for the day and play it at random intervals throughout, the last one to stand up and dance has to make a donation.
- Portrait competition – ask your colleagues to draw or paint a staff member of their choice, make a donation to buy the portraits to take home or hang on the office wall.
- Photography competition – set a theme and give budding photographers the chance to shine. Charge a donation per entry and hold an office exhibition of all the entries so that staff can vote for their favourite.
- Treasure hunt – create clever clues that lead your colleagues on a hunt around the office. Charge your colleagues to take part and give a prize to the person who gets to the finish fastest.
- Craft fair – find out who in the office has a talent for making home-made gifts.
- Lunch and Learn – give your colleagues a whistle stop tour of a hobby or area of interest (art history, thai cooking, pottery – anything at all!) over a lunchtime. Make it fun and interactive and ask for a donation to take part.