Crowdfunder | Stories

Save the Traf: the community share offer turning a threatened Wimbledon pub into a community-owned local

Rebecca Hughes — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:02:21 +0100

The Trafalgar in South Wimbledon has raised £325,890 from 203 supporters towards saving itself from demolition, with 49 days left to hit its new stretch target of £530,000.

Community Benefit Society Cabo Trafalgar Ltd is buying the pub’s freehold outright through a community share offer, the same model that’s kept over 200 pubs across England open under local ownership.

A pub that’s been serving Wimbledon since 1868

The Trafalgar, known locally as the Traf, is Wimbledon’s oldest freehouse. It’s been pulling pints on High Path since at least 1868 and has built the kind of reputation most pubs never get close to: CAMRA South West London Pub of the Year in both 2024 and 2026, and a place on the Telegraph’s Top 500 Pubs in England.

Under current landlord Oli Carter-Esdale, the Traf has re-established itself as an independent freehouse loved by long-time regulars and newer visitors alike.

Three years of fighting off the bulldozers

The Traf sits on the edge of a major regeneration zone in Merton, which has made it a target. Since 2023, the pub’s freeholder, a property developer, has submitted repeated planning applications to demolish it and build housing. Every application has been rejected. When the developer appealed, the Planning Inspectorate dismissed that too, explicitly recognising the pub’s cultural and social value and its right to keep operating.

Winning at planning doesn’t make a pub safe forever though. The Traf’s lease is coming up, and the only way regulars can guarantee no developer gets another shot is to own the building outright.

Community ownership, or nothing

That’s what Save the Traf is about. Supporters formed Cabo Trafalgar Ltd, a Community Benefit Society, to buy the £500,000 freehold and hold it for the community, permanently. As one campaign organiser put it: “The only way to protect the Traf for generations is community ownership.”

“The only way to protect the Traf for generations is community ownership.”

The minimum target is £250,000. The campaign has since set an extended stretch target of £530,000, covering the full purchase and completion costs. £325,890 is in from 203 people so far, 61% of that stretch goal, with 49 days left before the share offer closes on 17 November 2026. Completion is targeted for Christmas Eve.

Investment starts at £250 (250 shares at £1 each), and every member gets one vote regardless of how much they’ve put in, true to the community shares model. Interest accrues at 3.5 to 4% depending on investment tier. Supporters also get a birthday drink each year, their name on the pub’s wall of honour and ongoing drink discounts, with brewery visits for anyone investing £1,000 or more.

Why this one’s different

The crowd really came through for this project and made it one of the fastest-funding pub crowdfunders on the platform. The share offer launched on 9 September, backed by a community meeting that drew nearly 140 people. Within 24 hours, the campaign had already passed 20% of its target. Inside a week, it had cleared 50%. Two weeks after launch, Cabo Trafalgar Ltd had hit its minimum £250,000 target in full, which is what triggered the move to the £530,000 stretch goal that’s still open today.

That’s the kind of local density most fundraisers spend months trying to build, and it’s why this is shaping up to be the biggest pub crowdfunder of the year: not just the size of the target, but the speed the community hit it at. If it succeeds, the Traf becomes Merton’s first community-owned pub, joining a growing list of pubs across England that have swapped a developer’s spreadsheet for a share register.

What it says about community shares

Community shares work because everyone with a stake becomes an advocate. Businesses funded this way have a strong track record: 92% of companies that raise through community shares are still trading, against 55% for the average business. When 203 people each own a piece of the pub, none of them are hoping someone else saves it. They’re the ones saving it.

Regulars and anyone who believes locals deserve a say over their local have 49 days left to add their name to that wall of honour. Invest now at crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-the-traf, or look into how a community share offer could protect a place you care about.

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The Positivity Project: Episode 2

Rebecca Hughes — Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:25:16 +0100

Trees work on timescales we’re not really built to notice. A woodland takes hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years to become what we’d call ancient. Episode two of The Positivity Project follows one reforestation project across that span: from a handful of collected seeds, through a nursery of tens of thousands of saplings, to a fifteen-year-old woodland finding its feet, and on to an ancient woodland that shows where it’s all heading.

The charity behind it is Moor Trees, based in South Brent and restoring native broadleaf woodland across Dartmoor. Episode one took us to Cornwall, where Plant One are linking riverbank forests to the health of the sea below. Episode two stays with that same idea, trees as the start of something much bigger, and moves inland to see what the middle and the end of that story actually look like.

From seed to sapling

Before anything gets planted, someone has to collect the seed. Moor Trees do this themselves, gathering seed from Dartmoor’s remaining broadleaf woodland so that what gets planted back is genuinely native to the place it’s going.

From there it goes to one of the charity’s community tree nurseries, where the film finds tens of thousands of saplings growing on, ready for the next planting season. It’s the least photographed part of reforestation and one of the most important: without it, there’s nothing to plant.

Fifteen years in

The film also visits a woodland Moor Trees planted fifteen years ago. It’s not yet what most people picture when they hear “ancient woodland”, but it’s no longer a plantation either. It’s an adolescent copse, past the fragile early years and starting to behave like a proper woodland: its own understorey, its own wildlife moving in.

Where it’s all heading

The last stop is an ancient woodland, the closest thing Dartmoor has to a finished version of what today’s saplings could become. It’s there to make a point: Moor Trees’ vision is a wilder Dartmoor, with woodlands forming part of a mosaic of restored habitats that do real work against climate change and biodiversity loss, while coexisting with the farming, archaeology and recreation that already shape the moor, and reconnecting people to nature and to their own heritage.

What’s funding it

Crowdfunding has helped Moor Trees make progress towards that vision, raising tens of thousands of pounds on Crowdfunder. One of their campaigns, Breathing more life into Dartmoor: 34000 New Trees, has raised £21,035 from 111 supporters so far, with £10,000 matched by Devon Environment Foundation and £4,731 by Aviva Community Fund. The money goes on the unglamorous things that make the glamorous bit possible: compost, seed trays, staff time and volunteer transport, including a minibus from Plymouth so cost and distance aren’t the reason someone misses planting day.

More recently, at the start of 2026, they ran another project: Plant the Future with Moor Trees, where they raised £25,547 to celebrate their 25th anniversary and continue to fund their efforts and amplify their impact.

[PHOTOS: Tom’s shots of the nursery, seed collection and young woodland, plus Becca’s phone photos from the wider site, to be added]

Watch it, then help plant it

The Positivity Project exists to show what people are building when nobody’s watching. It’s also about the stories that don’t make mainstream news. This episode, that’s a charity in South Brent growing a rainforest back, one seed at a time, patiently enough to think in centuries.

Get started

Useful links

Support Moor Trees on Crowdfunder

Learn more about Moor Trees

Start crowdfunding

Printed artwork in the film by Mike Langman.

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10 rugby club fundraising ideas (with real clubs who’ve raised money)

Rebecca Hughes — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 16:41:16 +0100

Raising money for your rugby club shouldn’t be hard. Here are 10 ideas that actually work, from online campaigns to a Saturday afternoon in the clubhouse, with real clubs and figures for each.

1. Launch a crowdfunding campaign for your big project

If you’re facing a five or six-figure bill for a clubhouse rebuild, new changing rooms or floodlights, a crowdfunding campaign lets you collect one-off donations from players, parents and the wider community towards a clear target, on a page you can share on WhatsApp, email and social media.

Resources needed:

A clear target figure and a specific project (not just “general funds”)
Photos of the clubhouse, pitch or kit you’re fixing or replacing
A core group of committee members and players to share the page in week one
Your club’s bank details to set up a payout wallet

Cost of setup: Free to launch. Crowdfunder takes a small fee on funds raised.

Could raise: £5,000 to £100,000+, depending on the scale of the project.

Pontefract RUFC raised £83,439 to modernise their clubhouse.

Topsham RFC raised £83,710 to rebuild theirs brick by brick.

Kirkby Lonsdale RUFC raised £42,135 to replace failing floodlights.

Longlevens RFC raised £30,482 towards a clubhouse that works for every age group, from toddlers to the first team.

Tip: Launch with 20 to 30% of your target already pledged by committee members and sponsors. It gives everyone else the confidence to back a project that’s clearly already moving.

2. Apply for match funding to double what your crowd raises

Match funding means a funder, often a national body, a local authority or a corporate community fund, pledges to match what your supporters give, pound for pound, up to an agreed amount. It’s free money that only unlocks if your community backs the project first, so it rewards clubs that do the legwork of rallying their crowd.

Resources needed:

A project that fits a funder’s criteria (facilities, participation, inclusion)
Time to complete a short application before you launch
A campaign page that states the match funding clearly from day one

Cost of setup: Free to apply.

Could raise: Effectively doubles your crowd total. Sport England’s Movement Fund pledges 50% of your project target, and your club raises the other 50% from the crowd. Hit your crowd target and the match funding is yours.

Haywards Heath RFC stacked two funders, Aviva Community and Sport England, to raise £59,809 for a new multi-sport clubhouse.

Eccles RFC stacked Salford City Council and Sport England to raise £36,003 for facilities improvements for their women’s and girls’ sections.

Rushden & Higham RUFC used Sport England funding to reach £34,841. Across every sport on Crowdfunder, Sport England’s £6m in match funding has helped clubs collectively raise £18.9m, a 313% amplification of the original investment.

Tip: Apply for match funding before you launch, not after. Supporters are up to 84% more likely to donate, and give larger amounts, when they can see their money will be matched.

3. Run a raffle style prize draw

A raffle style prize draw is its own product on Crowdfunder: supporters buy an entry for a chance to win a prize, and the proceeds go to your club. It works well for smaller, more frequent asks that don’t need a big capital project behind them, and it’s genuinely repeatable. A free entry route has to be offered alongside paid entries on every prize draw, so build that into your plan from the start.

Resources needed:

A prize, ideally donated by a sponsor, player or local business
A free entry route (required by law on every prize draw)
A ticket price and a promotion plan for socials and matchday

Cost of setup: Free to set up, plus the cost of any prize you buy rather than have donated.

Could raise: £2,000 to £10,000 per draw, more if you repeat it.

Dorking RFC is the best example of the repeat model for a rugby club. They’ve run three separate Christmas prize draws over three different years: Light up DRFC’s Future (£8,053), The Pitch Perfect Christmas Prize Draw (£6,438) and Pad the Paddock (£5,890).

Bishop’s Stortford RFC’s minis section raised £2,965 and, separately, £2,390, with prize draws built around signed England shirts, a good reminder of how far a well-chosen prize goes. A prize draw can’t be combined with match funding on the same project, so treat it as a separate string to your bow.

Tip: Run it annually around the same date; Christmas works well, so supporters come to expect it and it becomes a fixture rather than a one-off ask.

4. Turn supporters into owners with a community shares offer

If your club is looking at a genuinely transformational purchase, buying your ground outright, taking over the freehold, or becoming fully community owned, a community shares offer lets supporters invest rather than just donate. They get a stake in the club’s future, and the club gets patient capital instead of a loan.

Resources needed:

Legal and financial groundwork before you launch
A share offer document setting out the terms
A supporter base large enough to justify the extra setup

Cost of setup: Legal and admin costs, higher than a standard project, so factor this into your target from the start.

Could raise: Six figures for a major ownership transition.

Salford Red Devils used this route in their 150th year to become the only fully community owned elite rugby league club in the country, raising £363,770 from their supporter base.

Tip: This is a bigger undertaking than a standard campaign. Get proper legal and financial advice before you commit to it, but for the right club at the right moment it’s the difference between renting your future and owning it.

5. Host a summer barbecue and end-of-season friendly

Not everything needs a webpage. A summer barbecue paired with a friendly match against a rival club, an old boys’ side or a touring team is one of the oldest tricks in the book for a reason: it brings the whole club together, families included, on a day when nobody’s under match pressure.

Resources needed:

BBQ equipment and food and drink stock
Volunteers to run the grill, the bar and the gate
A pitch booking and an opponent for the friendly

Cost of setup: £100 to £300 for food, drink and any hire costs.

Could raise: £300 to £1,000.

Tip: List the day as a small crowdfunding project too, so people who can’t make it in person can still chip in online, and you can take contactless payments on the gate alongside the cash bucket.

6. Run a quiz night, race night or beer festival

Clubhouse social events are reliable income because people already come to your bar. A quiz night, a race night with sponsored “horses”, or a small beer festival over a weekend all work on the same principle: ticket or table sales cover costs, and the bar takings are the real fundraiser.

Resources needed:

A quiz master or race night kit, and a set of questions or races
Raffle prizes for the interval
Extra bar stock and a few volunteers behind it

Cost of setup: £50 to £150 for prizes, printing and stock.

Could raise: £300 to £1,500 per event.

If you want to combine an event with online reach, Balfour Beatty’s staff Touch Rugby Challenge paired a day of touch rugby with an online prize draw and raised £2,970 for their nominated causes.

Tip: Do the event in person, then give people who can’t attend a way to back it online too, either through a prize draw or a simple donations page.

7. Set up a shirt and pitch-side sponsorship scheme

Local businesses want visibility with a loyal, local audience, and your first team shirt front, your pitch-side boards and your matchday programme are all inventory you’re probably under-using. Package up a few tiers, shirt sponsor, boot sponsor, board sponsor, matchday sponsor, price them for a local plumber or estate agent rather than a national brand, and go and ask.

Resources needed:

A simple sponsorship pack with tiers and prices
A list of local businesses connected to players and parents
Boards, shirt printing or programme space to deliver on the deal

Cost of setup: £50 to £200 for design and printing.

Could raise: £500 to £5,000 per season, and it renews.

Tip: Renew every season rather than treating it as a one-off, and add a “thank you” board of sponsor logos to any bigger campaign you run. It gives local businesses a reason to back the larger project too.

8. Start a 100 club or golden gate lottery

A 100 club (or golden gate, or numbers draw, whatever your club calls it) is a small recurring prize draw among members: everyone pays a set amount in a monthly draw for a chance to win a cash prize, and the club keeps a cut. It’s low-key but dependable, and it turns your existing membership into a steady drip of income rather than a one-off ask.

Resources needed:

A membership list and a way to collect monthly payments
A prize structure and a draw date
A quick check of your registration obligations before you launch

Cost of setup: Free, plus a registration fee with your local authority or the Gambling Commission if your ticket sales are above small-scale limits.

Could raise: £1,000 to £5,000 a year, recurring.

Tip: Do check the current Gambling Commission rules before you set your numbers and price, regular society lotteries above small-scale limits need registering.

9. Get your minis and juniors fundraising with a sponsored challenge

Junior sections are usually the biggest, most enthusiastic and most parent-supported part of any club, which makes sponsored challenges an easy win. A sponsored walk, run or cycle for an U13s tour, or an age-grade team taking on a physical challenge together, gives parents an easy way to sponsor their own child while raising the profile of the junior section.

Resources needed:

A challenge the kids are genuinely excited about
A simple online page for sponsors to give and share
A team of parent volunteers to organise the day

Cost of setup: Free to set up online, plus any costs for the event itself.

Could raise: £500 to £7,500.

Rugby St Andrews U15s raised £5,337 with a sponsored race up Snowdon.

Windsor U13s raised £7,402 towards their end-of-season tour to the South Coast Rugby Festival.

Didcot U12s raised £2,130 with a sponsored fun run.

Tip: Let the kids pick the challenge. A sponsored event they’ve chosen themselves will always out-fundraise one the committee has picked for them.

10. Run a tag rugby festival or minis tournament

A festival day for minis, juniors or mixed-ability players brings new families through the gate, gives your junior coaches a shop window, and works as a fundraiser through entry fees, a barbecue and a raffle all on the same day.

Resources needed:

Pitch space and equipment for tag or mini games
Entry fees or team fees from visiting clubs
Food, drink and a raffle to run alongside it

Cost of setup: £100 to £500 for pitch hire, equipment and prizes.

Could raise: £1,000 to £11,000, depending on how many clubs and families take part.

Portadown Panthers raised £10,988 running a disability tag rugby festival open to all abilities, ages and backgrounds across Ireland, a good example of a festival day that raises money and widens who gets to play.

Tip: Invite two or three neighbouring clubs to bring teams. More visiting families means more gate money, more raffle tickets sold, and more people who’ve never been to your ground before.

Top tips to boost your rugby club fundraising

Apply for match funding before you launch a crowdfunding campaign, not after, it makes the biggest difference to how much you raise.
Don’t rely on one method. The clubs above are often running a big facilities campaign, a Christmas prize draw and a junior sponsored challenge in the same year.
Give people who can’t attend an event in person a way to back it online too.
Say thank you publicly, on socials and at the clubhouse, sponsors and supporters who feel appreciated give again.

Start fundraising for your rugby club today

Whichever idea fits your club, Crowdfunder can help you get it off the ground.

Get started · Explore projects · Find match funding · Join a free webinar

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How to build a prize draw partnership for your large charity

Rebecca Hughes — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:05:17 +0100

In discussion with Crowdfunder’s Max, head of Campaigns.

The prize draws that raise transformational sums are not the ones with the best prizes. They are the ones where the partner has carefully considered the prize.

Our Projects team have worked on prize draw campaigns with artists from Coldplay to Ed Sheeran and charities from War Child to Crisis, and describe the pattern: “The partner promotes the draw. Their audience enters. The charity captures thousands of new supporters who had no prior connection to the cause.” The same mechanic, with a comparable prize, raises a fraction of the total when the partner doesn’t show up with genuine enthusiasm.

The examples here skew toward music and festivals; that’s simply because concert and festival experiences are natural money-can’t-buy prizes. But the mechanic works just as well outside music, as long as the prize is genuinely exclusive and the partner’s audience is the right room.

What a prize draw partnership actually does

Your partnership is a lot more than obtaining a prize. When Max (our head of Campaigns) worked on a draw featuring a handful of pairs of tickets to a major event, with a face value of around £20,000, it raised over £900,000. What surprised the charity most wasn’t the money. It was the 44,000 supporters. Most had never donated before. Many had probably never heard of the charity. They arrived because the event promoted the draw to their own audience, and that audience responded.

Charities spend significant sums every year on donor acquisition: digital ads, direct mail, cold outreach, brand campaigns. The costs keep going up, and the returns often diminish. A well-run prize draw delivers what all that spending is chasing; thousands of new supporters who actually want to be there, as a byproduct of something that also raises significant money.

The supporters who arrive through a well-matched prize draw are not random. They are pre-qualified, not by an algorithm, but by affinity. The introduction has been made by someone they trust.

What makes a prize draw partner the right one

Three things have to be true.

They have something only they can offer. Not the most expensive prize. The most exclusive one. Tickets to a sold-out show that cannot be bought anywhere else. An object with genuine provenance and a story behind it. Alex Turner offered the guitar he played during Arctic Monkeys’ first headline set at Reading. Nick Cave offered hundreds of pieces of personal memorabilia, from guitars and signed posters to plectrums and lyric sheets, raising over £220,000. War Child’s prize draw offered two tickets to one of the hardest shows in London to get into and raised £195,000. None of these required significant cost to deliver. All of them were things that couldn’t be bought anywhere else.

The same dynamic plays out well beyond music. Aston Villa Foundation offered a squad-signed shirt from their Europa League Final run, a prize only possible because the team reached the final, and only available for a brief window. Yorkshire Wildlife Park ran a draw to help fund the rescue and rehoming of lions from Ukraine, offering a £1,500 family getaway to the park as the prize. Neither required a celebrity. Both had something genuinely scarce, a moment in time, or access to something their audience cared about, and a cause that connected directly to the prize.

Their audience is correct for your cause. Max explains, a Glastonbury fan seeing a draw for a humanitarian charity is likely someone already engaged with the same or similar causes. The connection is already there, whether or not it’s been put into words. A brand with 500,000 passive followers is a different proposition entirely.

They genuinely care. This can’t be engineered. The draws that raise the most are the ones where the partner promotes the campaign because they want it to succeed, not because a contract requires it. Chris Martin has volunteered with Crisis for over twenty years. That relationship is why the Coldplay draw happened and why it worked. When the fit between the partner and the cause is right, the results are extraordinary. When it isn’t, the same mechanic raises a fraction.

The difference between a good partnership and a great one

Max explains that the best partnerships he’s been involved in didn’t look like partnerships at all. There was no sponsorship deck, no tiered benefits package. Someone cared about a cause, wanted to help, and the conversation was about how to make something great, not how to structure a deal.

Prize draws make this dynamic unusually visible. Either someone promoted it, or they didn’t, and the numbers tell you exactly which one happened.

Where to start looking

The best partnerships come from existing relationships. Before approaching anyone new, map what you already have.

Your ambassadors and supporters. Who already publicly backs your charity? Who has volunteered, donated, or spoken up for you? These are your warmest starting points.

Organisations that control access to something scarce. Festivals with sold-out tickets. Artists with meaningful objects. Venues or experiences with genuine exclusivity. The question is simple: what do they have that their audience would genuinely want, and can’t get anywhere else?

Your existing corporate and institutional partners. Corporates who are often in the background of a relationship and campaign are sometimes the ones with the most to give, and also the most to gain.

How to approach a potential partner

Lead with what’s in it for them and their audience.

The draw gives their fans something genuinely exciting to be part of. It gives the partner a public, meaningful way to support a cause they care about. And unlike an auction, it’s inclusive: thousands of people can participate for a small entry fee, not just whoever can afford to bid.

A good first conversation is short. It covers what the prize would be, the timeline, how proceeds will be split if there are multiple beneficiaries, what they can offer in terms of promotion to their own audience, and whether they’d consider matching some of the funds raised alongside the prize.

Don’t overcomplicate it. The question you’re really asking is whether they care about this cause and whether they have something only they can give.

Setting up the campaign

Once a partner is confirmed, talk to Crowdfunder before you announce anything publicly. Prize draws have specific legal requirements around free entry routes, terms and conditions, and winner selection. Getting this right before launch is much easier than fixing it afterwards.

It’s also worth a discussion with the team about the build-up, any ad spend, and the Meta Pixel.

Prize draw guidelines

Learn about the Meta Pixel

Making it repeatable

The draws that have raised the most have done it more than once. The Coldplay and Crisis/War Child campaign ran in December 2024 and returned in November 2025, more than doubling its total. Glastonbury has run its draw across multiple years.

A partner that has done it once and seen the results is far easier to bring back. Keep the relationship warm: share what the money funded, tell them what it made possible, give them genuine reasons to be proud of what the partnership achieved.

The best prize draw partnerships are not transactions. They are relationships that raise more every time.

Have something in mind, or even just the seed of an idea? The best draws often start with a simple “what if?”

Talk to us

Useful links:

How to run a six figure prize draw on Crowdfunder

How to run an online charity raffle in the UK [blog coming soon!]

Join our mailing list to receive updates on inspiring new projects, exciting match funding opportunities, Crowdfunder news, and details of our free webinars, all designed to help you raise more for the causes you care about.

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Introducing The Positivity Project

Rebecca Hughes — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 15:53:47 +0100

There is no shortage of difficult news right now. Most of what finds its way onto our screens is conflict, crisis, or cause for concern; and while that matters, it is not the whole picture of what people are doing in the world.

The Positivity Project is a new content channel from the Crowdfunder team. It exists to tell the other stories: the projects, the people, and the communities using crowdfunding to build something better. Not as a counterargument to the difficult stuff, but as a reminder of what is actually happening out there when people decide to act.

The first episode is out now.

Episode 1: The rainforests hiding in Britain

The Land Where Plankton Eat Trees (you’re on it)

Most people don’t know that Britain has temperate rainforests. They exist! Pockets of ancient, moss-draped woodland in the wet western fringes of the country can be found in Wales, Scotland, and parts of England, and they are among the rarest ecosystems on earth. Less than 1% of the world’s land surface supports temperate rainforest. Britain once held a significant share of it. Most of it is gone.

Carl is an arborist turned conservationist and co-founder of Plant One. He and his team have been working to protect and restore what remains and, increasingly, to create more of it, inspired by a conservation model from Japan.

The concept is the fish forest. In Japan, conservationists discovered that healthy broadleaf forests along riverbanks directly feed the marine ecosystems downstream. Leaf litter breaks down in rivers, carries nutrients to the sea, and supports fish populations that in turn support the coastal communities that depend on them. The connection between the trees on the hill and the fish in the sea turns out to be measurable, significant, and something you can act on.

Plant One has been using Crowdfunder to fund their work on exactly this, planting trees in the right places, with the right species, to create those connections in Britain’s own landscapes. Their most recent campaigns have focused on establishing the conditions for fish forests in the UK: finding the remaining pockets of temperate rainforest, protecting them, and extending them outward into the surrounding land.

Plant One Cornwall are close to raising £100,000 on Crowdfunder to fund the reforestation of Cornwall, the most deforested county in the UK, with match funding from Save Our Wild Isles, Cornwall Council’s Climate and Nature Fund, and Aviva. The money went toward paying the team fair wages, bridging gaps between planting costs and grant funding, and acquiring land to open up to the public.

Tom and Oscar from our team visited Carl and the Plant One project for the first episode of The Positivity Project. The resulting film is quiet, careful, and worth ten minutes of your time.

Support Plant One on Crowdfunder →

What The Positivity Project is for

In 2026, we’re not short of notifications about the latest unsettling news and negative content on the internet. This channel can hopefully be a space that people feel genuinely hopeful to engage with.”

That’s the intention. Each episode will document a project from the Crowdfunder platform; the people behind it, what they’re building, and what made it possible. Some will be environmental projects like Plant One. Others will be community spaces, arts organisations, sports clubs, social enterprises, and campaigns. The common thread is that they exist because a group of people decided to fund them together.

For project owners, it’s a chance to tell their story properly, not in a campaign page description, but in a film. For anyone who has an idea about something they’d like to create, it’s a window into what crowdfunding actually looks like in practice, and what becomes possible when a community gets behind something.

New episodes will follow. Subscribe to the channel to catch them as they land.

Watch The Positivity Project on YouTube →

Get started

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Leisure centres: crowdfunding to better serve the community

Rebecca Hughes — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:18:00 +0100

There’s a photo doing the rounds of Bridport Leisure Centre in the 1980s: an aerobics class in leg warmers, a hand-painted “Welcome to Bridport Leisure Centre” sign, the old dry-side building looking exactly like every other small-town leisure centre of its era. It’s the kind of photo that makes people stop scrolling, because so many of us learned to swim, or sweated through our first fitness class, in a building just like it.

What that photo doesn’t show is how the building got there in the first place. Bridport & West Dorset Sports Trust started life as a cricket club in 1885, on land owned by Palmers Brewery. Squash courts followed in 1975, the dry-side centre in 1986. Then, in 1983, when the town wanted a pool and nobody was going to build one for them, residents went door to door and raised £185,000 themselves. The pool opened in 1994, with Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies MBE there to mark it. The aerobics studio that opened in 1999 was even named BACIT, after the residents’ committee that raised that original £185,000.

That’s not a one-off. Up and down the country, leisure centres keep getting quietly rebuilt and reshaped by the towns that depend on them.

Support their latest project.

The same story, again and again

In Falmouth, a community interest company took on Ships & Castles Leisure Centre to save its 25 metre pool and stop the surrounding headland going to developers, raising £42,154 with match funding from Power to Change and Sport England.

In Meopham, £15,009 went towards new spin bikes, because the way people want to train has moved on since the equipment was bought.

In Westward Ho!, Northam Town Council crowdfunded a Changing Places facility, £12,788 raised with Sport England’s backing, so that visitors and residents who need more than a standard accessible toilet actually have somewhere to go.

And in Thatcham, growing demand for junior cricket meant Kennet Leisure Centre needed indoor nets it never used to need, £30,695 raised to keep pace with a sport that had simply outgrown its old facilities.

Different towns, different asks, but the same underlying story: a leisure centre is never really finished. It keeps adapting, one campaign at a time, to whatever its community needs next.

Bridport’s next chapter

Which brings us back to Bridport. The building in the 80s photo is still standing, still running over 100 classes a week, still quietly operating as a registered charity (No. 267781) that reinvests everything it makes into SEN sessions, exercise referral programmes, cancer rehabilitation and dementia groups alongside the ordinary swim timetable.

What it doesn’t have is sufficient family and accessible changing space for a growing town. There are currently only two accessible changing rooms, with one shower between them. The plan is four large cubicles, one with its own private shower, plus five drench showers, built for disabled users, families and LGBTQ+ members currently squeezed into an unsuitable space.

The project needs £15,000 towards a total build cost of £31,060. Palmers Brewery, the same brewery whose land this all started on back in 1885, is matching donations up to £2,000 through its Community Fund. Give now, and your donation works twice as hard.

Why now

At the time of writing, the campaign has raised about £3,000 from 37 supporters. Bridport has rebuilt this place by hand once before. Every town on this list has done its own version of the same thing. This is a smaller ask than 1983’s, but it’s built from the same instinct: if the building matters to you, you help finish it.

Donate or fundraise

The post Crowdfunder Stories | Watch the series appeared first on Crowdfunder Stories.

Hockey clubs: there’s a new way to fund your pitch

Rebecca Hughes — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 08:00:00 +0100

If your club needs to replace or develop an artificial grass pitch and the cost feels out of reach, the Pitch Together Fund could help turn your plans into reality.

Managed by Sporting Assets, delivered in partnership with England Hockey and funded by Sport England and Triodos Bank UK, Pitch Together combines affordable finance with specialist support to help hockey clubs invest in sustainable, community facilities. The fund typically offers loans of between £25,000 and £300,000, with an average loan term of 7.5yrs and a fixed interest rate of 6%.

Funding can support:

The resurfacing or development of artificial grass pitches
New or upgraded LED sports lighting
Club/social spaces and changing facilities
Other ancillary facility improvements that increase participation, community use and social impact

Pitch Together is a loan rather than a grant, so clubs must demonstrate that they can afford the repayments and that their project is financially sustainable. The funding gap is typically the difference between the total capital cost of the project and the level of borrowing the club can afford to repay. That’s precisely the gap crowdfunding fills.

Alongside the loan, clubs can access tailored support with business planning, governance and social impact plans. If a club is not yet ready to borrow, capacity building support may be available to help strengthen their plans.

How Crowdfunder fits in

A live Crowdfunder campaign running alongside a Pitch Together application does something a loan application form can’t: it shows real people putting real money behind your project. Members, parents, alumni, local supporters — their pledges are concrete evidence of community demand.

Take Bowdon Club for example, who raised £50,868 from 160 supporters to replace its artificial pitch. Alongside the funds raised through Crowdfunder, the club secured a £180,000 loan from the Pitch Together Fund. Together with member loans and the club’s own funds, this enabled Bowdon to meet the full cost of the project. The new pitch is now complete and open for the 2026/27 season.

Crowdfunding also helps clubs raise the contribution they need alongside the loan. Rather than dipping into reserves or running endless bucket collections, a well-promoted campaign can raise tens of thousands from your community in a matter of weeks.

Other hockey clubs have also shown what can be achieved through Crowdfunder in 2025, raising over £174,500.

Olton & West Warwicks Hockey Club raised £37,765 to resurface their artificial grass pitch, including £15,000 of match funding from SE Movement Fund.

Shepton Mallet Hockey Club raised £30,002 towards new modular changing facilities after the closure of their neighbouring leisure centre left the club without appropriate provision.

Both campaigns were driven by club members and local communities determined to protect and improve the place where they play.

If your club is considering a Pitch Together application, starting a Crowdfunder campaign early, before the application is submitted, gives you the strongest possible evidence of community support when it matters most.

Find out more

Learn more about Pitch Together and how to apply →

Start your hockey club fundraiser on Crowdfunder →

Check your Sport England match funding eligibility →

The post Crowdfunder Stories | Watch the series appeared first on Crowdfunder Stories.

Community fundraising at Christmas: a starter guide for small teams

Rebecca Hughes — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:56:01 +0100

This one’s for the small teams: the volunteer-run club, a small village hall team, the community group with a cause it cares about and not much spare time. If you’ve never fundraised at Christmas before, running on a modest budget, with no marketing team and no six-figure ambitions, this is your starting point.

Half the public say they always or usually give to charity at Christmas, against a third the rest of the year (CAF)
UK donations are expected to hit around £2.8 billion across November and December
On Crowdfunder, December alone typically brings in 9 to 10% of the year’s giving, and November and December together make up close to a fifth, well above what you’d expect from an even monthly split
Over £10 million in match funding is available right now for causes that know how to ask

You’re in good company too. In 2025 alone, Christmas campaigns run over the festive season raised £12 million on Crowdfunder.

If you want the fuller picture, including a padded FAQ, a proper fundraising calendar and the data on exactly when donations peak, start with Festive fundraising 101 (link live once published) instead. This guide sticks to the practical basics: what to do, in what order, with real examples from teams no bigger than yours.

Why December works in your favour

Several things line up at once in December that don’t happen the rest of the year:

People are already in a giving mindset, from Christmas jumper days to office collections and secret Santa swaps.
Natural deadlines create urgency without you having to invent one, from Giving Tuesday to the new year.
Community spirit runs high, so people are more willing to share your campaign with friends and family than they might be in a quiet month like February.
The biggest charities in the country are running their own Christmas appeals right now, which keeps the whole idea of giving front of mind for everyone, including your supporters.

One thing that surprises most first-timers: the giving window is earlier than you’d expect. A large share of December donations to Christmas campaigns land by 17 December, and giving tends to fall away in the final week before Christmas itself, a pattern also borne out by UK-wide sector data showing the second week of December, not the days right before Christmas, as consistently the strongest for online giving (Enthuse). So plan around Giving Tuesday (1 December 2026) and the first half of December, launch in November, and push hardest in those first two to three weeks rather than holding out for a last-minute Christmas Eve rush.

The three levers, and which one to pull

Most first-time fundraisers only know about one route in. There are actually three, and the strongest Christmas campaigns tend to use more than one at once.

A crowdfunding page. The classic route: tell your story, set a target, and ask your community to back you directly. Best if you have a clear project or need in mind, such as new kit for your sports club, warm coats for a food bank, or a general Christmas appeal for your cause. Roe Green and Beesley Green Community Association did exactly this, raising £12,302 towards its Christmas and festival lights, match funded by Salford City Council, a good example of a local authority backing a small volunteer committee’s own Christmas tradition rather than a big national partner fund. Start a crowdfunding page whenever you’re ready.

A prize draw. A brilliant option if you have (or can source) a prize people genuinely want. Entrants donate for a chance to win, which tends to widen your audience well beyond the people who’d usually give to you. Prize draws have become one of the most popular festive routes on Crowdfunder, and they scale from a village hall to a national appeal. Sheriff Hutton Bridge Cricket Club raised £2,166 from a simple “12 days of Xmas” draw, right at the modest end most causes reading this should expect. At the other end, the Hope Blamire Christmas charity draw in the South West has raised over £130,000 in three of its last four years, and still cleared £116,000 in its quietest one. Prize draws also have their own legal rules to follow, so see how to run a prize draw for the setup and the compliance basics before you launch.

Match funding. If you’re a registered charity, CIC, school, sports club or community group, you may be eligible to have donations matched, sometimes pound for pound, by one of Crowdfunder’s funding partners. This is the single biggest difference-maker for a small campaign: on Crowdfunder, since 2021 the median match-funded Christmas campaign has raised £5,736, against a median of just £615 for those without any match funding, and match-funded festive campaigns are roughly twice as likely to hit their target. Barn Croft School in London is proof this works for schools and PTAs too, raising £52,402 with match funding support from the M&S Energy Fund. Sport England, for example, has also turned an initial £6 million pot into £18.9 million raised for grassroots clubs by matching what communities raised themselves (read the full story). Check what match funding is available before you launch, since some funds want you to apply early or before you go live. Already got a local business or supporter willing to back you? You don’t have to wait on one of our partner funds either. You can add your own match fund direct to your page, so a supporter’s pledge doubles every donation from the moment you launch, exactly what happened for Bridport Round Table below.

Many of the most successful Christmas campaigns combine all three: a crowdfunding page as the foundation, a prize draw to bring in new supporters, and match funding to double (or more) the impact of every pound raised.

What could a team like yours raise?

Real examples are useful, but a team of two and an established committee with a few years behind them aren’t chasing the same numbers, and it’s easy to read a big headline figure and assume it doesn’t apply to you. The tool below is meant to benchmark against teams your actual size, then ask how much time you’ve got and whether you’ve already got any funds set aside, and tell you which lever to look at next, with a real example of a team like yours who used it.

If a prize draw and partner match funding both look tempting, worth flagging now rather than after you’ve committed to one: they can’t run on the same project on Crowdfunder, since match funds are only available to standard crowdfunding pages. Run them as two separate campaigns if you want both.

A simple six-week countdown

You don’t need months of planning to make Christmas work for you. A rough shape that suits most first-timers, front-loaded towards the part of December when giving actually peaks:

Weeks one and two, mid to late November: decide your ask, set a realistic target, and check whether you’re eligible for match funding (including whether you could add your own) before you commit to anything public.
Week three, the last week of November: write your story, gather photos, and set up your crowdfunding page or prize draw.
Week four, early December, including Giving Tuesday (1 December 2026): launch, and tell people directly. Don’t just post once and wait for it to travel on its own.
Week five, the second week of December: keep the momentum going with updates, thank-yous and reminders. This is genuinely worth prioritising: it’s reliably the strongest single week for online giving all month, so put your best asks here rather than saving them up.
Week six, the run-up to Christmas Eve: keep things ticking over and thank every supporter as they come in, but don’t count on a big last-minute rush to save a slow campaign. By this point most of the year’s festive giving has already happened.

Whatever your timeline, aim to be live and actively promoting across the first half of December, since that’s when festive giving peaks. If you’re starting later than six weeks out, don’t panic: a well-run two or three-week prize draw can still do brilliantly over Christmas.

Common first-timer mistakes

Starting too close to Christmas. Give yourself at least four weeks; six is better, and remember most festive giving lands in the first half of December, so late starters miss the peak.
Not asking directly. A page rarely finds its own audience. Message people, don’t just share and hope.
Skipping the story. People fund people and causes, not spreadsheets. Say why this matters, plainly and honestly.
Setting a target nobody believes in. Too high feels unreachable, too low undersells your cause. Base it on what you actually need.
Forgetting to say thank you. Every donor should hear back from you, even a short message, and it’s the single biggest driver of repeat support.
Leaving match funding to the last minute. Some funding partners need you to apply before launch, so check eligibility (and whether you could add your own match fund) in week one, not week five.

Success story: a school PTA that made Christmas a tradition

Uplands Community Primary School PTA in Stroud ran a “12 Days of Christmas” prize draw, raising £910 from 58 supporters with 20 prizes donated by local businesses and one entry for every £2 pledged, and it’s become a recurring festive fixture for the school. It’s a good example of how a simple, well-sourced prize draw idea, run over a fixed festive window with a bit of local goodwill, can turn into a fun, shareable campaign that a whole school community gets behind, no big budget or big-name prizes required.

Success story: a modest, repeatable win

Not every campaign needs to raise six figures to matter. Bridport Round Table’s Christmas Joy Campaign raised £8,178 in 2024, match funded by Crowdfunder UK and local brewery Palmers, to provide Christmas hampers to people facing the cost-of-living crisis in Bridport and Beaminster. Palmers’ contribution is a good real-world example of adding your own match fund: a local business already on side, formalised as a live match on the page itself rather than an application to a national partner fund. It’s run entirely by volunteers, aims for a realistic target, and has returned every Christmas since 2020. That’s exactly the kind of first campaign most causes reading this guide should aim for: modest, honest, and easy to run again next Christmas.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to be a registered charity to fundraise at Christmas on Crowdfunder? No. Schools, sports clubs, CICs, community groups and individuals can all set up a page. Match funding eligibility varies by fund, so check the funds page for what applies to you.

Can I run a prize draw and a crowdfunding page at the same time? Yes, and many causes do. A prize draw is a great way to bring in new supporters who then go on to back your main campaign directly.

Do I need a big budget or professional photos to make this work? No. Honest, simple photos and a clear, plainly told story consistently outperform slick production on a community campaign. Both of the case studies above were run by volunteers on a shoestring.

For the full FAQ, including fees, timings and how early to apply for match funding, see Festive fundraising 101 (link live once published).

Where to go next

New to Christmas fundraising? Start with Festive fundraising 101 (link live once published) for the full calendar, FAQs and timing data.
Running a small charity or CIC? Christmas fundraising ideas for charities, CICs and nonprofits (link live once published)
Christmas fundraising ideas for sports clubs (link live once published)
Christmas fundraising ideas for schools and PTAs (link live once published)
Christmas fundraising ideas for faith groups and churches (link live once published)
Christmas fundraising ideas for arts organisations (link live once published)
Christmas fundraising ideas for food banks and warm spaces (link live once published)

Get started on Crowdfunder

The post Crowdfunder Stories | Watch the series appeared first on Crowdfunder Stories.

Christmas fundraising ideas for charities, CICs and nonprofits

Rebecca Hughes — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:29:30 +0100

Running a CIC, a small nonprofit, or a community enterprise is a hands-on job, often with just a handful of staff, or none at all, yet you’re competing for the same Christmas donations as national charities with a comms team, a legacy donor list and a six-figure target. Most advice out there is built for them, not you.

This guide is built differently: distinct ways to actually raise money this Christmas, several of them leaning on something you already trade or offer rather than starting a fundraising ask from nothing. For the basics of fundraising at Christmas, including how crowdfunding pages, prize draws and match funding work, start with Festive fundraising 101 (link live once published) first. If you’re new to Crowdfunder as a CIC specifically, read our blog on how CICs can use Crowdfunder.

Why Christmas works differently for a CIC

A registered charity mostly has one lever: asking people to donate. A CIC or community enterprise usually has two, since many of you already sell something, whether that’s produce, workshops, memberships or a shop. Christmas is a natural moment to lean on both at once.

Alongside a straightforward crowdfunding page, think about what you already trade that could become a Christmas offer: gift vouchers for your services, a festive version of what you sell, or a “buy one, gift one” scheme where a customer’s purchase also funds a place or product for someone who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

If you’re already selling something, rewards should usually be your main lever rather than an afterthought, offer what you make or do as reward tiers on your page rather than defaulting to a plain donation ask, the way Cook for Good did with a straight cookbook pre-sale.

Save a prize draw for when you’ve got one or two genuinely standout items, it works best with a small number of brilliant prizes rather than a long list of small ones, as Well Grounded Jobs CIC did with a single coffee machine.

Real examples: CICs and small organisations using rewards

Salads for Good (Cook for Good)

Cook for Good is a food-focused social enterprise in Islington running a surplus food pantry, a wellbeing cafe and free cooking classes to tackle food insecurity on a social housing estate. Their entire reward structure was built around pre-selling their second cookbook, “Salads for Good,” 52 recipes and stories from the community, including donated recipes from Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Claudia Winkleman. Every pledge is essentially a pre-order, and every profit from the book funds a training programme to help 80 local people move into paid work. It’s a clean example of turning something you’re already making into the reward itself, rather than inventing a separate perk, and it’s match funded by the BA Communities Fund on top.

The Woodshop of Recycled Delights CIC

A London CIC teaching carpentry skills and rescuing waste timber for community garden projects, raised £25,933, match funded by Aviva Community and the Save Our Wild Isles Community Fund. Their page has a section titled “Delicious Rewards,” offering handmade items made from the reclaimed wood they work with back to supporters who pledge. I couldn’t pull the exact tiers and prices from the page text (they sit in a separate rewards widget rather than the main description), but the model itself is worth noting: the reward is literally the thing the CIC already makes, at effectively no extra production cost.

Save Northamptonshire Cheese

A business example: a private cheesemaking business, Hamm Tun Fine Foods, offers another useful rewards model. Raised during a COVID-era survival campaign, with a clear, simple reward ladder: £20 for a branded tote bag, £30 for a Northamptonshire cheese box, £50 and above for a t-shirt. Worth including anyway because it’s a genuinely clean, easy-to-copy tiered structure; low, mid, and top reward, each priced to feel proportionate to what you get.

Real examples: CICs and small organisations using a prize draw

The Patchwork House Women’s Centre CIC

A small women’s centre in Torquay running prize draws repeatedly as an ongoing income stream, not a one-off. At least nine separate draws between 2022 and 2025, ranging from £2,788 to £13,726 each, an Advent calendar and Dyson bundle draw, a December draw, a “Hello Spring” draw, a store-launch draw, a birthday draw, and a Christmas draw. Genuinely the clearest real-world proof that a small CIC can build a repeatable model around prize draws rather than treating it as a once-a-year event.

Well Grounded Jobs CIC

Raised £12,281 offering a customised La Marzocco Linea Mini coffee machine as the prize, in support of their mission to help end unemployment in the UK. Worth noting because the prize ties directly to what the CIC actually does, they run barista training, so the reward reinforces the cause rather than being generic.

Wyld Service CIC

Raised £12,460 with a “Right to Roam” prize draw, twelve nature-inspired prize bundles, to fund campaigning for expanded access to nature in England. A good example of a values-led, campaigning CIC using a prize draw rather than a straight donation ask.

Ideas that suit a small team

Most CICs and small nonprofits don’t have spare volunteers for an elaborate event. These ideas are built for that reality:

Turn existing stock into gifts. If you already sell something, from produce to handmade goods to workshop places, package it as a Christmas gift option rather than creating something new from scratch.
A simple crowdfunding page with a clear, single ask. One honest target beats several vague ones. Say exactly what the money covers, whether that’s rent, a piece of equipment or a specific project.
A membership or subscription as a gift. If you offer any kind of ongoing membership, make it giftable for Christmas, since it brings in supporters who commit for months, not just December.
A small, low-admin prize draw. One good prize from a local business supporter, run for two or three weeks, needs far less organising than a full event and still brings in new people. See our prize draws page for the basics.

Layering match funding on top

CICs and small nonprofits are genuinely well catered for by Crowdfunder’s funding partners, including Aviva Community, and regional funds such as Cornwall Council’s Climate and Nature Fund. Check what match funding is available before you launch, since a modest campaign with the right match can end up raising several times your original target.

What Crowdfunder’s own data says

Friday is the best day to launch. Christmas campaigns launched on a Friday hit target 48% of the time, against 35% for a Thursday launch, worth bearing in mind if you can pick your own date rather than defaulting to whenever your board or steering group next meets.
Giving Tuesday is worth a dedicated push. This year it falls on Tuesday 1 December 2026, and brings around 28% more pledges and 34% more raised than a typical Tuesday. Read more about Giving Tuesday.
Message people directly. Over half of Christmas pledges come through direct or private shares, WhatsApp, email, texts, rather than a public post. A message to your customer list or membership base will likely outperform a single social post.

Case study: turning trading income into a permanent home

Second Hand Sundays CIC in Torpoint raised £5,171, match funded by Cornwall Council’s Climate and Nature Fund, to secure a permanent shop selling second-hand clothes sustainably, with proceeds supporting local causes. It’s a strong example of exactly the trading-plus-donations model available to a CIC that a straightforward charity appeal doesn’t have.

Case study: a small team that kept coming back

Spiral Freerun CIC in Bedford raised £30,736 towards its own parkour gym, match funded by Power to Change and Sport England, and has returned to Crowdfunder more than once since to keep the community space open through difficult periods. It shows that a small team can build a genuine, repeatable relationship with its supporters over several campaigns, not just one big push.

Frequently asked questions

Can a CIC apply for match funding in the same way as a registered charity? Yes. Eligibility depends on the individual fund rather than your legal structure, so check the funds page for what’s currently open to CICs and social enterprises.

We don’t have any spare volunteers this December. Is Christmas fundraising still worth it? Yes, if you keep it simple. A single crowdfunding page with a clear ask, or a small prize draw with one good prize, needs very little ongoing admin once it’s live, just a small amount of time each week to promote it. Get prepped now, check your page is polished in early November and then go live. Refer to our Festive 101 page for more key dates.

Should we ask for donations or offer rewards instead? Both! A trading offer (gift vouchers, festive stock, a giftable membership) reaches customers who wouldn’t otherwise give, while a donation ask, especially alongside a prize draw or rewards, reaches supporters who believe in your mission directly and helps you cut through the noise of Christmas giving. Backers don’t have to choose a reward; they can also decide to simply donate as they would on any other project without rewards.

Is there a minimum size to be taken seriously by match funders? No. Several of the examples above raised well under £10,000 and still secured match funding, so it’s always worth checking eligibility rather than assuming you’re too small.

Where to go next

Back to basics: Festive fundraising 101
Running a food bank or warm space? Christmas fundraising ideas for food banks and warm spaces
Start a crowdfunding page
Check your match funding options
Explore the charity fundraising hub

Get started on Crowdfunder

The post Crowdfunder Stories | Watch the series appeared first on Crowdfunder Stories.

Christmas fundraising ideas for sports clubs

Rebecca Hughes — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 16:27:03 +0100

Most fundraising advice for sports clubs is written for any time of year. Our 25 tried-and-tested fundraising ideas for sports clubs is a great list, but it doesn’t focus on Christmas. That’s a gap, because the run-up to Christmas has its own mechanics: a short window before the season pauses, specific events often already on your calendar (a Santa Dash, a Christmas tournament, the clubhouse party), and, if you’re applying for match funding, a fund that wants to see you raise a defined share yourselves before they’ll top up the rest.

This guide is for that specific moment. If you want the fuller, any-time-of-year list, start with the 25 ideas guide instead, or Festive fundraising 101 for the basics of Christmas campaigns generally. Here, we’re covering three things: working out what you need to raise yourselves before a match fund covers the rest, turning a one-off event into a proper campaign, and five real ways clubs like yours are doing both right now.

Five real ways sports clubs are fundraising this Christmas

1. Run a Christmas prize draw

A prize draw with donated prizes turns a fixed ask into something people want to enter, not just give to. Dorking Rugby Football Club’s “Pad the Paddock” Christmas prize draw raised £5,890 from 241 supporters, with every prize donated by members and local businesses, a genuinely modest, replicable example rather than a six-figure outlier. Keep the draw to around two weeks. Christmas prize draws that run for two weeks hit their target 44% of the time on Crowdfunder, against 31% for draws left open for four.

2. Turn a sponsored event into a page, not just a bucket collection

If you’ve already got a Santa Dash, a sponsored swim or a sponsored walk on the calendar, put a crowdfunding page behind it rather than relying on cash and a bucket on the day. Seaford Town FC’s sponsored walk raised £12,190 this way, pledges arriving before, during and after the event itself rather than all on the day.

3. Launch a facilities appeal before the season restarts

December is a good moment to ask for what the club actually needs physically, a pitch, a clubhouse, new kit, and pair it with match funding. Pontefract RUFC’s clubhouse modernisation started with a £10,000 target and grew to £83,439 once Sport England match funding was added, a good sense of what’s possible with the right fund behind a straightforward ask.

4. Get the whole club moving with a collective challenge

Rather than one person taking on a sponsored effort, split it across the club, everyone contributing steps, kilometres or laps towards one shared total. Willingdon Athletic ran a club-wide “2000km in 60 hours” challenge and raised £8,147 this way, with no single person carrying the ask alone.

5. Sell shirt sponsorship as a festive offer

If your kit or advertising space needs a sponsor, Christmas is a natural moment to ask, businesses are often more receptive to a visible, community-minded spend before the new year. Newport County AFC ran a campaign, “SAVE OUR SHIRT CTD”, and raised £42,145 this way, letting the crowd choose or fund the sponsor rather than relying on one big cheque.

Turning a Santa Dash or Christmas tournament into more than a collection

A Santa Dash, a five-a-side tournament or a festive quiz is usually treated as a single day: people turn up, pay on the door, and that’s the total. Put a page behind it instead and it can keep raising for weeks either side of the event itself. A simple run of it: open entries and share the page two to three weeks out, remind people the week of, collect pledges on the day itself via a page link or QR code rather than cash alone, then thank everyone and share the final total afterwards, don’t let the page go quiet the moment the event ends.

What Crowdfunder’s own data says

A few things worth knowing before you pick a date or a format:

Friday is the best day to launch. Christmas campaigns launched on a Friday hit target 48% of the time, against 35% for a Thursday launch, worth bearing in mind when you’re picking a date for your event or your page.
Short prize draws outperform long ones. A two-week Christmas prize draw hits target 44% of the time, a four-week draw only 31%.
Giving Tuesday is worth a dedicated push. This year it falls on Tuesday 1 December 2026, and brings around 28% more pledges and 34% more raised than a typical Tuesday. If it lands before your event, plan a specific ask for that day.
Message people directly. Over half of Christmas pledges come through direct or private shares, WhatsApp, email, texts, rather than a public post. A message to the club WhatsApp or the parents’ group will likely outperform a matchday announcement alone.

Layering match funding without breaking the rules

Sports clubs currently have up to £15,000 available in match funding from partners including Sport England and Sport Wales, worth checking current sports match funding before you set a target. Ammanford AFC’s ground improvement raised £43,001 with Sport Wales match funding, a useful example if your club is outside England.

One rule worth knowing before you plan two things at once: a prize draw and partner match funding can’t run on the same Crowdfunder project. If you want to run a Christmas prize draw and separately go for match funding on a bigger project, those need to be two different pages.

Sport England partner match funding

Most sports funding partners work on a pledge system, not a simple top-up. Sport England’s Movement Fund, for example, will pledge up to £15,000 towards your target, but it starts as a provisional pledge, added to your page once you’ve reached 25% of your target from at least 25 different supporters. The point of showing it early is to build excitement and demonstrate the impact that extra funding will have, encouraging others to back you and help close the gap. But it stays provisional: you still need to hit 100% of your target before your campaign closes, or the pledge is removed from your page and you don’t receive the funds. So the real task isn’t finding 25% from somewhere, it’s building genuine early momentum from your own community, since that both unlocks the provisional pledge and gives you a real shot at closing the whole target while it’s live.

Check your eligibility.

Frequently asked questions

Do we need to raise a set percentage ourselves before a partner pledge kicks in?
Often yes, but it’s not a guaranteed top-up. Sport England’s Movement Fund, for instance, adds a provisional pledge to your page once you reach 25% of your target from at least 25 different supporters, meant to build excitement and show backers the impact their support will unlock. You still need to hit 100% of your target before the campaign closes, or the pledge is removed and you don’t receive the funds. Always check the specific fund’s terms before you commit to a target.

Can we run a Christmas prize draw and still apply for match funding? Not on the same project. See the match funding section above, you’ll need two separate pages if you want to do both.

We’re a small club with no marketing budget, is a Christmas campaign still worth it? Yes. Several of the real examples above raised well under £10,000 with a small volunteer effort. Scale matters less than having a clear, specific ask.

Does the Santa Dash or tournament itself need to be online? No. Keep the event in person, just link it to a crowdfunding page so pledges can come in via a shared link or QR code before, during and after the day itself.

Is there a minimum club size to be taken seriously by match funders? No. Several of the examples above are small, volunteer-run clubs, not big institutions.

Where to go next

Back to Festive fundraising 101 for the full six-week planner
For fundraising ideas for any time of year, see our full 25 tried-and-tested fundraising ideas for sports clubs
Start a crowdfunding page · Check sports match funding · Explore prize draws for charities

Get started on Crowdfunder

The post Crowdfunder Stories | Watch the series appeared first on Crowdfunder Stories.