Challenge within a challenge: Getting sponsored

I had in my mind to write a blog post about sponsoring today. I am doing a sponsored Firewalk next week. And although I had received a generous donation of £100 anonymously and as a result passing my target, I’m still going to write what I set out to.

As you may have gathered I like setting myself challenges, and before doing the 29 challenge and Five Score and Five, the only challenges I did were sponsored ones.

I must have done a sponsored silence at school, but I don’t have any solid memories of doing one. However the first challenge I set myself was when I was in year 8 and I was 13. At the time I was obsessed with soaps. Not the washing kind, I’m talking Eastenders, Coronation Street, Emmerdale, Brookside (when it was on back in the day,) Hollyoaks, Neighbours and Home and Away. I watched them all, never missing an episode. I’m not sure how I had time to do anything else! So I decided to set myself a challenge and do a month without soaps. I got lots of sponsors and ended up raising £140 for Children In Need.

When I was 16 I decided to do one better. I loved watching TV and so before I did Media A-Level I decided to do a month of not watching TV. Again I raised more money, because even more people thought I couldn’t do it. All I talked about was TV. But here’s the thing, when I say I’m going to do something, I actually do it. Again I raised money for Children In Need and I raised £291.

The next time I did something sponsored was when I did a 5km run and I think it was the end of first or second year in uni. By then though doing sponsored events had changed in a big way. There were more and more of them. Getting sponsors was slightly harder.

What followed was a 10km, half marathon, Tough Mudder and 50km walk. Although the challenges were hard, I knew with enough training I could complete them, and I did. What was more of a challenge was getting people to sponsor me.

Getting sponsors in itself is like a marketing campaign, it’s all about being in the right time and the right place. Having Facebook has helped because you can reach a wider amount of people. However put a post about your event at the wrong when not many people are online and it gets lost in your newsfeed. If you mention it too much then people get fed up and ignore your request.

Then there’s the quantity of sponsored events that take place. It’s never ending and people can go on autopilot and ignore anything mentioning the word sponsoring.

It’s a tough one to measure, if you mention your event way in advance, you’ll get a lot of people thinking its okay, I’ll sponsor you later and then forgetting all about it. Mentioning sponsor events right before payday is an absolute no no, as you’ll get the when I get paid reasoning and again it will be forgotten about.

For those asking for people to sponsor it can be frustrating when you have friends who say they haven’t got enough money to sponsor you, but then will book a holiday or buy something pricey. You can’t tell people how to spend their money, but sometimes you wonder if £2 is too much to ask? I don’t ever ask to sponsor a certain amount, just whatever somebody can afford because it’s the age old saying, every little helps.

Then there’s the politics involved in donating to charity; some have set charities they donate and they don’t stray from them, others work for charities, meaning they can only donate to the charity they work for, and others might not believe in charity at all.

Luckily I think I’ve managed to meet the targets that I set for fundraising every time, but I always get increasingly nervous towards the actual event. Not about the challenge I’m about to undertake, but whether I can meet my target. As it’s always touch and go.

So many charities for bigger events do set targets you have to raise, and it’s something I covered in the film I wrote Marathon Money.

I’m afraid I have no hints and tips to get people to sponsor someone doing a challenge; anything involving money is always a tough one to figure. But just know that whatever you can donate to your friend or family member doing a challenge, it really does help.

And in a little plug of my own, as I said at the start I’m doing a firewalk next week for Lister Hospital to make it a more dementia friendly place. This is of particular importance to me as I worked in an old people’s home in a dementia unit part time for five years. So I’ve seen first-hand the effect dementia has on residents and their family. I’ll be walking barefoot over 15 ft of hot coals. Here’s my link if you would like to sponsor me. http://www.justgiving.com/owner-email/pleasesponsor/Jocelyn-Harrold2 Thanks for any contribution!