Support Us Our Community Faith Churches More than likely your local parish church has always relied on fundraising to maintain the building and grounds and run the church day to day. Nothing much has changed in this modern era, except it is now easier than ever for you and your local community to do your part in helping raise funds for your community too! At Richard House we believe fundraising should be seen as something fun that brings your local community closer together, helps promote your church and its activities and raises well-needed funds in the process for local causes. So what are you waiting for? Here is a selection of ones we thought you might like. Seasonal church fetes - Why not gather your parish together and create events around the seasons, giving you plenty of opportunities throughout the year for fundraising – think May Day fete, mid-summer bring and buy sale, harvest festival food market. Supper Club - Gather your best cooks together and think of a theme for your night, based around a style of food, a season or a country. Either host the event in the church or at someone’s private home and make it a monthly programme. The dinner should provide excellent quality food for a small number of diners, so keep the price fairly high to add exclusivity and maximise fundraising. The Great British Church Bake off - Ask all the parishioners to bake a cake or cakes they can bring along to a coffee morning after church service, where all the cakes are auctioned off to raise funds – the cake (and baker) that raises the most money is the winner! Behind the scenes tour of the church - It is not every day that you open up access to the bell tower or the crypt and give a behind the scenes tour of your church. Perhaps the clergy can host the tour or a local historian could be invited along to provide more background. Coffee morning - Quite simply hold a church coffee morning and ask for food and drink donations, which are then sold to raise funds. This brings everyone together in an informal environment and could be held a few times each month. Quiz night - Organise a weekly or monthly quiz in the church, ask for donations for the refreshments and prizes and charge an entry fee. You can set up a café selling refreshments and even ask local businesses to sponsor the event. Local history talk - Organise for a local historian to do a talk on the parish and surrounding area and organise a coffee morning around the event. Charge for entry and refreshments and ask for donations. Family day - Getting the whole family involved is a great way of introducing new generations to your parish and raising funds at the same time. You could have fun activities like face painting and child and parent races, entertainers, musical acts, tombolas etc. Fun, fun and more fun with plenty of fundraising thrown in for good measure. Invite a speaker - Our speakers and awareness volunteers are a great way to inspire your congregation about the work of Richard House. We have a team of trained volunteers throughout the Newham, Tower Hamlets and the surrounding London Boroughs who carry out talks to groups both large and small (from a minimum of five people up to 100) and give you the information you need to know about prostate problems. We know that talks can truly make a difference! Book your speaker Lent - During this special time in the Christian Calendar, we ask church communities to consider us for their tithing and collections. Easter - Join our Egg-stra ordinary annual Easter Egg drive and give up the cost of just 1 egg. Your 'Bunny Money' will help us 'hop' through the Easter season! Christmas - Why not send a Christmas Wish this year? Contact Us If you’d like your church to go down in history as helping support the most vulnerable children in our communities, contact us to find out just what we need to achieve our ambitious programme. Richard House is London's first Children's Hospice. Whatever your capacity to give, support or raise awareness, we have the most comprehensive plan to help seriously ill children across our community and we want to hear from you and how you can be a part of the journey! Whatever your church decides to do, we will support you with whatever you might need from collection buckets to banners. Just let us know what you’ve got planned - email our Community and Events fundraising team or call 020 7540 0228 so we can start supporting you today.