A few days ago I wrote an update post about my charity fundraising for WellChild. I’m running the London Marathon for them next April, and have a fundraising target of £1,600.
With such a big target I wanted to start fundraising right away to give myself the best chance of hitting and hopefully exceeding that target.
One of the events that I’d planned was a coffee morning. Taking advantage of a school inset day on a Friday, I decided to open up my house and garden to local parents and their children for a few hours in the morning.
Having never hosted a coffee morning before I had a few unanswered questions that I needed answers to!
For starters, how would I serve hot drinks to people?
Should I charge entry or just have a collection bucket for people to leave donations?
I decided that I would just leave a collection bucket on the table with the cakes so that people could donate an amount chosen by themselves.
To encourage people to donate, I was kindly donated a free Swedish Back, Neck and Shoulder massage from a local business. As such, I let everyone know that everyone who donated would be entered into a raffle to win the massage. This certainly got people interested! I just wish I could have entered!
I decided to make some cakes, and buy some from the shop too.
I made a Victoria Sponge cake, one of my specialities, along with around 30 cupcakes for children to enjoy. Half had vanilla buttercream toppings, and the other half had chocolate.
I then bought a chocolate cake, and lemon cake, along with some biscuits.
I was really surprised at how well the homemade cakes went down. All of the cupcakes I’d made went, and the majority of the Victoria Sponge cake too! No-one touched the shop bought lemon cake, and I think only one person had a slice of the shop bought chocolate cake! I know for future coffee mornings to just stick to homemade cake! They certainly go down better than shop bought cakes!
In terms of serving drinks, I set up two tables. One had the food on, and the other had tea bags, spoons, coffee, sugar etc, along with mugs. I then asked people their preference and brought the kettle in to make the drinks.
I didn’t want to leave hot kettle out with children running around, so I was sure to always return it to the kitchen.
I also had some paper cups with a big jug of squash and one filled with water too.
Thankfully, it was a lovely, sunny day, so I set up the bouncy castle in the back garden, and along with our swing set, trampoline etc, the children seemed to really enjoy themselves. I also had some toys indoors too.
Overall, I managed to raise £57.70, which I rounded up to £60.82 to give me an even number on my online fundraising page!
The coffee morning was a success and I would definitely host another one soon! Here are my top tips:
Set up an event on Facebook so that you can invite people to get an idea of numbers
Decide how many cakes you’ll bake/buy, and if you’ll have anything else such as biscuits
Set up your cakes/food on a table. Decorate the table with a tablecloth etc
Always make sure your guests have a drink in their hand, and offer them cake etc – sometimes people are shy in going up to get their own, so offering works well
If you’re doing a coffee morning for charity, have a collection bucket set up
A big tub of sweets for the children goes down well!
Thank your guests!
If you’d like to donate to my online fundraising page, please click here.
