Running your own Fundraising event
Fundraising should be fun, but it’s important that your events and activities are safe and legal, for everyone involved.
Charity number
So everyone knows where their money is going, please make sure any posters or information about your event includes:
- the Skylarks 'in support of' logo - please contact us to receive a logo by email
- our charity number: 'Skylarks Charity is a registered charity in England and Wales (1148114)'.
Child protection
If you are under 18 years of age, you will need permission from a parent or guardian to raise money for Skylarks.
Data protection
If you’re collecting information, only collect what you will need. Keep it safe, do not share it, only keep it as long as you need it and dispose of it securely afterward, by shredding if it’s in a hard format. You can find information about how we protect and use personal data in our privacy policy, linked to at the foot of our website.
First Aid
If you’re holding an event with lots of people, make sure you have appropriate first aid support in place. You can get advice from St John Ambulance or the British Red Cross. As a basic guide, there should always be someone on hand to help at smaller events, but for larger events involving 500 or more people, there should be a minimum of two qualified first aiders on site.
Food
Although one-off events selling food don’t require food safety approval or certificates, when preparing or handling food, there are guidelines you will need to follow to make sure it’s safe for people to eat. All the information you will need is available at the Food Standards Agency.
Insurance
If your event involves the general public, it’s important to have Public Liability Insurance in place. Check first to see if your venue already has this. If you’re holding an event at home on private property, check your insurance covers this too.
Skylarks cannot be responsible for arranging insurance cover for your event.
Permissions
If you’re holding an event in a public place, you must get permission first, either from the local authority or the property owner. Please make sure you get permission in writing for your records.
Photos
If you plan to take photos of other people at your fundraiser make attendees aware. If someone does not want to appear in photos, you must respect their wishes.
Public collections
If you are planning to hold a collection, please call our team first as you may need a licence. We can give you advice on this, and you can request buckets or tins. Please call us on 07946 646 033, Monday–Friday, 9am–5pm.
Raffles
Raffles come under legislation for lotteries and fall under the Gambling Commission rules.
To keep a raffle legal and simple, you must only sell raffle tickets at the event/location, not before the event or offsite. The result can be declared at the event or after it has finished. For more information please see our raffles, lotteries and tombolas advice.