UK WHO
Fight for Charity is an annual event that raises money for the local charities of Manitoba. Beginning in 2017, the event aimed to feel fresh and fun for donors, differentiating itself from the classic charity gala. To this end, the night is built around a charity boxing event but adds the glamour of a red-carpet occasion.
The majority of the event revolves around the 12 amateur boxing fights, and the 24 local people who go through a 12-week training camp to be ready for fight-night. The ‘fighters’ fundraise during their journey, encouraging friends and family to tune in to their progress. Most of the fundraising is done this way, but a silent auction does accompany the event and Fight for Charity host a raffle to diversify their revenue streams.
Each year, Fight for Charity choose a different non-profit to be the recipient of the event’s proceeds. This year the non-profit was Siloam Mission – a non-profit service organisation that supports those with mental health issues, cognitive disabilities, addictions and trauma who are at risk of homelessness.
Fundraising Challenges
The main challenge for Fight for Charity is delivering on breaking the mould of the traditional fundraising gala and continually expanding their event.
To address this, they home in on the details of making the event a delightful occasion for the attendees. The tasting event that begins proceedings is stocked with beer and wine from a local brewery and vineyard. Each year a new supplier is chosen to support a different local business and increase the individuality of every event.
Then, after the showcase of the fight card, casino tables are set up for the guests to enjoy, where winnings take the form of special chips – that can only be exchanged raffle tickets! It is tricks like this, that encourage people to engage with traditional fundraising through unconventional methods, that have made the night a marked date on the Manitoba calendar and ensured the event’s growth. Fight for Cancer’s fresh approach has seen the number of sponsors involved increase from 8 to 73 since inception. Simply incredible work!
Event Highlights
Fight for Charity plan the night as if it were show for the crowd rather than a charity fundraiser, the boxing is competitive but controlled and the participants know that raising money for charity is the main aim (rather than knocking each other senseless). The greater goal brings everyone together and the atmosphere on the night with all the family and friends in attendance is quite special. It feels like one big celebration.
Specifically, this year though, the non-profit was using the occasion to launch their new housing programme. Fight for Charity had partnered with a professional production company to work directly with the charity on producing a high-quality promotional video, independent of the event hosts, so that the charity had expertly made material they could use moving forward. This was $35,000 worth of work that the charity received for free, and seeing how they put it to use was special.
How Much Was Raised?
2024’s event raised a whopping $101,000 for Siloam Mission which, when compared to the $25,000 Fight for Charity raised in their first year, shows just how much the event has grown in such a short space of time
TOP TIP
“This year we had a separate pledge page for each fighter through the Givergy system and this worked really well for us. Social media has many advantages but posting there and there alone can make the content easy to ignore. Donors appreciate the personal touch and being reached out to directly, the personalised pledge pages made this much easier to do. We ended up raising over $85k this year before anyone had even walked through the door on the night so that was wonderful.
We also sent someone round to individually pick up the donation pledge cards we had left on each table. We noticed having someone go round to ask each table if they had filled them in yet because they were being collected really boosted participation. The number of donations taken in this way went from 4 las year to 150 this time round!
Finally, have an array of items at different price points, you want as many people to engage as possible and having prizes that can be bought for 10’s of dollars rather than always 100’s or 1000’s can increase the accessibility of your auction dramatically.”
“It has been a great experience with the Givergy team. Everyone has been responsive, is knowledgeable, and able to answer, or find the answers, to the questions that ensure a smooth delivery of the event. We’re already looking forward to next year.”
