21 Aug 2017
Have you ever bumped in to one of our charity’s representatives out on the streets of London? If they aren’t a volunteer, chances are they’re a face to face fundraiser raising awareness and funds for London’s Air Ambulance. This month, our Face to Face Fundraising Coordinator Stephen Regan explains a bit more about the important work his team of fundraisers do every day.
“Being a face to face fundraiser is a bit like asking someone out. You can ask 10 people and maybe only one of those will say yes. In a very short space of time you have to give people a lot of information and at the end they decide whether or not they’d like to support your charity.
“When people think of canvassing they usually imagine people going round door to door. Nowadays though, most of the face to face fundraising for London’s Air Ambulance happens on private sites — whether that’s your local supermarket or our pop-up travelling gazebo.
“For me, face to face fundraising is extremely important because it gives us the opportunity to directly reach out to local people. If every one of the 10 million people within the M25 who are covered by London’s Air Ambulance were to give just £1 a year, we would have no trouble raising funds.
“But even when people don’t end up donating, our face to face fundraisers do a great job raising awareness of our charity status in local communities. That’s something I tend to hear a lot: “Oh, I didn’t realise you were a charity.” It’s one of our biggest hurdles.”
One of Stephen’s most important jobs is the training and development of the face to face fundraisers who represent our charity. London’s Air Ambulance is committed to making sure everyone who comes into contact with one of our fundraisers has the best possible experience.
“All our face to face fundraisers operate under standards put in place by the Fundraising Regulator and undergo specific training before they go out and engage with the public.
“Once our face to face fundraisers are fully prepared and out on the streets, we tend to get a very positive reaction. London’s Air Ambulance is a local charity with a powerful cause — you may never need to be treated by our medical team, but what about your relatives, your friends or your neighbours? Traumatic injury can happen to anyone at any time.”
If you’d like to get familiar with our face to face fundraisers, you can find all of their names and photos up on our website.
