The different types of fundraising posters used by DIY fundraisers & why you only want a touch of your brand

2021-05-03 | Fundraising

Whenever I am out and about and spot a notice board, I can’t help myself, I have to go and take a closer look and often snap a photo too. On most notice boards (pre-pandemic) there were posters advertising local services but then there were also the charity posters promoting activities run by members of the public (the DIY fundraiser) on behalf of their chosen charity.

Most of these posters can be categorised into one of the 4 different types below:

1. The posted fundraising pack poster
These are easy to spot, they are professionally printed and usually feature handwritten text next to the posters labels what, where, and when text.

The handwritten text is often the downfall of these posters as the right pen and handwriting can make all the difference. I have seen thick pens used but small handwriting making it difficult to read, I have seen biro text used so you can only see the details when you get close enough, some run out of room as they start too large, and they start squishing the text at the end to make it fit. Some make mistakes and you see big scribbled-out parts and ^ with missing words added later. As simple as they may be they don’t always look great.

How many of your charity posters do you see from your fundraising pack? Do your fundraisers use the correct pen type? Have great handwriting? Will get it right the first time? And judge the space available?

Two coffee morning posters, handwritten examples

2. The mimic poster
This poster looks great, the person behind it knows how to make a great looking poster, they have all the information about the activity they’re organising to fundraise for your charity, they have added your logo, your web address even found the same fonts and colours you use and copied your creative style, it’s on-brand it could almost have come from your own design team. Great! Bet your thinking?

Well, no this is not great, for anyone looking at this poster it could be mistaken that your charity is the organiser of this event, not the DIY fundraiser, if anything went wrong at this event could that damage your reputation? or put you in a position where your liable for unpaid fees or injury claims? Being on-brand should be reserved for your own activities and your DIY fundraiser events should have an essence of your brand to help raise brand awareness.

Mimic posters that could be mistaken for charity lead events

3. The DIY poster
Word seems to be the ‘go to’ program to create a fundraising poster, you can add text, images and easily print. I have seen loads of these posters, the problem with these is that they don’t look great. Since Canva and other poster software have come along they now look a little more presentable.

However, people tend to forget important information such as the time of the event or the address, so it does make me wonder how successful these events could have been if people knew when or where to turn up.

Then there is your charity presence, for some they will add your logo (or a version of your logo they found on the web), for others they just write your charity name, most I saw did not give the charity the awareness they could have and it seemed like a wasted opportunity. They are also missing ‘in aid of’ above your logo and have not added your registered charity number two key components needed for a compliant fundraising poster by a DIY fundraiser.

Example DIY posters using word and template offerings

4. The online charity template
Some charities offer a PDF download on their website of a generic fundraising poster for people to download and then if they open in acrobat they have highlighted boxes they can edit and add their own text to customise their poster, this is a great solution as the DIY fundraiser is prompted what to write with ‘what’ ‘when’ and ‘where’ options, it’s got in aid of above the logo and the charity reg no so it’s compliant it’s basically a digital version of the poster in the postal pack but without the handwriting issues.

The only issue I found with this is some charities haven’t thought about how it’s going to be printed, often using a design rich in colour and running to the edge of the page when printing it will drain their ink, or result in poor print quality, a soggy page, and a white border all the way round where they need to trim the page to size.

Downloadable template file examples available from the charity websites

One thing these all have in common is the lack of visibility...

Most of the posters out in the public eye for DIY fundraising events are not ever seen by the charity themselves. What if you could see what your fundraisers have written on their poster? Know that their poster is compliant and gives your charity the awareness it deserves and has a touch of your brand so it's clear it's not an activity your charity is running or liable for and the DIY fundraiser has all the information needed on the poster for people to attend.

Well, we have done just that and created a 5th type of poster we created a Fundraising Pack Creator that gives your DIY fundraiser a poster and other materials that has an essence of your brand, that’s compliant (with your charity number and ‘in aid of’ above your logo), we prompt the DIY fundraiser to enter the what, when and where and if they enter a typo or need to change something they can make amends. All materials are print-friendly and the best thing is you get to see what their poster looks like and what they are doing for your charity. Find out more

Fundraising packs, Fundraising, Posters

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