Fundraising has been around for a long time. Whether you’ve donated to a friend’s online fundraiser or attended a car wash in high school, you’ve helped raise money for a cause. Many people are familiar with giving but may not grasp the full extent of why fundraising is important.
Fundraising is important for so many reasons besides the good it does for various causes all over the world. Not only can you have tangible benefits, like raising awareness and providing financial assistance, but there are also intangible benefits for those doing the fundraising. We’ll break down all the expected and unexpected benefits of your fundraising journey on a local and global scale.
Expected Benefits of Fundraising
There are some benefits of fundraising that are obvious. These are the expected answers when looking into why fundraising is important. Compared to other benefits, these expected benefits are tangible and a direct outcome of fundraising efforts. We outline them below with some examples of where you’ll find them at work.
1. Creating Awareness
One of the most expected benefits of fundraising is that it raises awareness for a cause. Even causes with major coverage have smaller niches and organizations that can use the awareness that fundraising brings to their subject.
These causes can also be smaller, local causes. While people live in their communities every day, they may not know about the support that the town library needs to stay open. This is why fundraising is important on all scales locally and globally.
2. Funding for Important Causes
Fundraising is used to do just that, raise funds. The financial support of a fundraiser can go toward many things, such as helping to support a family member’s medical bills or a mission trip. Think of fundraisers that are used to support vet bills.People cannot imagine being without their pets, but vet bills can be very expensive and make owners feel like they have an impossible situation. Fundraising to cover at least some of these costs can offer funding for either part of or all of the pending vet bills.
3. Alleviating a Need
Fundraisers are created to identify a need and alleviate it. Individuals in the community see a need for themselves, a friend, or the community as a whole and start a fundraiser to help. It can be getting financial support to pay medical bills or raising funds to support your local teachers and schools. Relieving a financial burden at any level is a huge help.
It can help to fill the needs of those in your community, such as gathering donations for teacher supplies in underfunded schools or raising money to help pay a neighbor’s medical bills.
Unexpected Benefits of Fundraising
1. Expanding Your Network
A large part of successful fundraising is making connections with potential donors. Through your fundraising efforts, you will make connections with all sorts of different people. These people can be local business owners, neighbors, and even people across the world. Crowdfunding and online fundraising have expanded your potential network exponentially to include people you may have not expected.
2. Creating or Joining a New Community
Humans are communal beings and thrive when surrounded by people with a common interest. Working on a fundraiser brings people together who all have a common goal. This community can give the people involved a sense of belonging and a new group of like-minded people to interact with. One other unexpected benefit related to joining the community is an improvement in your mood and mental health. Not only do you feel great helping people, but you also feel surrounded by people who are supporting your work.
3. Improving Your Health
While doing good in the community can improve your mental health, there are studies that show it can improve your physical health as well! Giving and other acts of generosity are shown to decrease stress. Stress is a known factor in many health problems. With the lowering of stress, blood pressure can lower and your mental health improves.
Understanding Why Fundraising is Important
There are several benefits of fundraising, both expected and unexpected. The expected benefits go hand and hand with the goals of your fundraiser. Raising funds and bringing awareness to alleviate needs within your community are core to fundraising. However, there are several unexpected benefits that can enrich your life and those around you. When you begin to work on a fundraiser, you join a community of people with common values. There is no shortage of reasons why fundraising is important. It’s time to create your community and start a fundraiser on Angelink today!
Read our top fundraising ideas and fundraising tips to help make your fundraiser shine.