Lucy Duxbury explains why Action For Kids’ beach volleyball tournament has proved a smash hit in terms of fundraising

At Action for Kids, we believe in providing tailored, specialist support to disabled young people and their families for as long as it is required.

Like any organisation, we are committed to moving forward and remaining relevant, so increasing funds and awareness is essential. One particular event that has enabled us to do this is our annual city beach volleyball championship.

For one week each year, we build a beach volleyball court at Broadgate Circle, near Liverpool Street, London. We run training sessions all week for the teams and, on the final day, we host a tournament.

Currently in its fourth year, the event is invaluable in helping us to raise much-needed funds to secure the longevity of our charity both financially and through raising awareness of our work.

It also allows us to connect with our corporate partners, celebrities, sponsors, volunteers and, of course, our young people, who are all part of the event and come down to show their support.

We have worked hard to establish the event within our wider community, inviting local schools to join in the fun, and offering them the chance to take part in a sport they may not have previously had the opportunity to become involved with.

Finding a USP

In the increasingly competitive world of fundraising, having a USP is essential to driving the longevity and success of any fundraising event – especially when trying to attract new supporters. So we wanted to create an event that was a break from the usual mass participation fun run or prescribed corporate challenge. Instead, we decided to create a singular day on which we could engage with all our partners, and give them a chance to network with each other.

The uniqueness of the event is what grabs, and ultimately maintains, the attention of our teams (although this does have the slight pitfall of making the event a little harder to sell, as it can be quite difficult to picture a beach volleyball court springing up in the heart of the City!)

Each year, a maximum of 16 teams can enrol from a variety of corporate organisations, with a view to helping to raise approximately £50,000 in total for Action for Kids.

The relaxed and jovial atmosphere that surrounds the event seems to contribute to its success, with many of the teams that took part in year one continuing to sign up year after year. The spectator nature of the event also helps increase income as hundreds of local office workers come out to watch the action. We hold cash bucket collections on the day and make new contacts by collecting business cards for a champagne draw and engaging with passers-by.

Added entertainment

Because the tournament generates such a large number of spectators, we’ve added other elements to the event to give it more depth and appeal. For example, over the years we’ve had a ‘speed cage’ where anyone can measure their serving strength (we charged £2 for three attempts), a pogo stick acrobatic display, a ping-pong playing robot and a steel band.

In addition, we always make sure that there is the opportunity for our beneficiaries to go on court and have some training and playing time. This allows us to showcase a small part of the work we do and illustrate to the crowd exactly who we’re helping and why we need their support. Many charity events can seem to be quite detached from the actual cause they are supporting, so wherever possible it’s good to include the beneficiaries in your event or provide other direct examples of your impact.

We also run a ‘sitting’ volleyball tournament, which is played sitting on one’s bottom on the court! Open to everybody, it showcases disability sports alongside the main beach volleyball tournament and gives people the opportunity to try a sport that they would otherwise rarely be exposed to. Being able to invite our young people down on the day (they also form the core part of the cheerleading squad), and having a Paralympic sport to display adds yet another dimension to our event.

Ask the experts

At Action For Kids, we have found that evaluation is key if you are to identify areas for improvement and so increase the success of the event year-on-year. We look upon each event as a learning curve, and always try to be realistic. For example, we aren’t volleyball experts, so we’re not afraid to ask the professionals, and we have been fortunate enough to learn a lot from Volleyball England which has provided its expertise and knowledge many times.

This year we also enlisted the help of beach volleyball organisation Sideout to assist us with the technical aspects of the event. We found its expertise invaluable as we were provided with professional coaches, referees and a ‘championship manager’, who ensured that the court was constructed correctly and the games were played professionally. This allowed us to focus our energy on the overall success of the event – which is essential when organising an event of this scale and complexity with a small team.

Over time, we have also developed our relationships with other key parties, such as Broadgate Estates (which hosts the venue) and Virgin Active (which provides goodie bags and static exercise equipment for warm-ups). This has proven to be very beneficial – a good working relationship can often lead to a discount or a bit of extra (free) help when needed.

We take care to maintain these relationships and work hard to ensure they are mutually beneficial and longstanding. For example, the venue lends itself extremely well to a variety of advertising and sponsorship opportunities, so we are always able to thank our supporters and partners with advertising space.

Keeping costs down

We always pay careful attention to the event budget, and ensure that what we do is as cost effective as possible. As the tournament is now in its fourth year, the costs have inevitably reduced slightly as we have acquired certain key items which can be used time and again, such as volleyball balls, nets, and even shovels!

We make the most of free advertising via social media, and this year in particular we had a good response after posting a series of tweets using the hashtag #BroadgateBeach on Twitter, and asking celebrities and athletes to retweet, creating more of a buzz on the day.

We also engaged with a PR company, House PR, to help us raise awareness of the charity and our volleyball event. We were delighted to receive a wealth of coverage in a variety of online and print media, and this was reflected in an increase both in traffic to our website and our numbers of Facebook/Twitter friends and followers. As we currently are unable to employ an in-house PR officer it was prudent to involve an external company to help promote this event and ensure it got the recognition it deserves.

Listening and learning

Evaluation is a key part of our after-event care. We have a detailed debrief exercise involving all the key members of staff, as well as inviting external organisations to submit a report on their experience of the event and even to come in for a discussion. This gives us the opportunity to hear from the ‘experts’ and get their suggestions for improvement.

In addition we issue a questionnaire to the teams, as these are our most important supporters. We always pay careful attention to what they have to say to ensure we continue to build on their enjoyment of the event year-on-year.

Main event

Our city beach volleyball championship is the highlight of our fundraising events calendar and, as a charity with a small events team, a lot of our resources are put into making it a success. The unique character of the event certainly sets us apart from other similar-sized charities and the relationships we have managed to develop have definitely helped us grow the event over the years.

As our main fundraising event, it is an excellent showcase of the wider work we do, so including our beneficiaries and having extra elements like the sitting volleyball tournament not only adds to the special atmosphere on the day but builds the bridge between a great event and the vital work that Action For Kids does all year round.

Lucy Duxbury is fundraising and community events officer at Action for Kids. She would like to thank Stephanie Stone for her invaluable input on this article.

This article first appeared in The Fundraiser magazine, Issue 23, November 2012