Brick Fundraising -
An Innovative Fundraiser, Online & Off

Brick fundraising is an innovative and unique fundraising idea that can be done in two ways.

Either...

1. Off a wall (page) on your fundraising website.

2. Or with real bricks that have plaques attached to them on a building.

You will raise funds by people or businesses buying (sponsoring) bricks.

They then get to have their names posted on their sponsored brick/s or get to advertise on them.

Fundraising Bricks or Plaques can be used for any building or feature at your organization and will help raise the funds for that building! Learn more... (Photo by Alan Stanton / Flickr)

It's a brilliant fundraiser and is a perfect fundraisers for new buildings and for causes/organizations that have websites!

Let's lay those bricks....

Brick Fundraising on Your Website:

This is so, so simple to do it's awesome. All you need is a PayPal account and of course a website or blog.

It is essentially a type of Online Crowdfunding that brings in superb funds for quite a few causes!

The great thing with a brick fundraising wall on a website is that you can have time limits on how long a sponsor can 'own' a brick.

This means that once their ownership of a brick expires, you can now sell that brick again... Something that cannot be done with a 'real' brick wall.

So, simply setup your brick wall through the Supporter Wall App and add the code to your website or blog. The rest of the technical stuff is then all automated.

When a supporter clicks on an empty brick they get taken to sponsor page, where they add their details and pay for the brick.

When customizing your wall you should definitely have different brick options with prime positions being the most expensive, and smaller bricks lower down the page being cheaper.

The cool thing is that your sponsors will receive amazing benefit from sponsoring a brick.

Obviously they get image branding on the brick that they sponsored, but they also receive a link from the brick to their website or blog, etc. And the link won't only send new visitors to their site; it will also help with the SEO of their sites!

Example of a Online Brick Fundraising Wall. Online Brick Fundraising is a brilliant type of Crowdfunding....

Like I said above, set a time limit for how long a sponsor may own a brick for. Six months or a year are good options, but this decision will be up to you.

If you don't have a website I would highly recommend you set one up. I do generally recommend that all organizations and groups use a fundraising website.

As for hosting I personally only really recommend SBI! to host your website, as they are probably the most successful webhosts on the planet (I have them to thank for the success of this website), but here are a few different webhosts to look at.

Promoting & Advertising:

Other then setting up this fundraising website wall, all you have to then do is Promote it...

Use the usual online promoting methods that I recommend. Advertise it all around your website, on your Facebook page, through your newsletter, and on Twitter, Pinterest, etc...

Gabe O'Neill of Kids' Are Heroes does a fantastic job of promoting their Brick Fundraising wall on Twitter. Follow him at @KidsAreHeroes to gleam some insight into how to connect and promote effectively on Twitter.

Don't forget to promote it on other internet platforms you may use and to promote it offline! You'll never beat actually contacting people and businesses directly.

For more great Promoting ideas read here.

Real Fundraising Bricks On Buildings:

Fundraising using this form of brick fundraising is perfect for groups that are raising funds for a new building or extension.

But it can also be used for any other fundraising needs. The only difference then is that you will need to find a building to add fundraising bricks (plaques) to.

It simply works like this... People buy bricks or plaques to help fund the costs of the new building. They then get their names (and possibly business address etc.) placed onto plaques that are then put up in the new building once it's built.

And that's it! Nice and simple.

Brick Fundraising. (Photo by Howard Lake / Flickr)

I've witnessed loads of buildings that are funded this way and often it's a matter of pride for the brick sponsors to have their names up in those new buildings!

So obviously you'll need to find someone to inscribe the bricks once they are bought (offer them a free brick if they can do it for you for free) and then it's just once again ADVERTISING the bricks to your members and supporters.

Closing This Brick Fundraiser:

I absolutely love these two fundraising ideas and each of them will serve different purposes.

If you have a website, than the online brick fundraising through a supporter wall is a MUST!!! I really do believe that you have to use it!

So make sure you set them up properly and then get promoting. Set the goal to sell all of your bricks!

And make sure you come back to tell us your Brick Fundraising success story once done.