You would normally associate coffee with a purchase of either the coffee beans to brew at home or as a drink from one of those lovely high-street coffee shops. When you want to collect some money for a good cause or a charity organisation, arranging a get-together in your home or at a specific location for a group of people, you can use coffee as a means of raising funds.
Once you’ve decided on the reason that you need to raise some funds, here are some ideas to ensure your coffee morning goes off without a hitch.
Where to hold your coffee morning
You can hold a coffee morning at your home and it doesn’t matter if you live in a £2 million house or the smallest terraced house as the occasion is more about raising money for a good reason rather than showing off your home.
If you don’t like the idea of cleaning your home before your guests get to see the inside of your property, you might decide that your coffee morning will be better held at a place of work, one of the local mother and toddler groups or even your local church facility.
When you are involved with a group of people that meet regularly for coffee in a cafe, for a change you could invite them to your home and everyone could donate the amount that they would have spent on their coffee and cakes, on your homebrewed and baked varieties, with all of the funds going to the chosen charity.
Your workplace may be willing to help you in providing a space to hold a coffee morning and equally you could use a club or a church for your coffee morning. If it is held straight after a well attended meeting, you will have a greater number of people for your occasion.
Thinking about the fundraising
If you are meeting with a group of people who are not short of a pound or two, you could charge a small entrance fee even if you’re using your own home or that of a friend. By inviting a special guest of honour that can open the event your guests will be pleased to pay to attend your coffee morning.
You can ask friends and family to help you with serving coffee and cakes at your meeting and you might even ask them if they can bake home-made cakes and biscuits for the occasion.
Planning ahead to make your day a success will include making sure that you have some other drinks available for those who don’t think coffee; they’ll think of you as very thoughtful.
Although it’s obvious, don’t forget the milk and sugar, sweeteners and perhaps alternatives for people who are allergic to milk. If you’re not using your own home, you will need to make sure that the venue has sufficient cups and saucers or mugs and to enquire whether you are expected to wash up afterwards. You’ll need rubbish bags to clean up after you and your friends, but if you’re going to be inviting a lot of people, think ahead about how many kettles and containers you will need to be able to store and serve sufficient drinks.
Making sure that all the food produce meets with all the rules of the Food Standards Agency is important and listing any potential allergies alongside any of the cakes and biscuits will help your day run better.
You must make sure that everyone knows why you are running the coffee morning and what the money is going to be used for, so having somebody on hand to give a short talk to the invited guests will help you make as much money as possible.
Finally, if you intend to hold coffee mornings regularly to raise money for your favourite cause or charity, you may be able to ask for sponsorship which will increase the profits from your day.
Damien Higgins writes for Eden Springs, the water and coffee company who supply the Kenco singles machine.
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