EDUCATIONFUNDRAISER TOOLKIT

Hello!Welcome to your Fundraiser Toolkit You’re on the precipice of transformational change! With this SolarBuddy guide you hold the power to impact the lives of this generation - the students you teach, and the children living in energy poverty who so desperately want to excel at their studies.

This toolkit provides you with useful tips, resources and creative ideas to help you create an amazing fundraising experience with your students. We’ve also included highlights from our best school funders, inspiring stories from passionate student ambassadors, and insights from the children who receive your gifted lights.

Part One: Who is SolarBuddy? Part Two: Why Fundraise for SolarBuddy? Part Three: Light Fundraising Challenges Part Four: Sign Up and Get Started Part Five: Tips to Help You Raise FundsPart Six: Start Spreading the Word Part Seven: Promotional Resources Contact Details

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“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela SolarBuddy, an Australian charity, is uniting a global community with a big dream to gift six million solar lights to children living in energy poverty by 2030, to help them continue studying after dusk and improve their education outcomes.

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Across our planet, 1.4 billion people live in energy poverty. This means that each night many of the world’s poorest and most marginalised are plunged into complete darkness when the sun sets or are reliant on toxic energy sources like kerosene and diesel for their cooking and lighting needs. This situation is especially tough on children and has a profound impact on their health and wellbeing, ability to learn, and economic stability.

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The gift of a simple solar light can have a remarkable positive impact. ● 78% increase in study time

● Improves air quality

● Reduces Co2 emissions

● Families save $$ $

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Meet Fortunate Awina Ghana, West Africa Fortunate Awina from Ghana, in West Africa, was one of the first students to ever receive a SolarBuddy solar light. At the time she was 12 years old and reliant on dangerous kerosene lamps to do her studies at night. Her village had no running water and she would walk or ride her bike up to 30km a day to go to school. Fortunate dreamed of becoming a teacher and after receiving her SolarBuddy light, she believed this could be made possible. The gift of light has literally changed her life and has given her the opportunity to study in a safe, happy and healthy environment.

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WHY FUNDRAISE FOR SOLARBUDDY? You’re already in the daily business of educating and inspiring the hearts and minds of your students; and everyday you interact with our future innovators, teachers, leaders, scientists, politicians, and designers.

By engaging your students in building and gifting solar lights to children living in energy poverty, you will inspire and empower a global generation of change-makers to consider how they can use innovative design solutions to benefit all people and our beautiful life-supporting planet.

Fundraising for SolarBuddy with your students will encourage collaboration, intercultural understanding, creative and critical thinking. All funds raised will be put towards purchasing SolarBuddy solar lights, which your students will assemble as part of our creative hands-on STEM program. After they’ve been assembled the lights are brought back to our Brisbane HQ for quality control checks before being distributed to children living in energy poverty. Your students will receive photos and a message of thanks back from their buddy.

To learn more about our Education Programs visit www.solarbuddy.org

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Meet Bon and Tarkyn they raised: $1,745 # of solar lights: 58 Two high school friends, Bon and Tarkyn have raised $1,745 through GoFundMe to buy SolarBuddy solar lights for children living in villages in East Timor. With their initial minimum target of $1,000, they bought lights for children from Hatali and Homboe Primary Schools. Having delivered the lights, they discovered that there are 158 students in the whole school in Homboe village, and decided to amend their fundraising target to $2,250 to get enough lights for all the kids in grade three, four and five.

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Lights Out Challenge

EDUCATION Help increase study time!

Host A Book Sale

Book Week Promo

Many schools around the world don’t have access to electricity. How many days can your school or class go without electricity? Use the money saved to purchase solar lights. Ask local councils and businesses to sponsor you.

With a SolarBuddy light students are studying 78% longer. Help more children read at night by hosting a book sale with all of your unwanted books and use the funds raised to buy solar lights.

During Book Week ask for a small donation from each student to go towards buying solar lights. Or challenge students to read a certain number of pages per day throughout the week, with 50c sponsored for every page they read.

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LIGHT FUNDRAISING CHALLENGES We’re designed a whole host of creative fundraising challenges, aligned to our cause, that will inspire and encourage you and/or your team to champion our cause.

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Walk toSchool

School Lapathon

Individual Active Challenges

Reception Peddle Bike Activity

Children living in energy poverty have to either walk or ride their bikes up to 30km a week to get to school. Can you walk or ride to school rather than use the car? Get your friends and family to sponsor you. This challenge will also have a positive impact on the environment!

Host a school lapathon where you have to complete a certain number of laps/km dressed in yellow or in your very own SolarBuddy outfits. Ask for donations from your friends and family for challenging yourself with a tricky distance.

Choose an event that would be challenging for you to do. For example, an open water swim event, a triathlon, a hike or a run. Set up a fundraising page and ask people to sponsor you to take part in that challenge. Wear yellow to show that you’re supporting SolarBuddy.

Create a real buzz in your school’s reception area by hiring an exercise bike that lights up when being peddled. Encourage students, teachers, parents and guests to participate by peddling to keep the lights turned on. Take it a step further and set up a roster. This’ll be a conversation starter, for sure!

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HEALTHHelp improve air quality!

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Recycling Action

Sell Reusable Cups

Give Up Challenge

Champion recycling at your school and in your home. Host a whole school clean up and consider cash back recycling.

• https://recyclingnearyou.com.au/containerdeposit/• http://scrg.com.au/• https://envirobank.com.au• https://www.mobilemuster.com.au/competition/

Out of 1 billion disposable coffee cups used by Australians each year, approximately 92% go to landfill. Champion a no disposable coffee cup rule in school. Schools can purchase KeepCups (or similar brands) at wholesale price and then sell them on to parents, teachers and students at a higher price and use the difference to purchase SolarBuddy lights.

Take part in a “Give up Challenge”. Work out how many hours you spend on your phones, computers or even how much packaged food you consume. Get others to sponsor you for giving up those things you love that may not be good for yourself or the environment.

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ENVIRONMENTHelp reduce Co2 emissions!

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Fundraising Events

$ Round Up Arrangement

Pocket-Money Challenge

Contact your school parents committee and ask for SolarBuddy to be the nominated charity for balls, dinners, networking events and fairs. Set a fundraising target for your event, direct your guests to donate through your GoFundMe page throughout the evening and see how close you get by watching the tally increase in real-time.

Negotiate a round up arrangement with school suppliers e.g. uniform, canteen, catering. For example, if it costs $2.50 for a salad and drink in the school canteen, that will be rounded up to $3. This can be done over a period of time and the total round ups will be used for the program.

Unfortunately, more than 3 billion people live below the poverty line, on less then $2.50 a day. Challenge yourself to only spending $2.50 a day and use the money you save to put towards your fundraising target.

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ECONOMIC Help families save $$!

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SIGN UP AND GET STARTED Whilst door-knocking and cash donations are an important aspect of the fundraising process, SolarBuddy recommends creating your own GoFundMe page to make it easy to share via email and social media. The page is simple to use and SolarBuddy is already set up as a charity to fundraise for.

Create your GoFundMe page:

1. Visit https://www.gofundme.com2. Click on ‘Start a GoFundMe’ located at the top right hand corner.3. Sign up through Facebook or email address.4. Set your fundraising target, enter a title, and choose ‘SolarBuddy.org Ltd’ as your charity of choice. 5. Write your fundraising brief and share! See key information below for details.6. Link your page to all your social media platforms.

Here is an example of what you can use in your fundraising brief:

We are the generation to change the world! And we’re doing it with the gift of light …

Leading the revolution to bring light to students, who are just like us. But with one big difference…

They don’t have access to safe and reliable lighting to study with after dusk.

That’s why we’re fundraising for SolarBuddy to help them achieve their big dream to gift six million solar lights to children living in energy poverty by 2030, to help improve their education outcomes.

You can help too by donating to support our fundraising challenge! Every donation, no matter how big or small, helps and will go directly to purchasing solar lights.

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NEED SOME INSPIRATION? Check out Billie, our Education Program Manager’s, GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/billie039s-campaign-for-solarbuddyorg-ltd

Billie and The SolarBuddy team will (attempt to) complete a triathlon in Brisbane on Sunday, 8th December and are calling on all family, friends and the SolarBuddy community to sponsor them to take part in the event. The race consists of a 900m swim, 25km cycle and 6km run. Billie’s team have more heart than experience in a triathlon but they are determined to train for the event and give it their best!

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TIPS TO HELP YOU RAISE FUNDS For every $30 you raise, you will be gifting one solar light directly to a child, transforming their life. Online donations through GoFundMe will take care of collection and payment and allow you to focus your energy on fundraising.

Online DonationsAll online donations through GoFundMe will automatically keep track of money raised, while payment is made directly to SolarBuddy. GoFundMe is an interactive platform and you will be able to see donations made in real-time, plus receive and respond to messages of support from sponsors.

Offline Donations What about offline donations? No doubt you’ll have friends and family who just want to give cash and leave it to you to process the donation. We recommend a nominated teacher collects all the loose change, the school banks the money and makes a payment to the class’s GoFundMe page

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START SPREADING THE WORD Spread the word far and wide! Schools are hives of social interactions, so reach out to parents, football coaches, dance teachers and more. Talk to people and share your news on the schools website and newsletter.

Media TipsIf you’re taking part in a public event like a school lapathon, get in touch with your local paper or share it on your local radio. Media outlets are usually more than happy to support a good cause, plus it’s a great way to let them know how people can get on-board to help.

Social Media TipsShare your story online! If people can follow you on your journey they are more likely to engage and donate to support your cause. A good way to do this is to have regular updates on your fundraising page, blog, instagram, Facebook, twitter or weekly emails. Post pictures, stories, challenges, goals, and wins.

To help increase your reach, use these hashtags: #SolarBuddy #charity #fundraising #solarlight#SDGs #energypoverty#innovation#education#empowering

Highlight: Kelvin Grove State College Funds raised: $5,280 # solar lights: 176

Kelvin Grove State College raised $5,280 enabling them to buy 176 SolarBuddy lights! The Year 6 students took part in a colourful lapathon where students walked, skipped and ran around the oval all afternoon. The students received sponsorship from friends, family and their school community.

Don’t forget your local community, they’re usually more than happy to support a good cause. • Rotary clubs• Lions clubs • Community groups • Sports clubs • Office suppliers (cleaning

companies, printing and landscaping)

• Local businesses

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PROMOTIONAL RESOURCES To make your fundraising journey workload a little lighter, we have provided some assets and templates that you can use to help spread the word.

• ● Email template to parents • ● Email template to the media

Email template to Parents We are the generation to change the world! And we’re doing it with the gift of light …

We are committed to give light to students, who are just like us. But with one big difference…

They don’t have access to safe and reliable lighting to study with after dusk.

That’s why we’re fundraising for SolarBuddy to help them achieve their big dream to gift six million solar lights to children living in energy poverty by 2030, to help improve their education outcomes.

We would appreciate your donations to support our fundraising challenge! One solar light is $30. Every donation, no matter how big or small, helps and will go directly to purchasing solar lights.

Email template to the Media We are the generation to change the world! And we’re doing it with the gift of light …

Our school is leading the revolution to bring light to students, who are just like us. But with one big difference…

They don’t have access to safe and reliable lighting to study with after dusk.

That’s why we’re fundraising for SolarBuddy to help them achieve their big dream to gift six million solar lights to children living in energy poverty by 2030, to help improve their education outcomes.

Will you support our fundraising journey and help shine a light on energy poverty?

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THANK YOU! We’re here to support you in your fundraising journey in any way that we can, so if you get a bit stuck for ideas or want some extra tips or

tricks, get in touch.

Contact Us: Billie Murphy, Education Programs Manager Ph: +61 415 167 310Em: billie@solarbuddy.org

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