The past few months I have been volunteering with Bournemouth Parks Foundation specifically as a marketing volunteer to help this local charity fundraise and market its many projects benefitting the community. As a current Bournemouth university masters student studying marketing tourism I was looking to gain some greater hands on experience in the marketing field. I can honestly say having only been volunteering for just over a month and a half I have already gained a great deal of practical knowledge in the field and have been able to directly help them raise £1699 to build a new aviary in Bournemouth’s lower gardens. This has been the project I have been focusing on and have been able to contribute to the fundraising through creating social media posts, writing up email newsletters on the subject and sending a press release to the local media to help raise awareness.
The concept we used to raise this money was centred around the charitable campaign known as Giving Tuesday which this year was on November 27th. The campaign is strategically located close to the well known Black Friday as an alternative to buying and instead being a way to put that money towards a worthy cause benefitting one’s community. Alongside my social media posts and emails Bournemouth Parks Foundation also created a short video about the aviary, this helped the charity almost reach halfway towards its fundraising goal of £200,000.
It feels incredible to see how the couple of hours spent each week at the Bournemouth Parks Foundation’s office has been able to contribute so greatly in such a brief time. Now that Giving Tuesday is passed we are looking for new methods for fundraising for the aviary and I have begun to work on some more fundraising action to help the charity reach its goal.
I am looking forward to what there is in store for the new year as volunteering here so far has been a wonderful experience especially working alongside the very welcoming and friendly staff of Bournemouth Parks Foundation.