Website launch

We are delighted to launch The Lifeboat Fund’s new website.  The site is packed with materials to help with your fundraising.

It can be read with equal ease on pcs, mobiles and tablets.

The new fundraising materials were produced with support from the RNLI.  They include information on The Lifeboat Fund’s 2014 Appeal, suggestions for events and other activities to raise donations.  All documents can be downloaded and the posters can be customised.  We hope you will find these resources useful.

Other resources on the site:

• Rescue stories – this info-sheet gives a snapshot of the kinds of incidents lifeboat crews attend day in day out, rescuing those in distress and saving lives.  We plan to post more such stories on a regular basis.  Your donors will be impressed to know their gifts are being put to such great use training these heroes. 

• Facts about The Lifeboat Fund – the website has a range of information about the charity, including a factsheet.  The Fund is an official Civil Service charity.  It was started by a group of civil servants in the 1860s who cared about the RNLI’s life-saving work and wanted to help.  To this day, The Lifeboat Fund is still run by civil servants, and raises money for the RNLI within the Civil Service and from other supporters. 

• Lifeboat statistics – there are 12 lifeboats in the RNLI fleet that were bought by The Fund.  In the past five years (to 2013) they succeeded in saving 39 lives, thanks to their courageous crews.  This item tells you how each boat has performed.  We are proud of them. 

• Fundraising ideas – there are lots of suggestions for ways to fundraise, including an A-Z guide that’s full of activities to try out with colleagues and friends.  As long as events are fun, they’re likely to be successful. 

The RNLI is providing us with an exciting range of fundraising materials and resources to help generate donations, such as banners, flags and teddies.  More information will be posted on the site shortly. Meanwhile, please contact: thelifeboatfund@rnli.org.uk for more information about what’s available, and we’ll be delighted to discuss your orders.  Collecting boxes and buckets can also be supplied.

You will also find customised forms for collecting sponsorship, donations and Gift Aid – and banking advice.  Remember too, the charity is registered with online fundraising agents BT MyDonate, Virgin Money Giving and JustGiving, on whose sites you can produce fundraising pages to share with your colleagues, family and friends.  Try this, if you are doing an event or sporting feat for this special cause.  Donations by text are also available through JustGiving.

Advice and forms for payroll-giving in aid of The Lifeboat Fund are included, should you wish to sustain your giving so the RNLI can do more with our support.

In addition, you’ll find information about the work of the RNLI, our sole beneficiary.

I hope you will like the website and new fundraising aids.  Please let us know what you think. 

By supporting The Lifeboat Fund’s 2014 Appeal you will help to train RNLI volunteers who are risking their lives today and every day.  Our goal is to donate £280,800 to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI), sufficient to train one crew member at every lifeboat station in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Many thanks and warmest wishes for your fundraising in 2014 and beyond,

Angela