Essex grassroots football clubs are making the most of the free easyfundraising platform, a service which can be used to raise extra funding when buying items online and enabling members and supporters to generate money for their club.

Keeping funds coming in is hard during these unusual times, so we're reminding clubs about the potential of easyfundraising. It’s free to use, only takes a couple of minutes to get up and running, requires minimal ongoing management and members can keep raising money this way when life returns to more normality, too, just by making their usual online purchases.

4,300 retailers, including Amazon, eBay, John Lewis, M&S, Currys PC World, Argos, Just Eat and JD Sports, will send clubs donations when members or supporters use the easyfundraising website or app to shop with them, safely and easily from home.

And their shopping won’t cost them a penny more when they buy through the website or app. They can raise money on all the things they’d be buying anyway - it’s free money for clubs! 73% of UK shoppers say they plan to buy primarily online this year, so there’s never been a better time to register a club with easyfundraising.

Being part of the easyfundraising community means receiving a great deal of help with club revenue-generating activities. Admins can book a free coaching call with an easyfundraising expert to help them to get started and raise as much as possible. Clubs can get started in three easy steps:

* Sign-Up: register your club with easyfundraising for free
* Shop: ask members/supporters to use the website or app every time they shop online
* Raise: whenever they buy something, the retailer sends the club a free donation

Follow this link to sign-up your club! Get started by creating a free account for your club and use their ready-written words and images to ask members/supporters to help your club.

Your Three-Step Fundraising Plan

There are three easy things you can do right now to make sure your club raises as much as possible:

1. Spread the Word: easyfundraising is a very simple way to raise money, but you won’t raise much if members don’t know about it! Use the free tools easyfundraising provide to make them aware, including ready-written social posts and E-Mails, downloadable flyers and posters, website banners, hand-out cards and even a PowerPoint presentation to explain how it works.

2. Get the Donation Reminder: This makes sure members never miss a donation by alerting them when they visit a retailer who will donate. It’s safe and completely free and shoppers who have it installed on their computer raise up to five times more. easyfundraising provides wording to help you explain how it works and ask supporters to download it.

3. Thank and Encourage: Thanking members for donations they raise encourages them to keep on using easyfundraising because they can see it works! Use the ‘Supporter Communications’ feature to set-up automated messages to thank members when they sign-up, generate a donation or raise their first £5. You can also message those who’ve stopped raising to ask them to keep going.