The free easyfundraising platform is providing Essex grassroots football clubs with a service to generate extra money for their club, simply by changing the online shopping habits of their members and supporters.

With the huge surge in online buying, clubs who use easyfundraising have just benefitted from a share of £1.1 million in free donations nationally. Members who are sprucing-up their home for the summer can purchase from retailers like Homebase, Argos, John Lewis, eBay or Amazon and earn a free donation for their club by shopping via the easyfundraising website.

easyfundraising has huge potential, is free to use and requires minimal ongoing management. It only takes a couple of minutes to get up and running and members raise money just by making their usual online purchases. 4,300 retailers 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 raise as much as possible. Clubs can get started in three easy steps:

* Sign-Up: register a 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

Click here 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.