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Show off your super skill – our step by step guide to sharing your skills online
We know our supporters are a talented bunch – yes that includes you! Every one of us has something we are good at or a hobby that we enjoy taking part in that others may not have done before.
And people love to learn so be bold and set up an online skills share with your friends, family or colleagues to help raise money for Dementia UK.
Hosting an online get together to show your skills is a great way of helping people to stay connected during these isolating times and feel they are making a difference by donating towards our specialist dementia nursing services.
Here are some pointers to help you get started and some top tips to help you make your skills share a big success!
Step one: Select your skill
Everyone has a skill that is teachable and can be shared with others – yours could be cooking, crafting, meditation, singing, dancing, exercise or knowledge on your specialist subject like history, science or literature.
Top Tip: Choose a catchy title for your skills session as this is what will capture people’s interest. You may decide to tailor your session so that it is specific to life at the moment e.g. “relaxation to reduce anxiety during Coronavirus” as this could appeal to more people.
Step two: Set the date
Have a think about a date and time that will best suit your ‘students’. Allow yourself enough time to plan the contents of your skills share and to get everything set up and ready; this also gives people enough notice, increasing the chances of a larger audience!
Top Tip: Consider who your audience is when planning timings. Holding an event in the early evening for example may be good if some of your audience are currently working at home during the day.
Top Tip #2: Think about how long your session should be. Bear in mind how long you can talk/demonstrate for and hold your audience’s attention. Sometimes less is more and a well delivered 15-minute session can be a better experience for everyone involved.
Step three: Pick the platform
Once you have your idea, title and timings ready you can think about the best way to deliver your session. There are lots of online platforms you can use that you may already be familiar with. Contact fundraising@dementiauk.org for more information on the different platforms available.
Top Tip: Make sure you practice with the platform you pick; you could do a rehearsal with a friend in advance to make sure you know how to use it e.g. sharing your screen if you are showing a presentation.
Top Tip #2: Think about the best place in your home to hold the session so that things run smoothly. You may want to try a practice run through to check for things such as background noise or internet signal so that your session is a success!
Step four: Have fun with your fun-draising
Tell people you are fundraising for Dementia UK and the difference their donation will make towards our vital work supporting families facing dementia at this uncertain time.
We recommend setting up an online fundraising page on a website like Justgiving to collect your donations as that way your students can pay in advance. You could set a price for the session (e.g. £5 per attendee) or you could ask everyone to make a general donation.
Tell us your plans so we can offer you support, advice and downloadable materials to make your session even more successful.
Step five: Shout about your session and invite your ‘students’
You want as many ‘students’ as possible to attend your session so they need to know about it! Post about it on social media, create a Facebook event, call or email all your contacts so that you can raise as much as possible for dementia specialist nurses.
Top Tip: You could attach a poster or invite to your email to make it look professional. Email fundraising@dementiauk.org for downloadable poster templates.
Top Tip #2: You could let your students know in their invitation that there are different options for interacting during the session. These include video and audio, audio only if they don’t want to be seen, or neither if they want to use the chat box function instead. Telling people this might make them feel more at ease if they haven’t participated in an online get together before.
Top Tip #3: If there are lots of people coming along to your session you may want to instruct everyone to turn their audio off as this can prevent any background noises from disrupting your session.
Step six: Show off your success and inspire more skill sharers
Most importantly, enjoy and own it. If people have turned up to learn about your skill they are of course keen to see what you can do. Take some snaps of your skills share, we’d love to see them! Tag us on social media and use our hashtag #DoItForDementiaNurses to help inspire others to take part.
Top Tip: As you end your skills share please do encourage others who attended to do their own skills share. They will be inspired by you and now is the time to encourage others to take part and make even more of a difference to Dementia UK’s vital services.
Something else?
Do you have a fantastic creative at home fundraising idea you want to try out? Give it a go and let us know! Tell us your fundraising plans here, email fundraising@dementiauk.org or call 020 8036 5440