Peter Bly: Tips for Group Fundraising | SMART Recovery Australia

I recently sat down with our Fundraising & Donor Liaison Manager, who wanted to share some fundraising tips with our facilitators across the country. We know that voluntarily administrating a weekly meeting, with all the issues associated with venue hire, funding and organisation can be time-consuming, so here are some of his favourite tips for raising funds to advertise, promote and maintain your SMART Recovery meeting. 

Many local councils have Community Grants programs that will accept applications from local community groups for financial assistance. Some SMART facilitators have had success applying to these programs and we’ve put together some resources to help other facilitators who are thinking of applying to similar programs.

These resources are on our website under the ‘Meetings’ tab (Meetings/ How to start a SMART Recovery meeting/ Fundraising for your meeting) and include:

• Grant application model answers. These will help you to answer some the usual application questions about SMART Recovery, the SMART program and intended outcomes for your application.
• SMART & 12 Steps, the differences. A single page document that sets out some of the significant differences between the two programs. Useful for laypeople and anyone who is unfamiliar with SMART Recovery.
• SMART Scorecard. This is a summary of SMART Recovery Australia and some of our achievements over the last 12 months.
• Tax endorsements. A copy of the ATO documents relating to our status with the ATO.

To find a Community Grant program, check your local Council’s website. Good luck!