Red Nose Day fundraiser ideas: how to take part properly

Most Red Nose Day fundraiser ideas take five minutes to choose and five weeks to organise, and the organising is the part nobody writes about. The bake sale is easy. Registering, paying the money in, claiming your Gift Aid and staying the right side of Comic Relief’s rules on its own name are what decide whether the total lands.

I am Kevin Durham, a professional charity auctioneer and event host. Red Nose Day is not my usual work: I am normally in a room of 300 people running a live auction and a pledge. The same question sits under both jobs: how you turn goodwill into money that reaches the charity. Here is how to take part, what suits a workplace, a school and a club, and the admin that catches people out.

What is Red Nose Day, and when is the next one?

Red Nose Day is Comic Relief’s fundraising campaign, built around a night of comedy on the BBC and a country doing something silly for money. Comic Relief confirms that Red Nose Day is next back on Friday 19 March 2027.

It lands on a Friday in March each time. The 2026 campaign ran on Friday 20 March and raised £30,004,040, which Comic Relief says helped over 1.3 million people access essentials including food, shelter and safety. The money funds organisations working on poverty and injustice in the UK and internationally.

Reading this a year or two on? Check the date on Comic Relief itself, not on any list of ideas.

Do you need to register to fundraise for Red Nose Day?

Not strictly, but you should, and it costs nothing. When you register to fundraise Comic Relief sets up a JustGiving page automatically and will post a printed pack if you want one.

The page matters more than the pack. Donations go straight to Comic Relief, people give by card from their phones, and nobody carries a tin of cash around for a fortnight. Comic Relief’s own advice is to go cashless where you can.

Posters, cake labels, bunting, tin labels and certificates are free on the fundraising resources page.

How does a workplace take part in Red Nose Day?

By running one thing everybody can see, on the day, with a target on the wall. Comic Relief’s own workplace guide suggests wear-red donations, a sponsored silly challenge, a pay-to-play quiz and a bake sale with a twist.

It also makes two points worth more than any of the ideas: ask whether your employer will match what staff raise, and make a week of it so people off on the Friday can still join in. Matched giving is the quickest way to double a total, and most finance teams have never been asked.

Formats that suit an office in particular:

• A sponsored challenge with a senior name attached. Crowdfunding one director’s embarrassment beats twenty people each raising £5.
• Payroll giving sign-ups. Payroll Giving takes donations from pay before tax, so the charity gets the relief automatically. Red Nose Day is a good hook for a scheme that runs all year.
• A lunchtime quiz with paid entry. Teams of six, entry per head, a proper host. My quiz night guide covers pacing and scoring.
• An auction of promises. Colleagues donate a skill or a favour rather than an object: the coffee run for a week, a curry, a lift to the airport.

One caution there. Comic Relief will not accept offensive or discriminatory fundraising, and names “slave auctioning” of people as its example. Auction what people will do, never the people themselves.

Red Nose Day fundraiser ideas for schools

Schools have the easiest job and the tightest rules: everything involves other people’s children and other people’s money. Comic Relief publishes separate early years, primary and secondary packs, with a paying-in slip for each.

What works is one non-uniform or red-clothes day with a suggested donation, plus one event with theatre in it. A talent show, a staff-versus-pupils match or a teacher taking a custard pie in assembly will out-raise six stalls.

Put the suggested donation on the letter home with an online way to pay, and collect before the day rather than on it. My school fundraising ideas post covers PTA formats for the rest of the year.

Red Nose Day fundraiser ideas for clubs and community groups

Clubs have an advantage offices and schools do not: a membership that turns up every week and already competes with each other.

A sponsored version of whatever your club already does is the obvious route. A 24-hour relay on the pitch, a longest-rally challenge, a round of golf with one club.

Daft travels further than worthy on a group chat, so pick the silly version. There are more of those in my quirky fundraising ideas post.

Add a raffle and the Gambling Commission’s incidental lottery rules apply: physical tickets, sold at the event while it is happening, a £500 cap on prizes bought from proceeds and no limit on donated ones. My post on charity raffle rules has the licence detail.

How do you get the money to Comic Relief?

Through your JustGiving page, online by card, at a bank with a giro slip, or by post with a cheque. Comic Relief sets out all four on its pay-in page.

Two details catch people out. Cheques must be payable to the campaign and the year, so “Red Nose Day 2027”, not “Comic Relief”. And the slips are split by type of fundraiser: early years, primary, secondary, workplace and community each have their own form and postal address.

Comic Relief publishes no hard cut-off date, so treat “as soon as possible after the event” as the deadline and bank cash the day you collect it. A giro slip takes up to 10 working days to arrive.

Can you claim Gift Aid on Red Nose Day sponsorship?

Yes on sponsorship, no on anything people buy. Gift Aid adds 25% to a donation from a UK taxpayer, so £10 becomes £12.50 at no extra cost to the donor, and Comic Relief asks fundraisers to send sponsorship forms in afterwards so it can claim.

The line between the two is where people slip up. HMRC is clear that payments for goods or services do not qualify, and nor does a “minimum donation” with no real choice about paying. A cake, a raffle ticket and a £2 entry fee are purchases. A sponsorship pledge with a name, full home address and a ticked declaration is a donation.

If a challenge has costs attached, one more HMRC rule bites: a sponsor connected to the participant, by marriage or as a sibling, parent or grandchild, only qualifies if the participant paid the full cost themselves.

What are the rules on using the Red Nose Day name and logo?

You can say you are fundraising in aid of Red Nose Day, but you cannot use the logo without an agreement, and must not suggest you represent Comic Relief. Its fundraising rules set out the detail.

Posters, leaflets and signs should carry a specific line: “In aid of Red Nose Day, an initiative of Comic Relief, operating name of Charity Projects, registered charity in England & Wales (326568) and Scotland (SC039730)”. Copy it exactly.

You will need a fundraising agreement before you start if any of these apply:

• you want to use a Comic Relief or Red Nose Day logo
• you are raising money in the course of a business, say by donating part of a sale price
• you are deducting your costs from the money raised
• you are splitting the total with another charity
• your fundraising involves children, young people or vulnerable adults outside a school

Without an agreement you cover costs from your own pocket, not from the donations. Email the fundraising team early, not the week before.

Where a live auction and a live pledge fit in

Honestly, usually not on Red Nose Day itself. The campaign runs on lots of people giving small amounts for something funny, a different machine from an evening where 40 tables bid against each other.

If your organisation is holding a dinner in the same season, that is where an auction and a pledge belong. At one event for the Jigsaw Trust the live auction was expected to bring in £14,000. It made £27,000, and a live pledge they had not planned added £30,600 on top. Their team built that room, I just read it.

What transfers is the behaviour, not the format. Get the room quiet first: the shush is a powerful tool. Name the target out loud. Say what the money does. Then ask once, clearly.

A planning timeline that works backwards from the Friday

Working back from the day itself:

1. Eight weeks out. Pick one activity and register. Set a target: my guide on fundraising targets explains how to pick a number people believe.
2. Six weeks out. Request a fundraising agreement if you need one, ask about matched giving, order noses and packs.
3. Four weeks out. Posters up, and start asking for donated raffle prizes.
4. Two weeks out. Share the JustGiving link with a photo and a reason, not as a bare URL.
5. The week itself. Collect before the day where you can, and have the giro slip ready if you are banking cash.
6. The week after. Pay in, send the sponsorship forms off for Gift Aid, put the total on a thank-you poster.

If you are planning a fundraising evening of your own in the same season, call me on 07596 851647 and we can talk the structure through first.