Essential Items:

Pompoms – These are the fundamental tenet of the fundraiser so stock up on lots of them. The figure that we’ve seen and that is the each bucket can expect to raise about GB£85 per hour which translates as roughly €100, US$115 or CA$160 so depending on the price you charge that would be maybe 40 units exchanged for donations each hour. If we assume you can find volunteers for maybe half the 80:08 hours we think you can expect 560 exchanges over the 80:08. So maybe have 600 pompoms purchased ahead of time.

We’ve had 30mm and 25mm brooches prototyped but can’t decide between them – the 30mm looks good but the 25mm is more discreet. They are very tactile!! Family and friends proved equally useless to help us come to a decision. Taking the cowards way out we’ll get the first batch done in both and you can see which you prefer. Please bear in mind that we can only get 150,000 put together by hand each month any higher and we'll need to go to a machine to do the job. A donor may find the 30mm a better value exchange for a donation.

Picture is of 25mm and 30mm prototypes and will cost around €4 and €3.50 (4c and 3.5c each) per 100 plus shipping and tax. Update: Conscious that the delivery costs may be very high - so working on a way to get a shop set up that would handle delivery (perhaps Temu)

Pompom stickers - You could easily find that nearly all of you pompoms have gone in just one day and timelines won’t allow you to be resupplied. We would suggest having Pompom stickers as a back up. And some people have told us that would actually prefer these. These will be significantly cheaper for you to purchase. We will supply them in batches of 700.

XL pompoms – Collectors must wear an extra large pompom to make them stand out.

XL stickers – The charity that you are collecting for may already have collecting buckets or you may want to purchase some more. These stickers must be used used to brand the collection. You might need or be legally required to add the name of the specific charity you are collecting for and the relevant charity number or other identity. We’ll also offer these as a downloadable .pdf if you want to print them yourself.

Note that both of these can be used the following year so won’t go out of date.

Buckets – you can purchase buckets if you need them or your charity may have some already. Let us know if you want these offered familiarise yourself with local rules and follow them.

Things are set up for individual teams, if you want to organise as a charity and place a large order please get in touch and we’ll organise.

Suggested Items:

Two things that we are told will increase your donations are a “Volunteer” tag and a nearby poster. People will tend to give more generously to volunteers and the posters give donors some notice about who you are and who you are collecting for. The tags are in the shop, the posters are not, but if you think you want them let us know.

You’ll probably also need some cable ties to seal the collection bucket and to put up posters. You should be able to find these locally.

Other ideas:

Hats – We originally had bright hats with a large pom pom as possible things you may like your collectors to wear but we found them to be harder to source. If you think you would like us to revisit this let us know. You may be able to source bright hats and sew on the XL pompom yourself. You may even want to offer these to donors.

Hairties - We would expect to be able to get these manufactured if you are interested? Any idea of the size?

We should have a chat about what colour hat to wear in 2026.

We were shocked to learn that shaking a collection bucket is illegal in some parts of the world which seems to remove one of the main pleasures of running a street collection. We spotted that there are “cheep” whistles available which mimic the sound of birds flying around a cartoon character’s head. We don’t know whether this is allowed but gives another layer to a street collection. Let us know if you want us to point you in the right direction.

High(er) value exchanges and crafting
Two things which we think you can offer or craft yourselves are a handmade badge either circular with random colour beads to mimic a pompom or shaped as a brain showing the different areas in different colours. I personally think it would be a fantastic way of personalising these would be to show a black bead where the makers area of brain injury is. The second thing we’re working on is to make a coloured pompom out of a large fibre optic pendant. I’ll post a photo when/if I finish one.
Prices:
The prices in the shop from 1 January to 31 March are set a very close to cost price. From the 1 April to the 30 June prices will double. For July and August prices will treble. This is to encourage you to commit early. For transparency the cost and delivery price is shown. Please note that the prices are set to come well within a half hour of collecting with one bucket. Please also note that if supply fails to keep up with orders the shop may close for July and August.