As the title says, does anyone else struggle with asking for donations? I really do. In life I tend to persevere through things on my own, rather than asking for help, and so I am finding it really hard to ask others for $, even though I know what a worthy cause this is!
I don't understant this personality flaw of mine, lol, as I am the 1st person to say yes or offer a donation if I know others are fundrasing.
Thankfully I am down to the last $1,000, thanks to some great team fundraisers, and I have a plan to get to the end
I had never tried to ask for money before and the experience have actually been amazing and rewarding.
First thing to do is send your "Begging Letter" as my cousin calls it to everybody you know. This includes family, friends, everyone that you have an email address for even if you have not seen or heard from them in the last 10 years. Take email addresses from your friends on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else that you can think off. The letter has to be personal (from the heart). Your online message HAS TO BE PERSONAL, look at all the top fundraisers. If you use the form letter I go Ya ya ya, and would donate to someone that have put more effort into their letter.
Most of my donations came from people that I did not really know. They came from my son's grade 2 teacher (he is in grade 7 now), from a friend that I had in the '70's and have not seen more that a handful of times in the last 20 years, from 2 of my sons playmates parents. My good friends have donated very little.
I wish you the best of luck and see you and the road to Nanton.''
Are you in a rural location or in a city? I found the best way to encourage donations was to make my part in the ride as public as possible. I have big posters of my training distances on my door at work as well as a fundraising thermometer and pictures from some of the fundraising events. I talk about it everywhere and people now are regularly asking me how it's going. Through this I've gotten donations waiting in Line at 7-11 as well as from various members of my Tai Chi group, none of which were in my email listing. I also had great success with a local hot dog sale with the Drumheller IGA.
I also put together a rally ribbon fundraiser. I made sections of ribbon and for a $10 donation, a person could write the name of a departed person, someone who has beat cancer or someone still fighting and I would take the ribbons on the ride with me so that they two were a part of it. Then when I get back, I'll distribute them back to the people.
Thanks ;) so the people who have already donated to me don't feel sad, I'm going to do it "retro actively". I've made up a poster (attached) and am going to go around my work and neighbourhood! Thanks again for such a great idea!!!
I would love to be able to use your poster if I could ... but I can't seem to download it in a usable form ... could you email it to me please ... tlcann@nucleus.com...I love it!!!! What a wonderful idea!!!!
Great Poster Jasmine! you might want to paste or tape some posters onto the front of a few envelopes and drop them off at local businesses to circulate to employees. Put the Ribbons and Tax Receipt forms in the envelope too. I liked letting people write on the ribbon themselves, made them even more a part of it. There is a product that will stop ribbon from fraying. You can pick it up at fabric land, I'm not sure if Walmart carries it but it is called Fray check. I think I made my ribbons 9" long and drew lines, then put fray check on the ribbon at the lines, waited for it to dry and cut the ribbons.
Excellent idea. I'll get the envelopes ready. I had some ribbon, but it was ribbed.... bad idea, too hard to write on. Will stop on way home from work and pick up some more ;) Will look for the other product too!
I got some nice gold ribbon at wal-mart and some at fabricland. write on them with regular pen. I tried fine tip markers but the ink just ran all over the ribbon and didn't look good.
What a neat idea!! I LOVE the ribbon idea, but I think it might be too late for me to implement it (I work FT and go to University FT, so I really need to plan for things or they don't get done!)
My good news is that I am only short $271 now! And I have confirmation from my employer that they will top me up at the end if need be, but I think I have it handled :)
