Tips for Maximizing Your Fundraising
Raising funds fast. And having fun too…
Whether your goal is $250 or $25,000, it sure sounds like a lot of sponsorships at first, doesn’t it? But – by being positive, enthusiastic and persistent, you can and will reach whatever fundraising goal you choose.
PROVEN FACT: Making it fun will get you there even faster. Here are some suggestions:
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1. Set your sights high! Establish a realistic but challenging $$ goal for sponsorships. Post it on your personal fundraising web page after you’ve registered for the 2011 CPC. If you believe you can do it – that’s the first step to getting there.
2. Make a list of prospective donors – you know more people than you think. Scan through your email address book, and ask everyone for their support (See Pat Dobec’s Greatest All Time Fundraising Tip below)! Aside from family members, friends, neighbours and your work colleagues, there are many more: your family doctor, dentist, chiropractor, naturopath, the life insurance agent who wants to sell you that policy, the owners of local stores and restaurants you’ve loyally patronized over the years, the realtor who sold your house… Don’t be shy.
3. Create a great message for your 2011 CPC fundraising web page. Tell your potential sponsors what you’re doing and why you believe cancer prevention is so crucial. Personalize your emails message(s) if you have time; it makes a big difference. Our top all-time fund-raiser, June Sommers, who participated in 2004, long before we had the great electronic tools we now have, sent several dozen personalized letters by snail-mail, each with a stamped, self-addressed envelope. She raised well over $13,000!
Pat Dobec’s Greatest All Time Fundraising Tip: Just ASK!
- 4. Here’s the best advice from our second top fundraiser ever, Pat Dobec (who, like June S, also cracked $13,000 one year). Pat did most of her fundraising on-line, and her kid sister Liz (Armstrong, Co-Coordinator of the 2010 CPC) knows her ‘system’ works because she tried it herself and raised more than $16,000 in two years!). It’s simple, and it’s not at all about participating in a run, or making the best cupcakes for sale, or killing yourself creating a great event. It can be all summed up in just one word – ASK. People won’t donate if you don’t ASK. (This seems like a complete no-brainer, but it’s astonishing how many people are reluctant to seek $$$ for a good cause). But, and this is crucial – don’t just ASK once – ASK several times! Here’s how to do it without irritating all your friends and family forever:
- set up a Group email list. If you don’t know how, contact us!
- plan to send about six messages, one each week x 5 asks, plus one wrap-up.
- send your first message (choose the BCC option – Blind Copy – in your email system so you won’t expose everyone’s email address) telling your recipients why you’re so passionate about prevention, what your fundraising goal is – and that you’ll keep them up to date on your progress for the next 4 weeks. Put in a link to your fundraising web page in an impossible-to-miss spot.
- thank all your weekly donors publicly – first names only – in your next message. Chat briefly about how spring is unfolding in your neck of the woods, or how well the Leafs are doing, and ASK once again.
- keep people updated each week as you get closer to your $$ goal.
- offer the option of being taken off your ASK list (rare that this happens, but nice to offer the option)
- THANK everyone, donors or not, for helping to reach your goal!
5. Even though the Just ASK! Strategy is a sure-fire way to fundraising success, it can be great fun to create a fundraising get-together. Ask a group of potential sponsors to join you for a euchre party, for example, or for a 50s dance party. If you charge at least $20, you can offer a tax receipt. Contact the CPC co-ordinator for more details. Be clear when you invite people to your event that the purpose – aside from fun – is to support you reaching your $$ goal in the 2010 Cancer Prevention Challenge.
6. If you’d prefer to have a more serious get-together to talk about cancer prevention issues, show a documentary film. Here are a few suggestions & how/where to purchase the film:
7. Ask your friends to ask their friends to raise funds for you too. Multiply your efforts. One participant’s sister, who couldn’t make it to the Ottawa Race Weekend (when the Ottawa Race Weekend was the central focus of our fundraising), raised $1,000 in her own home town, just by asking for support for her sister’s run.
8. Have that garage sale you’ve been putting off. (Maybe wait till Spring!)
9. Save your loonies and two-nies for a month. All those loose coins sure add up.
10. Ask a friend or two to participate with you – as a runner, walker or whatever activity you choose!
11. Thank your sponsors when it’s all over – and let them know how much money you raised – and how much fun you had!
