Ideas, anyone?? Community fundraising efforts??

[DDD]

My husband originated a highly successful community fundraising
event that was hugely successful. Sadly, the function :mad: was
hijacked by a younger man with a larger organization. This has
been causing alot of grief and anger.

:smile: So I thought I would see if any of you have popular events in
your community that might be used in our city. The purpose of
the organization is the development of trails throughout the community to be used in healthful ways...riding and biking...and
enhance the environment. We do have a sizable senior citizen
population.

Any ideas? The city already has art festivals, plant/flower
functions, track walks with pledges toward heart projects, take
out dinners for numerous projects. Thanks in advance. DDD

 

[DammitJanet]

Concerts of various sorts. Hey...maybe you could do your own version of "your towns" Idol.

I really cant think of anything else...brain is shot.

 

[tiredmommy]

How about a walk/bike-a-thon? Chinese auction? Distinguished speaker (maybe a famous person will donate their time)?

 

[mstang67chic]

What about a town wide photo scavenger hunt? No one would have to actually gather items but could just take pictures instead. You could write clues for city landmarks or locations of existing or future nature paths. To raise money, there could be an entry fee and maybe you could get local businesses to donate prizes or have a raffle for a 50/50 drawing. Since the proceeds go towards nature related things, you could also give extra points for pictures of certain trees/birds/other critters found in the "wild". (just be careful that it's nothing people could inadvertantly harm in the process of trying to get pics)

A town near where I live also does a duck race in a local river. They "sell" duckys and then dump them all in the river to see which one "wins" the race.

Depending on the population of your area (ages/interests/etc) you could also do different events geared toward a variety of age groups. Concerts, sporting tournaments (3 on 3 b-ball, etc.), softball games between police and fire or other area groups.

 

[donna723]

Here they have an annual event at a civic center where the local restaurants serve sample-size portions of their specialties, with every kind of establishment, from the most expensive, exclusive restaurants down to the mom and pop places participating. For the price of a ticket, you can walk around all evening and gorge yourself on everything from gourmet items to barbeque to ethnic specialties to soul food or fancy desserts!
:smile:
The restaurants are more than happy to donate and serve the food because it's wonderful publicity for them and probably brings in lots of new customers.

 

[kris]

<span style='font-size: 14pt'> <span style='font-family: Georgia'> <span style="color: #993399"> an event such as a dinner with-a silent auction??

does your husband really want to stage a competing fundraiser? i'd be afraid it would make him look....uhm, petty (for lack of a better word)? maybe he can find a different way to give his time & efforts.

kris </span> </span> </span>

 

[DammitJanet]

Now that other people have commented I have thought some...Myrtle beach does more of this than my area does. They have the golf tournaments, auctions, rubberducky races, boat float contests where you "dress" the boat up, the food events mentioned above, black tie dinners and dances, all kinds of things.

They are much more into it than my area.

 

[DDD]

Thanks for the ideas. Most of the clever fundraisers are already
being used...although I have never heard of a photo scavenger
hunt. That's different for sure.

He is President of his group, Kris, and they need to earn funds
to stay in existence. There is no other way to give his time &
effort. His event Chairman and Vice President STOLE the event
that generated over 10 grand AND wonderful community exposure.
husband would never seem petty to anyone who knew or worked with him.

The "new" event will not be at the same time of year nor will it
be the same format. I think that it might be good to have a
"Winter Wonderland Walk" in January when the "snowbirds" have
settled in for the winter. (PS: that is the terms used for
Yankees who come South to avoid the snow, sleet etc. )

I'm going to put together ideas for husband in hopes it cheers him up
and changes his focus to more positive thoughts. He is not a
perfect person, of course, but he just doesn't even know how to
be conniving or evil. As a result he is vulnerable to smart
talking people who feign sincerity. Yep...I'm still mad! DDD

 

[Hound dog]

How about a community Art show? Ametuer of course. They raise some pretty good money around here doing that. Alot of people like to come. You can get some awfully beautiful things. Have a small fee to enter, charge a fee to get in, you might be able to get food venders to rent areas to serve the public.

I haven't a clue how to organize it, but I sure do like to go to them. :smile:

 

[Marguerite]

Here's one for you that is also highly appropriate. How about you use Ian Keirnan's ideas? He proposed (and was able to implement) "Clean Up Australia" which began some years ago as not much more than a one-man venture. I'd had a similar idea years ago but had never had the guts, the experience or the connections to do it. It's a variation on the old Walkathon fundraiser, only you don't get sponsored by the mile. There are no sponsorships at all, in terms of walking door to door and singing people to sponsor you.
But you do get sponsorships from aid organisations, from various businesses and other organisations. You also can plug into environmental funds from governments, to support what you're doing.

You need to look at it at least initially as a community service, rather than a fundraiser. But you can award prizes as incentives for the people who collect the most bags of rubbish, or clear the largest area.

The bags - these need to be specific "Clean Up [wherever]" bags, with logo. They're a fixed size and usually brightly coloured. It's cheap to get these printed. Collectors leave full bags by the side of the road or wherever convenient and later on someone with a truck comes round to collect them. You work alone or in a group - it can be a lot of fun collecting rubbish together on a Sunday. Bung on a barbie afterwards to reward the collectors and to help with the official functions and carnival atmosphere. You can also combine this with a recycling sorting station so you can literally cash in aluminium, for example. The media love it, businesses love it (because to sponsor it make them look good) and civic authorities love it. It also teaches a lot of community working together and responsible environment management to the youngest kids.

If you look for "Ian Kiernan" or "Clean Up Australia" on Google, you might get more detailed info. husband says he's been going around the world to explain how to do it. We had our "Clean Up Australia" day a couple of weeks ago.

The thing is, you want to provide trails in your area - this is a good way to alert people to the need for a clean environment and the chance to enjoy it. Then the more people who enjoy the outdoors, the more pressure on local authorities to provide the amenities. It's great publicity for those who care enough about trails and getting into the wilder places, and it's showing that you care enough about the environment to clean it up and want to encourage others to do the same. Get the media involved in that and sponsorship should bring you the results you need.
I suspect that if you ask, you'll get Kiernan himself helping you through it, which will gazump the other young upstart.

This is REALLY rolling up your shirtsleeves to get busy!

Marg

 

[DDD]

The "Clean Up Austrailia" concept is a terrific idea. We do
already have a similar program where organizations contract to
"own responsibility" for some spances of roadway. However, it
could have a slightly different slant and be incorporated in a
benefit walk perhaps. Thanks for the idea. DDD

 

[On_Call]

The local firemen just had a fundraiser here during our Winter Fest - they did a combination chili cookoff and a polar bear dip dealy. Local businesses donated money for cash awards and/or gift certificates for the chili cookoff - participants had a registration fee. The brave polar dippers raised pledges of a set amount of $ to jump in a large vat of river water - in a couple of ocassions, some guys' "friends" raised money so their buddies would have to jump. They held both events in the park simultaneously and raised several thousand dollars. Not a grand scale event, but we only have a population of less than 10,000 people. If you live in a larger area, you might make more.

Some organization locally also pulls phony arrests of village "celebrities" and then advertises that they have to raise $XX to release the people from their capture. It is usually held in the village park or just outside a local shopping center, etc.

Don't know if either of these would work or not.

 

[On_Call]

I just thought of another one that near-by fraternities do. They build large teeter totters and ride them for an entire weekend. The radio station comes and gives out free stuff - there are refreshments, etc. People gather pledges and some people just stop by and donate money to the cause. The guys all take turns/shifts on the contraption from Friday night til Sunday afternoon. Seems that one has been successful, too.

(Gosh, I cannot seem to spell today!)