Fund-raising

There are a pair of fundraisers this week in support of Gaylord Intermediate School fifth-grader Emily Lauster, who was recently diagnosed with Burkitt’s lymphoma, a fast-growing form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. She is receiving treatment at the University of Michigan C.S. Mott’s Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor. Lauster is a member of the Gaylord Lightning girls’ soccer team, which is offering “Kicking Cancer for Emily” bracelets at Gaylord High School’s Homecoming football game Friday night. There is no set cost for the bracelet, but donations are being asked. Continue reading →

To celebrate the 100-year anniversary of the American Cancer Society Saturday, Tammy Gagnon said that with the Making Strides Against Cancer Walk they hope to raise just that: $100,000. Gagnon, the publicity chair for the Litchfield chapter of Making Strides said that the hope is to beat last year’s tally of $92,000 donated and break six figures. “It’s a very inspiring day,” Gagnon said. “It’ll leave you, you know, you’ll be changed.” The walk to fight cancer will begin at the White Memorial Conservation Center on 80 Whitehall Road in Litchfield. It is a three-mile walk, but people who can’t handle the walk don’t have to do all three, Gagnon said. “The ground is beautiful to walk on,” she said, describing the path of the walk at White Memorial. “And it’s through the woods. It’s great.” Continue reading →

Most community based organisations do a lot with very little. Here are our fundraising tips for organisations on a budget. 1. Plan your approach. Ad-hoc fundraising rarely works as well as a concerted 12 month effort with lots of touchpoints. Look at seasonal efforts, and make it a practice to gather email addresses or facebook friends where possible. 2. Keep in touch with your donors - you're in the business of raising friends, not just money. Keep in touch via email or facebook updates so that people have you 'top of mind'. Let them know what's new in your world, what you're doing with the funds and who you're serving. 3. People react after a certain number of touch-points. This is marketing speak for Continue reading →

You have to hand it to many schools - they work hard with little money to come up with really inventive ways to get the message out there. The Southern Autistic School is a great example of how hand bands or wristbands help them raise awareness for their fundraising needs and the issues of the kids they teach. They use handbands as a way of interacting with their community in a fun and positive message way. Wangkat Jungka Remote Community School takes its maths really seriously - they see it as fundamental to the grounding of their kids for later life. Everything in maths stems from a base knowledge of things like the timetables so they use our Multibandz product to further remind kids of the maths lessons. They use the thin rubber wristband idea to keep the kids engaged with maths. Gentle Nature takes the task of protecting animals very seriously Continue reading →

A simple suggestion from a Blaxland boy keen to help his younger brother has snowballed into a full blown campaign for autism awareness stretching across Sydney and beyond. Dylan Forster has always looked out for his six-year-old autistic brother, so it was no surprise when he came up with the idea to sell wristbands at Blaxland Public School to raise awareness and money for the condition. With support from his school that initial thought has grown into a two-week series of events and expressions of interest in similar campaigns at eight Sydney schools and one as far as Albury. The spark for the campaigns occurred when Dylan, 10, came across a bunch of the wristbands in the glovebox. Continue reading →