Our Charitable World

3 different fundraising ideas you’ve never heard of (Part II)

September 23, 2011 Category :Fundraising Ideas 0

source: diegorb

Or maybe you have. Here are three creative and intuitive ideas to help your organization raise funds:

Eat out together. Team up with local restaurants to see if they would be willing to give you a percentage of sales for every person you bring to their location on a certain night. Send out fliers to everyone one of your supporters and have them pass it out to their friends, and have them bring it to the restaurant the night of the fundraiser. For example, Chili’s has a “give back night” where they donate 10% for every check that comes in with the nonprofit’s flier (that they actually provide). Although the program is Chili’s, any organization with an appropriate Tax ID can receive these benefits.
Babysitting events. Parents have a hard time finding time for themselves after they have children. Have your team set aside a night, say a Friday evening, where you have a temporary “day care” and target parents. Send the message that not only will they be supporting a local charity, but they will be doing themselves a favor to have time for themselves. A fair warning, you might want to team up with a lawyer to produce waivers for the parents to sign, to reduce your liability.
Tailgate buffets. Why not take advantage of the sporting events in your area? Set up a hot dog stand with some drinks around a major sporting event (where tailgating is allowed), and since it’s not possible in most areas for you to charge the consumer, ask for a donation instead. Not only does this relieve you of needing to get a business license and pay taxes, but you might actually end up gaining more than you anticipated. Remember Panera’s charity cafes? It was a huge success, primarily because 60% of the donors actually gave more than the suggested fundraising amount.

Do you have any creative ideas for fundraising?

The backwards way of finding a web designer for your nonprofit

September 16, 2011 Category :Online Marketing 0

www picture of typewriter W's from annaomline

source: annaOMline

“We are trying to hire a web designer for our new nonprofit website but none of us are technically sound.”

This was a question that was posted a while ago on a LinkedIn group forum. It was great to see a lot of people engaged in this, but every answer was just a duplicate of another answer before it. It was either “Oh, I’m a designer and can help you! Email me [here]” or the typical, HOW to find a web designer (Google this and that, sending an RFP to design houses, ask for a portfolio), and all the boring ways to find a web designer.

But have you ever considered contacting a current website that you really like and asking for their help?

Every day, we run into very many sites. So I am sure there are at least 1-3 sites a day that you must sit back and think, “Wow, I really like this website!” So, if you like it, and you see that it is done and functional, why not contact that website to see if you could get the contact info for whoever designed the site?

If you are really lucky, if it’s a nonprofit website, normally the person or company who made the website donated their time in exchange for their name and link at the bottom of the nonprofit’s website. Look down there, too.

And if you are really lucky, maybe the website was designed by an in-house employee. And the reason I say “really lucky” is that you could negotiate with them to see if they’d help you build your website, thus blossoming a potentially new and exciting partnership.

So instead of sifting through portfolio websites, sending RFP’s to freelance designers, and asking around, why not just ask a fellow nonprofit with a killer website for their help?

Local event calendars; are you utilizing them?

September 14, 2011 Category :Fundraising Ideas| Online Marketing 0

So I am sitting here inputting all of our upcoming events for our partnered non-profits into all the major online event calendars available for Orange County events, and I saw that there aren’t a lot of fundraising events posted on these calendars.

Or maybe Orange County doesn’t have a lot of fundraising events, period?

No, that cannot be true.

So why are there not many nonprofits utilizing this tool?

Maybe for the most part a lot of these groups just simply do not know that this tool exists. Here are some of the major event calendars for OC where you can submit your own event for their calendar, for free:

OC Register
OC Weekly
OC Metro
OC Standard
Easy OC
OC Craigslist

Do people even look through these calendars?

That was definitely a question I received from one of our clients. They think that just because they don’t actively find events to attend on the online calendars, that no one else does. Well, I can’t say that is entirely untrue, but I can tell you that these things probably would not exist if no one used them to find things to do locally.

So even if you maybe gathered a few extra strangers to your fundraising events, is the cost of my time submitting these events worth it, even if the tool is free?

There is definitely a different benefit to submitting events

source: sachyn

For the most part, these calendars offer the ability for you to insert the website link to the event. That’s major! Why? SEO! Search engine optimization. Don’t know what that is? You can read about it here from SEOmoz.

In short, SEO is the art of making your website and content more visible online. Although it sounds easy, it actually kind of is, but it’s back-breaking work. But you submitting your event to these calendars definitely help with this process.

A big portion of your site ranking well on search engines includes how many links you have coming into your website. Meaning, how many websites that aren’t yours out there link to your website? In a way, it’s a vote of confidence online, saying “Yeah, Google. I trust this is a real site with real information.”

Another important factor is how important the site containing your link is. Obviously, sites like OC Register and OC Metro are huge news sites for us here in OC, and obviously they are pretty important.

Wait, so the more links to my site that are out there, the better it is?

Yep! And like I said, fortunately, these event calendars let you input your web link in them. Once they are published, that’s more “link juice” (lingo) for you.

Now keep in mind that these are posts that will perish after your event, so you will lose those links again. But that doesn’t matter, because you have more events coming up anyway, right?

The history of National Teddy Bear day and why it is called “Teddy”

September 9, 2011 Category :Fundraising Ideas 0

Has it ever crossed your mind why a stuffed animal bear is called a teddy bear? Probably not. You have heard it your whole entire life and it just becomes a part of our everyday vocabulary.

Well, today is National Teddy Bear Day (not to be confused with another day in November which was created by a teddy bear company) and I wanted to take the time to educate the masses on how the name came about. Because, we all need more knowledge in our lives, right?

But before I start, I did a lot of research to see if this is a pseudo-valid holiday, and have found other dates that websites have touted as “National Teddy Bear Day.” The sites that note that, though, seem to be from teddy bear manufacturers, so it seems as though that it could be a marketing ploy of said companies. I have found several sites though that have marked September 9 as National Teddy Bear Day.

In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt went on a bear-hunting excursion in Mississippi. It was actually a hunting competition, and by the end of the day, Pres. Roosevelt had not shot a bear. His team had tied a baby bear down and encouraged the President to shoot at it, but he had refused, stating that it was unsportsmanlike.

Somehow, the topic caught media wind, and it became the headline of a political cartoon. Morris Michtom saw this and invented a stuffed bear, labeled it “Teddy’s Bear” and put it in his shop window. Realizing its increasing popularity and worried he might get in trouble for using that name, he sent the original bear to the White House as a gift and asked to use the name officially. After getting the greenlight, the bear spiked in popularity and thus the birth of the teddy bear.

Now if only every toy ever made had an endearing story like this behind it. *ahem* Nintendo DS.

So as a nonprofit, how can you utilize this holiday to raise either awareness about your own charity or raise funds? There have been several organizations that host Teddy Bear drives, collecting stuffed bears from people and donating them to the local children’s hospital. That will raise your brand awareness. There are a few companies out there that develop special teddy bears based around a cause or organization, and whatever you sell, you receive a portion of the sales for your charity. Try having a teddy bear sale on the week of this holiday next year, and use this story to help promote sales and awareness.

National Pardon Day in rememberance of why it is important to forgive

September 8, 2011 Category :Relationship Marketing 0

source: unknown

This day (September 14) in 1974, President Gerald Ford publicly released a Presidential Proclamation pardoning Nixon of any wrong-doing related to the Watergate scandal. Nixon was the only presidential resignation in history.

Although there were no publicly available reports as to why the Ford administration decided to release the pardon, but I have a good indication as to why- forgiving is part of developing and maintaining healthy relationships.

Most people will agree that the basis of a great relationship is trust and forgiveness. Studies after studies have continually shown the positive impact of forgiving someone. It may be hard initially to try to forgive someone, but it is definitely a burden in your heart that you need to lift off. The after-effects far outweigh the benefits of simply not addressing the issue at hand.

We’re not saying you should take this opportunity to reach out to anyone who has ever wronged you and say “I forgive you.” But everyone knows that negativity begets negativity (and the same holds true for the opposite). Holding a grudge or a chip on your shoulder for a good part of your life can affect your emotions without you ever realizing it. Some people will take what they’ve experienced and carry it on with every other relationship they create in the future, which would be quite unfair to the new person in your life.

To put it in a more emotional sense, remember that grudges are held with anger. Let go of the grudge, then there is no anger. Less anger in your heart leaves more room for happiness in your life.

So how does this relate to charity? I ran into this Yahoo! Answers thread, and I am very drawn to this person’s answer.

Charity is the act of giving to another to ease their need without desire of restitution. In other words, you do something to ease their burden without expectation that they will ever be able to repay it. Forgiveness, by its nature, can lessen the physical, financial, emotional, psychological and/or, if you are so inclined, spiritual burden of the recipient, depending on what form it takes. (read more…)

Maybe there is an interesting way to combine the benefits of forgiveness with the message that charities so desperately want to send out.

3 different fundraising ideas you’ve never thought of (Part I)

September 7, 2011 Category :Fundraising Ideas 0

source: dewitcs

Or maybe you have thought of these. Regardless, here are some creative and intuitive fundraising ideas that we’ve come across that we’d like to share with our charities.

Prime parking spot raffle. This is best if you’re at a school or if you team up with a large corporation with highly coveted parking spaces. Essentially, participants buy a raffle ticket and one (or however many spots you have to raffle off) lucky winner will get that highly primed spot for a month, or however you choose your term to be. What’s also great is that there’s very little money involved.
White elephant auction. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Ask your staff, donors, and supporters to donate one item that they do not want. Then host a silent auction, with a low minimum bid. There are no upfront costs other than marketing the auction and setting it up.
Craft shop on Etsy.com. Etsy provides an easy and inexpensive store-front to anyone who has inventory of hand-made and creative items. Hold craft sessions, ask for craft donations, and put them up on the store for sale. You could even offer your artist to pay the materials back once the item is sold as incentive.

There are lots of creative fundraising ideas out there. What are some of yours?

Amy Winehouse Foundation launching September 14, 2011

September 7, 2011 Category :Celebrity News 0

Mitch Winehouse, the late singer Amy’s father, wanted to start this foundation in her memory a while ago, but had stalled because someone had purchased the domain before the family could. (see: cybersquatter).

Martin McCann, the squatter in question, released a statement after Mitch had tweeted less-than-friendly jabs directed at the person who took the domain name. McCann said,

“I’m not exploiting anything yet… I’ve just bought some domain names. Anybody could have. It only takes the click of a mouse. I’m not ashamed or embarrassed. Detach yourself from emotions and think business.”

Amy Winehouse was found dead in her home July 23rd, at a young age of 27. Her father noted that he wants to turn the grief into something more positive, thus starting the charity to help young addicts.

Things seem to have been settled, because Mitch recently tweeted the launch date of the foundation, which is also Amy Winehouse’s birthday.