1. The Mother of all Bake Sales – Get 5-10 or more friends to volunteer to help you bake, then find a location with lots of people to buy your yummy stuff. This can be at an event, church, a table in front of a grocery store or drug store…be creative.
2. The Mother of all Garage Sales – Why just sell some of your old stuff when you can get your friends to get rid of their old stuff too? Set a date to have a garage sale, and invite everyone you know to donate old stuff to the effort. Give them a few weeks, collect stuff from as many people as you can, and then open up shop one Sunday morning or get help from someone else to run it on a Saturday for you.
3. 50/50 drawing at Work, with friends, etc. – buy a cheap roll of tickets at a party store and start handing out tickets. $1 for 1 ticket, $5 for 6 tickets, $10 for 15 tickets, that sort of thing. Have them write their name and phone number, then do the drawing that day or 2 weeks later. You can have a 50/50 every week if you want!

Do you have some fundraising tips to share? Leave a comment below or email me.

I am a planner. I’m almost obsessive about it. If it’s not on a calendar somewhere, it’s probably not going to get done. Naturally, it’s helpful for me to plan out my fundraising, so I thought I’d pass along my system for planning out my fundraising.

Here is what you do:

There are free calendars all over the Internet, or you can use Microsoft Outlook as well. Print blank calendar pages for March, April, and May, or whatever time frame you need for your event (I went ahead and examples in a PDF and attached them – just open and print.)

Put your important deadlines on there – For example, your re-commitment date, final charge date, etc.

The basic method I use is to plan a fundraising activity For each week, whether it’s letter writing, sending email, holding an event, etc. Start with the basics of letter writing, emailing, using Facebook and Twitter, then put some events in there like a garage sale or restaurant fundraiser. Get all your fundraising activities on your calendar, then stick to your plan! If you have it planned out and it’s realistic, you will be far more likely to take the steps you need to make that fundraising goal. As a bonus,

Take a look at the sample calendar I have attached, and you will see what a great tool this is. Print that baby and put it where you will see it every day.

Sample Fundraising Calendar

Blank Monthly Calendar Pages, March – May 2010

Do you have some cool fundraising methods you’d like to share? Leave a comment below!

I asked a few of our current top fundraisers to give you a little insight into how they have been successful with fundraising. I hope this helps and even inspires you!

Mariah Burns

http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/Canyon110/mburns5kzj

Mariah is on our Hike team and is a whiz with Social Media tools like Facebook and twitter. Here are the answers to some questions I posed to her:

1.You are doing great with your fundraising with over $1185 so far, easily meeting your re-commitment goal. How did you do it?

Social media and email. Facebook, twitter, Digg, Google Buzz. Pretty much anywhere I can put a link to my site, I have. I created a facebook event and invited all of my friends. This allowed me to divulge the full details and I can send updates and reminders about my progress. As far as emails, I started out with a mass email. Pretty much everyone in my address book got a standard email, then I did a handful of individualized emails.

2. Facebook has worked well for you. Do you have suggestions on how to get better results with Facebook?

Use facebook to its fullest. Create a fan page, make an event, send messages, update your status. If you do one of these every few days you’ll be surprised at the response you get.

3. If you could suggest 3 things to others who are fundraising, what would it be?

Use your resources. Tap into your social groups. Use the power of spreading the word. If someone can’t donate, ask them to tell 10 of their friends about what you’re doing or forward the email you sent to everyone they know. The farther your reach, the easier your fundraising becomes.

UPDATE: In the few days since I asked her these questions, she has raised another $200. One thing Mariah does is she sends personalized messages to Facebook friends asking them to donate. This has been especially effective.

Chacko Cherian

http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/ambbr10/ccherian

Chacko is part of the Cycling team and is training for the America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride. I am not sure I have ever seen anyone get a better start with their fundraising, so naturally I wanted Chacko to share his success with us.

1. You are doing great with your fundraising with over $1615 so far, easily meeting your re-commitment goal. How did you do it?

Starting early.I am taking a month break in March,so I had to get ahead with the fundraising in Jan and Feb.

2. How important has letter writing been to your fundraising?

I have sent a couple of letters out,but email has been my primary mode of fundraising.

3. Are there any other tools you have used successfully to fund raise?

I have used Garmin’s software that traces your biking route,your speed and elevation.This data gives more credibility to your donors as they exactly know what time and what day you did your ride instead of just saying I rode 50 miles on Saturday.

4. How have you used your fund raising website to help you?

Yes,a lot!

5. If you could suggest 3 things to others who are fundraising, what would it be?

I have never raised funds for any cause before this, and I never knew it would be so uncomfortable to ask your close friends for money. But keep going at it. Keep the motivation high.your donors should see your passion and enthusiasm in doing this ride,and this will get you through.

Just adding an article that I thought was a good read: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/moneymag_archive/2010/03/01/105904263/index.htm?eref=aol

Have a successful story or tips of your own? Leave a comment below or email me your story.

After quite a bit of work, I now have the 2010 “Saving Lives” TNT shirts available for purchase. Thank you to all of my team mates that helped me with feedback on designs, materials, and other questions. The result is a really cool design that stands out and is perfect for whatever you are doing. It’s made of 100% Polyester Wicking material, and is nice and thin for when you get hot exercising. Take a look at the designs here.