[Nfb-fundraising] Successful fund raising ideas

Tue May 6 21:29:34 CDT 2008

Dear Ryan,

There are a great many fund raisers you can do that have big returns.
Sell advertisement when and where ever you can.
Here is an example.
Make a deal with a restaurant to supply them with free place mats to set 
their tables with.  You just get to sell the advertisement on the mats and 
the restaurant gets to deduct the amount of money you make on the 
advertisement as their donation to your chapter.
You sell business card ads on the place mat from other businesses in the 
same or near by shopping centers.
Let the ads include coupons for discounts on services and goods at these 
other places and people will keep the mats, just for the coupons and 
discounts.    Note: Don't use other businesses that are competitors of the 
restaurant.

Another way you can sell advertisements is to do a free car wash.  Yes, I 
said free Car wash.
You go around , with a letter that says you are a 501-(C)(3) non-profit 
organization and sell a business card size ad for say $20 to$25 dollars each 
or a coupon ad for $40 to $50 each.
Don't spend a lot of money on fancy printing.  Just cut and paste the ads on 
to a light colored paper and run them off on a copier.  The colored papers 
helps to prevent people from running off copies of your flyers easily and by 
placing a expiration date on them 2 months after your event also helps.
Make sure that there is an expiration date of no more that 3 months after 
the date of your car wash.
On the front page put: Free Car Wash sponsored by the merchants of whatever 
area you are in, to benefit the National Federation of the Blind, a 
non-profit organization serving the Blind.  Please favor these merchants 
with your patronage as they help support the Blind citizens of our area.
Find a place that will let you wash cars that is on a busy street corner and 
is visible from the street.
Seek donations of the place, water, hoses, buckets. rags , soap and short 
latter's to use in washing the cars.
Make up signs and get some pretty high school girls to carry the signs out 
by the street.
Have a table set up to greet the drivers and their dirty cars, where you 
will hand out the set of flyers with the adds on them.
Also have a large labeled donation jar there for drivers to see as they get 
the flyers and the ads.
Get some local press about your event and people will be interested in how 
and why your would put on a free car wash as a fund raiser.  Make sure you 
have all car washers remove their jewery and large belt buckles so they will 
not scratch the cars.
The hard part is just going around to all of the merchants and get them to 
part with a $20 dollar bill.
Talk only to the manager or better yet the owner.  Come back to see them if 
you have too.
Tel them that you are going to print at least 300 sets of flyers, with their 
business car or coupon on them and that you will do whatever it takes to 
give them to possible customers.  nothing will be trashed.
You can point out that this is cheap for a businessman to get 300 or more 
flyers printed and passed out to the Public and to connect their company's 
name with a great project.
You will find that it does not take as much effort to pass them out as you 
might think.
You will give one set of flyers to each of the businesses so that they can 
see their ad and the ads of the other businesses.  You will give flyers out 
to all of the people who stop to get their cars washed.  You will give 
flyers to all of the workers, or their families who help you in the event. 
You will keep some flyers back to show the next time you want to do the 
event, It only gets better.
Now if you have any flyers left at this point, you can walk around a parking 
lot or at your church and pass them out until they are all gone.  You have 
kept your word.

I did this for my Boy Scout troop and we raised $2,700.00 from the ads 
before we even turned the water  on.  We made another $320.00 from the 
donations jar and we got free pizzas, cokes and other things from some of 
the merchants to give to our volunteers.
By the way, you can get a Boy Scout troop to do the washing for you for 
community services and then make a donation to their troop  for helping out.
There are lots of ways you can get help to do it.
You need about 3 months to work up to this and to give you time to get out 
and sell the ads and line up everything you need to do it.
The rewards can be worth it.
I use the selling ads techniques in many of my fund raisers to embellish 
them and bring in more money.
I do bowl-a-thons, walk-a-thons and all sorts of other things.

I am tired now, so I will stop now.
I have many other ideas that work and only need a few people to do them.
Write me back if you have any questions.

David Evans, NFBF
President, Palm Beach County Chapter Florida

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ryan Smith" <ryansmith78 at comcast.net>
To: <nfb-fundraising at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, May 02, 2008 6:16 PM
Subject: [Nfb-fundraising] Successful fund raising ideas

> Hello all,
>
> I am the fund raising chair person for a small chapter and hoping that 
> some of you might be able to offer some proven fund raising ideas.  The 
> chapter members have kicked around the idea of a silent auction, which is 
> in the planning stage for later this year.  We have also discussed selling 
> different items such as donuts, key chains, tote bags, etc.  I would 
> greatly appreciate hearing from any and all of you about your various 
> successes.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Ryan Smith
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