I have a cousin in her early 20's battling Leukemia. Her family is having major financial ramifications for the expenses insurance does not cover. Friends and family have been sending support as they are able, and I'll be sending her a check, but I thought it would be cool -or maybe even better-to raise money some other way too. But everything I think of is too daunting. Have any of you ever done any fundraising that was successful and not a huge amount of work and expense for nothing? I've had some friends suggest a Zumbathon etc. That's one possibility since I teach. Any other doable ideas? I figure if it's doable enough, and several family members do it around the country, it could be really beneficial. She has lots of friends and family for support who would participate in producing something home-made for sale or whatever I'm sure. But I don't want to go out and buy a bunch of stuff and try to host some big public event-I'm just not geared to pull something like that off. I don't know, all ideas welcome!
Chik-fil-A does fund raiser dinners around here - a portion of the proceeds made from sales on a certain day goes toward the cause in question.
Publicity helps - get all her friends/relatives/coworkers out to have a meal there or do take out on the given day.
Consider organizing a blood drive. BeTheMatch and local blood banks will assist in setting up.
We piggybacked a bake sale with our blood drive and made a LOT of money.
Walk-a-thon where walkers get sponsors to pay them per mile also good. Can be done in multiple locations too. Same would apply to Zumbathon right.
You caring.com page & Facebook posts about it.
Lotsahelpinghands.com is a great site to organize help, activities, etc.
Sorry your cousin is going through this. All the best!
See if a local restaurant would give you some of the profits for a night. Schools here do it all the time. The school promotes the event, the restaurant gets more business on a slow night, and the business gets an easy charity event. In HS, the theatre kids would be servers and perform at the Silver Diner in exchange for profits.
ask at your local church / parish if the ladies group would sponsor a purse auction. They are huge fundraisers. We have one each year and we have them at our national council of catholic womens conferences. This past year we had 18 purses (new or very very gently used) inside each should be a gift card or cash or surprise gift valued at what ever you decide we do $25+ we made a little over $2000 at our last one. the purses and inside surprises were all donated. we also took purses that were not quite nice enough to auction off and we hid a surprise $100 inside one of them and sold raffle tickets for those and raffled them off. did 50/50 raffles and also just regular stuff raffled off. it was a lovely ladies night out.
The ones that are easy to put on generally don't make a ton of money. However, they're easy enough that you can do several different ones and the proceeds do add up.
Start by talking to restaurants in her hometown. Ask if they will do a fundraiser dinner. You work with the restaurant to set up a specific day and time, then create a flier to advertise it. Anyone who brings in that flier will have a certain amount of their bill donated to your cousin. If you have an area with several restaurants grouped together, you may be able to get them all to participate on one night, giving people a lot more choices of where to go. I don't know if you have any Chipotle franchises near you, but the ones in my neighborhood give 50% when we do school fundraisers there.
My friends recently made a few hundred dollars doing a lemonade stand to benefit a little boy with cancer. I think they sold cookies too. A lot of people who came to buy lemonade gave extra donations. If you have friends in several areas, you can all come together and do this (check out the Alex's Lemonade Stand site for some good ideas).
You can also do a group garage sale.
Set up a site through caringbridge.com or a similar organization. People can make donations to you through those sites. Be careful with caringbridge - if people don't use the proper donation link, the money goes to Caring Bridge itself and not to the designated recipient.
A Zumbathon is a good idea, but it will be a lot more work if you want it to be successful. You'll have to recruit a lot of dancers and come up with ways for them to solicit donations.
Whatever you do, make sure you advertise it like crazy. Do as much through social media as you can, pass out fliers at school or any organizations you belong to.
I'm so sorry for your cousin. I hope she's able to beat the cancer and that you can help with the expenses.
caring.com is a website to ask your friends and family for donations. They can send payment and most of it goes to the person in need.
Strangers rarely donate so you have to get the word out in your local area to people you know.
ETA - my girlfriend in Texas has a brain tumor. They are using Caringbridge.com - it's a way for the family to keep people updated as well as a way for people to contribute.
A.,
My girlfriend used http://www.gofundme.com/ when they were seeking custody of her step children. They made their goal. They also used Facebook to get the word out and people who did not know them, contributed to it.
they also used their church - did a bake sale and second-hand/rummage sell to benefit the family. That made a good chunk of money for the family - almost $1500.
Depending upon their status - like getting a 501c status or something like that....You could ask a local restaurant to help as well - and the proceeds of that night or a certain night will be given to the organization. This is where the church would help again...they can approach local restaurants to help out...they get free advertising and increased business...win-win..
Before my girlfriend Cindy died in 2005 from Leukemia - her church was heavily involved - blood donation drives - and they coupled that with bake sales and garage sales....
Since you are a fashion designer - why not talk to your local mall and have a fashion show - proceeds to benefit the family???
I've heard about http://www.prosper.com/ - but it's a LOAN from people not banks....they might be able to help as well.
Good luck!!
Host a yard sale at a church or home with a large lawn. Sale spaces for $50 each. That may sound expensive, but most of the tables will be manned by your friends and family so they know that the proceeds are for a great cause.
Sorry for your relative.
Two families in my neighborhood lost their home (duplex) in a fire December 5th. Another neighbor and I put together a fund raiser at the school gym December 21. We invited all the home business people, Mary Kay - Avon - Tupperware - etc we could find. We did not charge a booth fee but asked for a silent auction item and 25% of sales as a donation. We also went around to local businesses and asked for a donation for the silent auction.
Even with the limited time and being 4 days before Christmas we raised almost $1000 that day. We were fortunate one of the local TV stations have a noon news show and the guest for the community message cancelled and we got the spot.
If you want PM me with your phone number and I will call Sunday or Monday with more details. This weekend is crazy busy for me but I will help if you need it in a couple of days.
www.gofundme.com
This is a crowdfunding site.
It is legitimate. And very successful for many people.
And it is easy. And it is via online.
And it seems, you have a legitimate reason for using it.
You can run a March Madness pool and do it as 50/50, keep 50% for the cause, and use the other 50% for a 1st (and maybe 2nd and 3rd) prize.
