StokerPoker

There are many of us riding in the Tour de Cure and other charity rides. I think everyone could benefit if we share fund raising tips and tricks. I think most of us have had mixed results emailing friends and family, calling them or talking to them in person. Posters at work and talking to co-workers also seems to have mixed results. I'll start with a few ideas I'm trying or going to try.

1. Selling used bikes and donating the profits. I'm doing this and choosing to make the donation in the buyers name.
2. Use bulletins on the networking site of your choice.
3. Asking local small businesses to sponsor you. you could offer to use a water bottle with their logo.
4. Email local radio stations with information and links to your personal progress page, and the main page of the charity you are raising money for. they may mention it on the air or their website. Even if you don't get a sponsor from this it will raise awareness and may cause people to make a general donation to the cause or participate in the event themselves. Since the whole point is to help the cause, you will still benefit even if you are not sponsored directly.

Let's help each other help the causes we are trying to support!!!
anyone else have any ideas???

chevy42083

The ever increasing fundraiser requirements, and my ever increasing lack of time is what drove me away from the HouTX-AusTx MS150. Sad, cause I really like the ride. But I understand that they got too big and needed to turn away riders by raising costs. It's for a good cause... but I can't take the chance of signing up, and not being able to raise the minimum and having it come out of pocket. I just don't have it to spare.

If you are a regular member of ANY forum, try putting the link in your signature, and especially start a thread explaining the ride, and have that link in your sig also. It may spark some interest in the forum.

These are a list of things from ms150.org if you guys/gals hadn't seen it...

Fund-Raising Tips

Try these fun ideas to increase your fund-raising efforts. The more creative you are the better. Your enthusiasm will help you raise money to fight the devastating effects of MS.

1. Change your answering machine to mention your participation in the Bike Tour.
2. Create return address labels that read: “I’m riding in the BP MS 150 Bike Tour. Will you sponsor me?” Click here for BP MS 150 logos to add a graphical touch!
3. Wear a MS Ribbon of Hope lapel pin to initiate conversations with people who see you wearing it. Click here for more information and online ordering!
4. Make a list of pledge donors. List the amount you’re counting on them to pledge. Click here for a printable pledge sheet!
5. Hold an office bake sale. Ask friends to bake goodies so you won’t do all the baking yourself.
6. Stage a silent auction. Ask stores to donate, such as $10 worth of dry cleaning, a book of five car washes, free sandwiches or drinks, or free coffee. Set minimum pledge limits. Hold the auction over the space of a week and notify the winners.
7. Identify one corporate sponsor to ask for a large donation.
8. Ask your church/synagogue if you can make a short presentation at the next service. Be sure to prepare your presentation ahead of time.
9. Post a message on an Internet chat room with an E-Donate Link. Some participants raise more than $1,000 this way from people across the country. Click here to make an E-Donate Link!
10. Hold a garage sale. Ask friends and family to donate items.
11. Ask waiters in your favorite restaurant if they will donate a percentage of one day’s tips. If you work in a restaurant, ask colleagues to donate tips to a pledge jar.
12. Conduct a mow-a-thon. Get your kids involved and declare a weekend where you’ll mow your neighbor’s lawns for $50 (or whatever amount you want to set.)
13. Hold a dinner party with a special theme for 10 friends. Donations could be $50 per person. Spend no more than $20 per person on food and you’ll have more than $300 in pledges.
14. Hold a car wash. Ask businesses to donate items. Get your kids and their friends involved.
15. Ask doctors, dentists, chiropractors, insurance agents, massage therapists, veterinarians, hair stylists, etc.
16. Leave “Have you seen me riding?” letters or packets on front doors to get donations from neighbors.
17. Make a bad habit pay off by making a “bad habit” jar at work or home. If you commit the bad habit, you have to donate $1.
18. Ask area artists or creative friends to donate art or jewelry that you can raffle.
19. Ask a restaurant manager if you can hold a fund-raiser one evening.
20. Send a pledge letter to friends and family. It should include the amount you request and a date/deadline.
21. Get your apartment complex to donate one month’s rent to sponsor you.
22. In lieu of a gift on your birthday or other occasion, ask family and friends to make a pledge to the Society on your behalf.
23. If riding to honor a loved one with MS, include a picture of you with your loved one in your pledge letter, on posters, etc.
24. Delegate. Give 10 pledge forms to 10 friends and ask them to get pledges for you.
25. Send letters to the parents of kids on your child’s sports (soccer, baseball, etc.) teams.
26. Hold a movie-watching party. Every time a character says the words “ride” or “bike,” everyone antes up $1 in the pledge bowl. Suggested movies that will have your pledge bowl overflowing include “Breaking Away,” “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure,” “Quicksilver,” “American Flyers,” “The Bicycle Thief” and “The Triplets of Belleville.”
27. Find companies looking for a tax write-off. Ask friends and family to help.
28. Bring a potential donor on a Recommended Ride and ask for a pledge.
29. Following up is a critical aspect of fund raising. Call all potential donors today.
30. Hold a pie raffle. Ask friends to bake pies. Set a minimum pledge at $5.
31. Hold a garden tour at your home or local historical home. Have it promoted in the newspaper. Remember, the cost of the tour will be tax-deductible.
32. Make business cards with BP MS 150 Bike Tour information, your name and address. Hand them out to everyone you meet.
33. Ask your hair salon if they would donate $2 of each haircut over a weekend to you.
34. Contact the national chapter of your fraternity or social organization and ask for a donation. If you did not belong to a fraternity or sorority, ask someone who did.
35. Create a Web site. Send e-mails to everyone inviting them to visit your site. When they reply, send them a pledge form.
36. Create a rolling screen saver on your work computer as a reminder of your commitment.
37. Post an e-mail on your company’s “Announcements” bulletin board. Send respondents a pledge form.
38. When asking for pledges, mention “my average pledge has been around $XX. Can you sponsor me?”
39. For any chores that you’d normally do for free for neighbors, friends or family, leave a pledge form and ask them for a pledge.
40. Ask your auto mechanics for pledges.

StokerPoker

well, We've managed to sell a few kids bikes at $15 each. that has helped us some. It's really a hard market for that around here though.
My fiancee and I did a benefit at our local Stucchi's Ice Cream on Thursday. we were there from 6pm-9pm scooping ice cream. they are giving us a check made out to the American Diabete's Association for 15% of the sales during that 3 hour period. the check should be a little over $70. It may not be a huge amount, but it's something and every dollar counts. We plan on doing this next year and I think it will be a much bigger success with a little more advertising and promoting.

StokerPoker

Just wanted to bump this thread up. I'm going to try selling pin-up jerseys for the Tour de Cure this year

AirBeagle1

Thanks for the tips guys -- got a couple good ideas from your posts!

StokerPoker

That's the idea airbeagle!! good luck in your endeavor!

1bluetrek

Hey where can you get those pin-up jerseys? I'll try anything, you can't buy a sponsor around here!

StokerPoker

call or send an email to your tour director. You should be able to get them pretty quickly.

I've also been picking up bottles and cans when I ride. Michigan has a 10 cent deposit on pop and beer containers so each one gets us a dime closer!!!

::EDIT::
You should change that second link to go to your personal fundraising page

herbm

Some great tips here
thanks

drew55

AirBragle - bump up your goal! People a much more likely to donate or donate somewhat more if you're below your goal. It's just one of those background thoughts -oh he's made his goal, doesn't really need my help. More than one or two visits like that and you could quickly be out a healthy amount.

just a thought...

Tom Stormcrowe

Agreed, and bump it so you're at about 80-90%, because then people get the idea, "Hey, let's help him make that last little bit "

A fairly effective ploy I use to good effect. (Psych ploy)

StokerPoker

when I get closer to my goal I will have to try that

AirBeagle1

Done. Good tip!

Extort

Here is a document of the ideas that I have gathered so far... (some are from this thread) and I will be keeping a list of every idea that I come across since I am developing a training class on how to effectively fundraise for events.

Hope that this helps,

BrooklynRider

Could this thread be sticky'd? Some really good ideas for fund raising could go a long way.

Thanks!

crisi13

Hello! I signed up to do the Sea Gull Century with Team in Training (Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). This is my first charity ride and the first time I've tried to raise money since selling candy bars in grade school!!

I've made a cover for my top tube to keep it from getting scratched when hanging it or transporting it. A couple of guys at the bike shop thought it was the coolest thing they've seen. It got me to thinking that maybe I can make some to sell to help with my fundraising efforts. I'm including some pictures of it on my bike. I'm trying to gauge the interest in a product like this and get some ideas on what I could sell it for. Thanks!!

Extort

It looks like it is self adhesive with velcro, and that is great but what about all of the other tubes? Could you create enough for a full set? You might want to talk to a screen printer about branding them with the charity logo so that it gives people a memory for what they purchased.

By selling these items to donors, realize that the production value of the item is not a donation to charity and cannot be claimed on their taxes. Make sure that your receipt specifies the difference.

Lastly, with price you want to make it cover the cost of materials, shipping and handling, and extra money for the charity. Determine what the lowest price would be, and then tell people a number at least 25% higher.

I.E.
Materials $5.00
S&H $8.00 (USPS Priority)
Charity $2.00

tell people $25... and you can negotiate down to $15 if they balk at the price... but most people are willing to pay more for an item because they know the proceeds are going to a charity.

g-funk

I've had lots of luck throwing parties or my favorite A Winemakers dinner. I negotiate an killer price on a 4-5 course meal at a local hip restaurant say 30.00-40.00 a head, on a wednesday or thursday night. Then you ask them who their 3 best good wine distributors are and get the number of the sales reps, they will sell you the wine very cheap if not give it to you. Give 1 bottle of each wine to the chef and have him tailor his menu to fit the wines. the courses come out 1 by one paired with a different wine and the chef explains why these are paired together. Throw in a tasteful raffle and silent auction of the wines featured and whatever else you can get. I bought magnums of decent wine and sold it for 7-8 times what I paid for it. All in all on my last one I had 32.00 in cost per ticket and sold 50 tickets for $100.00 each with the auction, which killed, and raffle I had enough money for myself and a few other strugglers on the team. I like to make my donors feel like they get something out of giving.

StokerPoker

Thanks for another great idea g-funk.

I'm going a little smaller scale in a couple of weeks and having a bonfire in the back yard. Donation to enter, BYOB, and leave your empties (10 cent deposit in michigan). The raffle is a good idea too. I'll incorporate that as well. Finals are next week so I'll finish planning after wednesday.

Yukky

I help out my neighbors and friends throughout the year with their computers, etc. Since I don't feel it's right anyway to charge for helping them (what are neighbors for right?) I instead ask them to save it and think of me when I have charity rides or am otherwise looking for sponsors. Then when I'm on a donation drive I make sure to ask for their help. It's tax-deductable for them, plus they got some computer help in the process. Win-win.

CliftonGK1

My corporate team is holding a fundraiser "relay ride" in front of some of the local grocery stores. Set up a table with a few people in the team jerseys, and we're swapping team riders every 20 minutes or so on rollers/stationary trainers behind them as an attention grabber.

CliftonGK1

We had our roller-relay this morning and raised $318.00 in under 4 hours! Our team is now over $1700.00 in fundraising before our $500.00 corporate match. I think we might hit over $2500.00 for the 2008 TdC.

Sanjeev

There's nothing better than cycling for a cause. You may create a hype on the mass media about the event to draw maximum crowds. But the the most important thing is to send out Personalized Fund Raising Letters to the people who matter the most in order to raise funds for the cause

Andrea B

Wow, there are some really great fundraiser ideas here. My husband is doing a solo charity hand cycle trip from St. Louis to Washington D.C. on 4-28-10, to benefit Disabled Athletes Sports Association (DASA). We did a fundraiser (80's Throwback Party) at our local roller skate rink, where we've had our daughter's birthday parties - they donated the venue for the night and all of the admission fees. My husband then went around to local businesses and asked for raffle donations and got some great stuff. We raised just short of a thousand dollars, and it snowed like crazy that night and we had about half our friends cancel at the last minute due to the weather! So for such horrible weather conditions and so many people cancelling, we did pretty good!

We also have a website for my husband's trip (www.FromHereToThere2010.com), which I did for free on wix.com (extremely easy, all drag and drop), although I pay a small fee around $4.99 a month to have our own url address instead of a long one that begins with wix.com.

We also set up a Facebook Fan Page for my husband's trip, and for the Mystery Bike Tour event, and sent invites to all of our friends to become fans, and became fans of other local bike shops that we visit, etc., so our fan page shows up on theirs as a "fan", and we can also send updates to our friends now via the fan page, by just doing a status update, etc. - Just some ideas. I put links to my husband's trip website and the facebook fan pages in case anyone wanted to see what they looked like.

As mentioned, I'm currently helping DASA plan a Mystery Bike Tour on April 18th. The event will also benefit DASA, and is to help kick off my husband Allen's bike trip on the 28th. It's myself and the Marketing Director at DASA and another friend who does marketing planning. They've done so much planning and promoting and work to get sponsors, sending out press releases, and we've put up tons of flyers and online posts including almost every local bike shop, we have a Facebook Fan Page for the event, etc. So far we only have one registered rider and it's a little over three weeks away! We're getting a little nervous. Of course, we have no idea how many people might just show up to register the day of. I think our greatest obstacle is not having close contacts with any local bicycle groups. My husband didn't start cycling until he became wheelchair-bound about two years ago, and has never ridden with a group. I'm sending out emails this week to as many local bike groups as I can. Does anyone have any other ideas for getting more people to sign up to ride? There's a flyer on my husband's website with details about the event. He will be doing a radio spot on a local radio station the Thursday before also. We may place a small newspaper ad for the event also. We had planned on making this a big event, and our biggest fundraiser.. and as such we decided to forgo planning several other events we had ideas for, because it would become too overwhelming time-wise to try and plan other events on top of this one. So we need this event to go over well.
Any other ideas on getting more riders? Any suggestions are appreciated!!

geofitz13

I'm organizing a golf tournament as a fundraiser for the Pan mass Challenge this year. Lot of work, but the potential is great! And if you're gonna be in the Springfield MA area around June 25, and like to play golf, drop me an email!!