What I learned from fundraising is…
Inspired by my fellow Global Advocate Elise’s blog post (here), I’ve decided to reflect on the trials and tribulations of fundraising $15,000 in just 3 months.
When I told my friends and family that I needed to raise 15k and eventually 20k for my project in Kenya I was met with some understandable suspicion.
“Why do you have to raise that much?” — Mom
“This is ridiculous” — My partner
“See you next year” — My best friend of 17 years
I, too, was intimidated by raising the whole $20,000. So much so that when presented with this challenge, I brushed off the Mama Hope application deciding that it was completely impossible and unreasonable to accomplish such a feat. That was, until I met a Mama Hope representative at a career fair and she assured me that it was totally possible and reasonable (thanks, Katie).
I’ve been on a roller coaster with this fundraising journey of mine and I wanted to share my story and some takeaways for anyone else who may want to become a Global Advocate or get into the world of fundraising.
Some of my friends and family may recall that a young and ambitious teenage Alyssa with her aforementioned best friend of (then 13 years) David Boronow, created a proper fundraising business under the moniker “Hakuna Matata Fundraising”. It all started when Dave had to complete an assignment about making a difference in the world. At the same time, I needed to raise $100 for my Relay for Life team. In 2011, Dave and I got together and the event we put on was so successful that other people and nonprofits started asking us to fundraise for them. By the time we finished high school, we had raised 1,000’s of dollars for various charities including Wounded Warrior Homefront, the American Cancer Society, and Tomorrows Children’s Fund.
The local newspaper even wrote about us (link here). We were on top of the world trying to make a difference in our community. But it didn’t come without a lot of frustration, long nights, and stress. It’s been exactly 3 years since we legally shut shut down our business (happy anniversary?) yet, from this experience, we learned a lot of really important lessons that would shape our lives during our college years and beyond. Dave eventually went on to study Event Management at Johnson and Wales University and works freelance for a multitude of event companies. I put on dozens of events as a student leader at BU and continue to work for a catering company during my Global Advocate Program.
You could say we have some experience in the matter. So here are 10 of the most important things we have learned while fundraising (in high school, in college, as a freelance worker, and as a Global Advocate).
1. Patience you must have my young Padawan
As someone who loves instant gratification, I understand it is easier said than done but I cannot emphasize enough the importance of patience.
During my time as a Global Advocate, I have become frustrated over a multitude of things: feeling like I’m failing (always a day-ruiner), not getting responses in a timely manner from places with whom I want to fundraise, and seeing an event I have spent so much time on completely flop.
Despite these frustrations, I have learned that you must stay flexible and humble no matter what the world throws at you. No event in the history of event planning has gone without something going wrong. (I used to joke that my job running events was entirely comprised of putting out fires). Keep an open mind and be ready with solutions. If you’re prepared for the worst, then you will be ready for any situation that arises. In accordance with that, you must show a cheerfulness at all times and under all circumstances, even in the face of great trial. That way, even if your event is completely in shambles, no one will know except you.
2. Time Management and Planning
There is nothing more satisfying to me than a well laid out plan. For me, this means meticulously creating and laying out weekly to do’s and goals and daily to do’s and goals in my planner.
For fundraising this means setting goals and deadlines for yourself. For example, for the Global Advocate Program, I laid out all my ideas for fundraisers in my notebook, emailed and called dozens of people and kept a log of who I contacted and when (for follow up purposes). Once I had set dates for each fundraiser, the daily and weekly goals made sure I didn’t feel overwhelmed by all the fundraising but still got things done in a timely manner. An example of my week was as follows:
To do this week!
Follow up with: Restaurant A, Brewery X, and Venue Z
Focus this week: donations for bake sale, blog post on Monday, visit business Q, send sponsorship emails, write thank you notes
And then I would break down those overall goals into manageable, daily tasks.
Time management not only applies to yourself but to when to contact businesses as well. I have found that planning a fundraiser, like a brewery event, with more than a month to contact places and set things up is fairly stress free. But stress exponentially increases the more you try to set things up closer to your event. This is all to say — give people enough time!
If people didn’t respond to me, I sent follow up emails exactly at the week mark and sometimes it took a couple days and sometimes it took months but eventually, if you’re persistent, people will get back to you! Some businesses also ask that you contact them for donations months in advance so it is important to be aware of that if you’re asking for something a week before your event.
3. Organization
Spreadsheets are currently my best friend. Similar to the above, it is ridiculously important to log all of the information you have in order to be effective in your planning — calls you’ve made, emails you’ve sent, donations you’ve received (both monetary and physical), and your plans to reach your fundraising goal. This helped me to not feel overwhelmed by everything going on and kept me on track and looking ahead to the future.
My favorite spreadsheet, currently, is what Mama Hope calls a “binding triangle”.
Some people actually use a triangle for this — I just prefer spreadsheets. It helps me understand how I will get to my goal in a succinct way.
4. Get over your fear of rejection
One of my favorite NPR Podcasts, Invisibilia, tells a story about a man who got over his fear of rejection by purposefully getting rejected every day. Listening to this podcast made me really think about my own fears of rejection, especially when it comes to fundraising. If you’re like me, you don’t like asking people for help, you don’t like confrontation, and you don’t publicly share your opinion that bacon scented soap is an offense to humanity should not exist (alright maybe the last one is just me but you get the point!). And why do I dislike all of these things? Because I fear that people will reject me. That fear really hurt me while I was trying to fundraise because the reality is that you will get rejected sometimes and that’s ok!
Some great advice I got from a salesman at one of my events was this: count how many rejections it takes to get to a ‘yes’. That way, the next time you get rejected you’ll know it’s only 10 more till a yes! Reframing how I saw rejection helped me gain the courage to call and email dozens of places because I knew, yeah some of them would reject me but I only needed 10–20 rejections to get a yes!
This leads me to my next point:
5. Don’t be afraid to ask for help
In terms of the Global Advocate Program, 15k is a big number for one person alone. I really thought I could do it by myself until I found myself calling Dave one day asking if he would help me plan a fundraiser. His positive answer and willingness to help really took a weight off my shoulders, one I didn’t even realize was there. Given his experience in the events world, he had so many ideas — things that I would have never come up with on my own — that have increased the efficiency of my events. He also wasn’t afraid to tell me that an idea I had would take too long to plan or wouldn’t be lucrative enough to bother with.
I’ve also reached out to my Mom, her best friend, and one of my best friends’ moms to help me run a multitude of other fundraisers. This group of amazing women in my life has helped me tremendously and I really wouldn’t be half of where I am in my fundraising goal without them.
But help doesn’t have to come in physically helping to plan and run fundraisers or even by giving money. Because….
6. People will show up in unexpected ways (and some won’t and that’s ok)
The first donation I got on my classy page (the online fundraising platform Mama Hope uses) was from a wonderful woman who lives in my home town. I don’t remember the last time I saw her but she heard about my fundraising efforts and donated $100. I was so humbled and inspired that essentially a stranger had donated that I thought all of my friends and family would follow suit. Some did, but many did not.
Initially, I was hurt that some of my best friends and close family hadn’t donated even $1. But then I realized that support doesn’t have to be monetary. Here, I must emphasize the importance of emotional support. Many friends and family signed up for my biweekly newsletter, shared Facebook events, and once I started planning actual events some came to those as well. They were there for me when I was so frustrated I wanted to quit and when I felt so successful, I needed to share everything.
And even if the people closest to me didn’t donate there were others ways they helped. Such as different ideas for fundraising, getting the word out about events and…
7. Connections
When we ran our business, Dave was the behind the scenes guy meaning he did most of the connecting and talking to people. It is at this point that he would like me to emphasize the importance of connections:
Connections are important because it leads to better opportunities. Without connections, you would not get very far in any career path. Experience is the foundation of your career, connections are the highway. — Dave
Connections have helped me tremendously as a Global Advocate. Because of my friends and family, I hosted a dance class for charity, taught a class at a local school and will be having a bake sale there, and gotten in contact and will be having a meeting with the NBA (for real!). Never underestimate someone who knows someone — you never know where it might lead.
Similarly, when Dave and I were fundraising in high school, we kept good relations with local businesses who supported our fundraising and they liked us so they kept supporting us!
8. Money management
Dave also dealt with the money side of things:
Money management is one of the most important skills to have because it can be used across any life or career path. The business world is centered upon money. As long as you know how to manage money, you can be a valuable asset to any organization. — Dave
This is a skill that I am still learning — the most money managing I have done as a Global Advocate has been counting donations and making sure they end up in the right place! But Dave is right, outside of the world of individual fundraising, more complicated money management becomes an essential skill.
9. Remember who you’re doing this for
There were plenty of times that I felt incredibly discouraged — whether it was a rude person during an event or the aforementioned bane of my existence (not getting responses in a timely manner) there were two methods I used to get over the slump: 1) the Mama Hope method — bless and release. This basically means that when someone is not worth your time (they’re being rude, purposefully ignorant, or no matter how many times you’ve explained it to them, they just don’t understand why you would fundraise to help people in a place other than your own community) you realize that they are not worth your time, be kind to them, and release them from your presence and your mind. The following is an example based on a real conversation:
Person: I have all this money but I would never give it to you because why would you waste your parent’s money (referencing my college education) to go volunteer in Africa? I just don’t understand, you should get a real job.
Me: Thank you for your advice and I appreciate the thought. Have a good day!
The second method was to simply remember who I was fundraising for and why I was doing it. Whether that meant my Relay for Life team, Wounded Warrior Homefront, or Flying Kites, remembering such a simple thought made the long hours, the stress, and the constant struggle completely worth it.
Doing something greater than us gave us perspective and purpose. — Dave and I on Hakuna Matata Fundraising
10. Always pass on what you have learned
I am a big nerd for design. However, for those of us without an extensive knowledge of photoshop, canva.com is the best website for making flyers, save the dates, post cards, facebook event banners, and more! I really believe that a good design attracts people and canva has really helped me step up my game in that regard.
As far as events go, these are some of the events that I have planned to give you some ideas that are totally doable.
- garage sale (raised $1400)
- raffle and beer tasting at local brewery (expected $1000)
- inviting friends for dinner (expected $500)
- raffle at a local business (raised $500)
- bake sale at your place of worship (expected $200)
- dine to donate at Chipotle (expected $100)
- dance class (raised $100)
So far, I have planned 10 events to reach that 15k — some were more work and more lucrative than others but all of them have gotten and will get the word out about Mama Hope and Flying Kites. For all the frustration of fundraising, I am incredibly grateful for this experience and am so excited that I have reached the halfway point in my 15k fundraising! Although my journey has been longer than others in the Global Advocate Program, I am nonetheless confident and excited to finally reach that 15k!
As always, you can learn more and donate at:
