Why I Relay: Missing my dad on his birthday.

There are some days when the reason that I Relay is foremost in my mind.  Today is one of those days.  It's Dad's birthday.  He's been missing from our family photos for 18 years, 3 months and 18 days. 

My dad, Guy, is the reason I Relay. 

The reason I'm sharing this here, on a fundraising ideas page, is that it's both helpful and healing for me to share the reason I Relay.  It helps connect me to the people who are supporting my fundraising efforts.  It will help you, too, if you can share what the motivation is that drives you to participate in the Relay For Life.

My tip for you today is to think about ways you can share your reason for participating in the Relay For Life while you are fundraising.

Everyone has experience with cancer in some way.  They can relate to your story, your experience.  It helps provide them a way to fight back against cancer through you, by supporting you with donations to the American Cancer Society.

You might find it helpful to come up with a couple of versions of your message depending on the method you are using to ask for donations.  A personalized letter can provide a great deal of detail about who you are honoring and/or remembering and why the funds are so important in the fight against cancer.

You might want to put a photo of the person or people you are walking for on your Facebook page.

Certainly put a message on your personal online Relay For Life page.  It's helpful to have the reason you Relay on that page for any of the donors making an online contribution towards your goal.  Include a photo or upload a video, too.   Consider inviting them to the Relay For Life and remember to thank them for their help there, too!

If you are speaking to someone in person, you have all kinds of opportunities to tailor your message about Relay to the potential donor.  While sharing about Relay For Life, you might find that in addition to securing a financial donation, some of your conversations will lead to team members or folks coming to check out the Relay for themselves.

Whatever your reason is for participating in Relay For Life, get out there and connect with people.  Share your stories.  Recruit some team members to raise money.  Invite your friends and family to join you at the event so they can see what a force we have gathered in one place on June 8th-9th.

Let's help the American Cancer Society in their quest to celebrate more birthdays!

 

Use Your Tools to Make Asking Easier...

Sometimes I think the hardest part of fundraising is getting started.  It often seems like a daunting task (especially if you've set a big goal and have no online contributions listed on your total board - gulp!).

To help you over the hurdle of "where do I start?" today's post is a quick overview of some of the tools available to you via the Relay For Life website. Login and click on the "My Relay Center" link to get yourself here:

OK, let's check things out by the color coding.   

First, the items in the row under the yellow text.  These are some fundamental tools that will help you get your message out into the world.  Click on the box (or boxes) that seem most interesting to you in terms of getting the message out.  Not much for writing letters ... or communicating with all of your friends on Facebook? Click on the Fundraise with Facebook box to access tools specifically aimed at letting all of your Facebook friends know that you need help meeting your fundraising goals.

Not interested in Facebook?  Click on the Ask For Donations box to access tools to craft an email message to your personal and/or business contacts requesting a donation.  You can draft your personal message - or a series of messages, enter your contacts and manage your email notices to your contact base...all from one place in your Relay Center. 

Want to prime the pump to get your fundraising efforts kick-started?  Click on the Donate to Yourself box to enter a personal donation to show everyone that you are financially committed to RFL as well as personally involved with your participation.

The last box will quickly take you to your personal page, where you can post your photo, the Reason You Relay (your personal message encouraging your donors to contribute to RFL) and where you can enable a status thermometer, a donation honor roll and even a blog feature to update comments when you log in to your page.

Under the fundamentals (some of my favorite standbys) is a row of application tools that you can download.  Facebook, mobile apps and a personalized fundraising badge for your email account(s). 

Before we wrap up for today, I want to call out the Fundraising Tools tab at that top of this landing page.  Clicking on that tab will take you to more tools (including videos and ecards) and to some specific ideas about how to use the tools to generate donations. 

We'll come back to some tips to help you leverage the tools in this section in an upcoming post.  But don't worry about waiting for me.  Definitely start clicking on the online tools and start fundraising with any or all of the tools that work for you.  There's a little something for everyone out there!

Happy Fundraising!

Scratch off cards... they are like the lottery tickets of fundraising

Does the thought of asking someone for money make you sweat?  Make your knees knock?  Perhaps put a little tremor in your voice?

The support team for Relay For Life has just the thing to help you ease into the mode of asking for help in meeting your fundraising goals:  a Scratch -n- Give card.

Here's how it works:

1. Get yourself a card (we'll have some at the Team Captain's Meeting on April 19th)
2. Find yourself a prospective donor
3. Ask your donor to scratch off at least one of the spots on your card
4. Your donor will contribute whatever dollar amount is under the scratch off spot
5. Repeat steps 2-4 until the card is completely cleared.
6. You've raised $100!

The spots are valued at $1 or $5 or $10... so they are easily affordable.  Which makes them a low key, soft-sell sort approach to have people in your life contribute funds to the American Cancer Society through your Relay For Life participation! 



TIP:  Remember that when you ask for donations to Relay For Life, you are creating a giving opportunity to help in the fight against cancer.  Many people already contribute to the American Cancer Society and would be happy to support your participation in Relay For Life if you simply give them the opportunity to do so.  Ask and create a giving opportunity today.

Creating awareness on Facebook

You've signed up to participate on a Relay For Life team.  Now what?  How do you get your fundraising started?

One great idea is to add a cover photo for your timeline that draws attention to the fact that you are participating in the Relay For Life of South Washington County. 

Probably the simplest thing to do is to grab a favorite snapshot from a previous Relay and simply upload it as your cover photo.

Are you looking for something that is a little more splashy?  Check out the RFL Timeline Cover link on The American Cancer Society Relay For Life page.  There is an assortment of cover pages that you can save to your desktop and upload to your personal timeline.  The first sample that I've shared below is available with a message to reflect husbands, wives, friends, mothers, fathers, etc. 

 

If you are game to try making your own collage, there are some free and easy tools on the web that are available to help you design something unique to you.  Later this week, I'll provide a separate post with tips that can get you to started if you want to try this option. 

In the mean time, what are you waiting for?  Grab a cover photo and spruce up your Facebook page!