Fundraising for charities

[St. Ajora]

Today I had a BRILLIANT idea- that I'm going to get up off my arse and actually start doing things for organizations that I support. I figure, since my food topics are always so successful, I'll see what other ideas you nice people can offer me.

My "thing" is animal charities. I've volunteered at two animal shelters (one for cats and dogs, and the other for wildlife) in my life, and although it was hard work, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I walked away with a warm and fuzzy feeling . I would like to support those who don't really have a voice, and thus far, I'm unsure of what organizations I want to support (I'll figure that out later).

I have a fair idea of the amount of work it takes and how time consuming it is...a woman at my work fundraises for a children's hospital here (well, the whole chain of stores do) and I've picked up on some neat tips on how to raise money. Every little bit helps though, and these are my ideas so far:

-Recycling bottles (or anything that can be traded in for money)
-Selling prints (you know, I paint something and get it turned into a small print)
-Drawing portraits
-Fleamarketing
-Selling Nancy Drew books (oh yes, I'm a fanatical dealer)


As you can see, my list is short and I am sure I'll be relying heavily on my artistic ability to get me through. I did some professional portraits when I was younger so I'm eager to see what I can do now. If I had a shop, I could sell suckers and candy bars...

What else can you guys offer me? I can't bake, although I'm sure I could charm someone into doing something like that for me. I don't know. I'm really interested in doing this, especially since I might take another year off before I start college, and I figure that something like this will keep me busy, and some good people and wildlife can benefit from this.

[Ninjar]

Instead of fundraising, there is always the alternative of volunteer work. It is more fulfilling than fundraising, and also, crucial to the success and impact of nonprofit organizations. Volunteering at a local hospital or something isn't hard and it helps out a great deal. Hospitals wouldn't be able to funtion without volunteers. Well, they would be able to function, but it would launch the prices far beyond the capabilities of the average people to pay the already rising medical costs.

Anyway, I personally prefer volunteer work to fundraising. My main reason being that I get to interact with those people I'm helping. And secondly, I don't know, it just seems like I'm doing more for these people. I like the recognizition. I suppose Fundraising is more of a covert thing where they don't know who you are and don't meet you. I don't prefer that at all.

However, I could say that you could call around to local charities and the like. Then ask them what they need at this time of the year. I suppose they could always use canned goods and other toiletries. You have lots of that kind of stuff right?

[St. Ajora]

No no no, I am raising funds for international and Canadian animal charities :P So, I really can't volunteer exlusively, though I still consider the fact that I'm volunteering my time to help out- even though I'm not physically there.

Fundraising for homeless people shelters and the like...I would go about things very differently. I feel that even though they need all the financial assistance they can get, it's more sincere to donate like you said, canned goods, toiletries and clothing, etc. Therefore, that would be the approach I'd take to helping out with people charities- I wouldn't throw money at them, rather, I'd give them things. Since a lot of my job involves exporting clothes to third world countries, I was thinking of scooping up the clothes that we didn't sell (ie, sweaters) and taking them to shelters that really needed them. A lady came in on Christmas Eve when I worked, and bought 50 dollars worth of towels (we deal in used in discount stuff, so thats like 25 towels) for a men's shelter in the city, and it was really great. I want to do stuff like that.

But, that was offtrack. My main goal is to help out environmental and animal organizations, which was what I was specifically talking about. But you got me thinking about stuff I could do locally

[Ninjar]

Well, as far as collecting for your animal friends goes, I suppose that it is possible to go from door to door asking for collections and stuff. That really doesn't work all that well though. However, besides those things you've already listed, I really can't think of anything. I suppose I should start thinking, no?

[Sage]

One fundraising idea a club I'm in did last year involved putting pink flamingos in people's yards. As weird as it sounds, it seemed to work well enough. You put the flamingo (or lawn ornament of your choice) in someone's yard (choose a decent neighborhood of course) and wait a while, like a day. Come back the next day and explain to them that you will remove the flamingo for free, but would appreciate a $5 donation (or however much you want to ask for) to whatever charity you're working for. They could also pay more money (like $10) to have you put it in one of their neighbor's yards. There's no cost to them as you will remove it for free, but it's an easier way to get their attention and some people think it's pretty funny. I never heard anything about people being mad either, at most it was "Get rid of it" and a closed door. No biggie.
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[Schala-Kid]

hah! people steal each other's gnomes here, but i've never seen flamingoes. what would happen if they want to keep it though sage?!

[Sage]

Charge them I suppose. That didn't happen in our experience, but I guess some people may like flamingos more than people in Montana do.
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[Yohn]

Tacky lawn ornaments are prohibited in my neighborhood, save for the occasionaly 1 day birthday of someone who's turned the magical age of 40.

I always liked bake sales for fundraisers. Or a garage sale type thing where you get a lot of people to donate a bunch of things and the profits made all go to charity (they do this a lot around here and gets churches and rec. centers to hoast them because it's generally a community thing. ^_^
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"And as the lion slaughters man, I am the wolf and you're the lamb." ~Blind Guardian

[St. Ajora]

We Haligonians do away with the flamingos and use BRAS. Huzzah!

[Yohn]

You put bras in your yard?
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"And as the lion slaughters man, I am the wolf and you're the lamb." ~Blind Guardian

[St. Ajora]

Yes, it's all the rage! Though, we have to cut them so they don't get stolen. You know how hard it is to find a good one at an inexpensive prize. People get a kick out of it (though we charge first).

[Zeik Tuvai]

... Prove it.
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Those who stray from the path of justice,
Are those who have no courage...
But under the wing of a strong leader,
Cowardice cannot survive.

[Yohn]

[St. Ajora]

Haha we have those too. EDIT: Oh and by cut them, I mean like we damage them in some way so people can't pay them for spoofing others and then take them all for 10 bucks.

Mitchell, you disbeliever you! I tried to find like a general picture. A warning, DON'T type "hanging bras" into google image search. Sick.

Anyway, it's hilarious to see that my charity talk has turned into bra fascination. Any more ideas?!

[Zeik Tuvai]