I’m going to tell you about two personal fundraising campaigns that I launched to support young people in Cambodia
The first one I raised $800 to send this young woman, Leng Sopharath, to college for a year.
I took what I learned for this into the second campaign, where raised almost $50,000 – plus another match by yahoo for $50,000 or a total $100,000 to support education programs for young people in Cambodia – pre-K-University
Last year, our family sponsored Leng Sopharath, an orphan from Kampong Speu orphanage, who started her first year at Noroton University with an accounting major. Leng Sopharath was one of ten students sponsored for the college in the inaugural year of the college sponsorship program. The annual donation is a stretch for us ... so we usually turn to family, friends, and colleagues and ask them to donate to the Sharing Foundation in lieu of holiday or birthday gifts. Last year, I made these requests "offline," which is somewhat ironic since most of my work is online! My aha moment came when I realized that fundraising badges like ChipIn gave me a tool to not only take my requests online, but also to seek out new donors who might support this worthwhile cause. It also gave me an opportunity to experiment with seeing how, if at all, social media tools might enhance an online fundraising campaign.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mylesdgrant/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mylesdgrant/
My next campaign raised almost $50,000 which was then matched by Yahoo making it $100,000.
The contest was to get the most donors, not the most dollars.
Solicited all my contacts via social networking, plus personal contacts, business contacts and asked my husband to do the same.
Even had him bring his laptop to the company Christmas Party
Featured it on my blog …
Involved 25 board members and volunteers – encouraged them to do the person to person ask – they did.
Golfing buddies, friends, families, parents at soccer games, neighbors, church and synagoes. Keep cheering them on and send out reports.
Distributed the information via listservs – Cambodian American community rallied behind it
Someone we didn’t know gave us $10,000 at 15 minutes before MidNight!