Fundraising Clinic 101 - Feb 24, 2010

Yesterday (Feb 24, 2010), I went to Reach The Summit Fundraising Clinic 101. Let's face it.. Raising $3000 or more can be a daunting task, especially in this economic environment. I have to admit I had to do a lot of soul searching myself. It didn't help that I had had absolutely no past experience in charity fundraising at all. But then, if not now, when?? At the end, it came down to this - sometimes you just had to act and that's all there was to it...


I could get all the help I could get, that's for sure. So, I decided to drop in. They had a conference room reserved in this giant hospital complex in Portland. Was there a law prohibiting hospitals from building a structure that's navigable?? It took me 15 minutes of going back and forth before I was able to find this non-descript room. Good thing I wasn't there to get my heart jump started or something..


Please meet Jennifer, the head-honcho of Reach The Summit (one of the right), and her right hand person, Colleen (One on the left). When I walked in, there were Colleen, and two fellow climbers (Charles and Paula) already there. Colleen said, Jennifer had to go get one of her teeth re-rootcanaled (that's weird.. re-rootcanal.. what exactly was that?? And she had to get that done without getting knocked out?? eww..) few days before and she might not make it that day. However, determined to be a shining example of Reach The Summit cannon ball, Jennifer made her appearance to join us! Now, that's a commitment.. There were altogether about 8 climbers by the time we got started. (Charles, Paula, Mat, Hillary, Tamara, Nathan, Jeff, and me. Sorry if I missed anyone..)


They said in the previous gathering the issue of fundraising had been the single biggest reason why people would hesitate to sign up as a climber but the success rate of reaching the minimum commitment level ($3000 for Mt. Adams, $3250 for Mt. Hood, $4500 for Grand Teton) had been around 90%. And , that the primary cause of difficulties had been usually not getting started in the first place. I'm happy to report that that was never a problem for me - the anxiety of worrying about not making the goal was so big that I had to do something, anything!

They gave us lots of very helpful pointers on how to write appeal letters and how to follow up, etc.. But, inevitably, we would hit a plateau at some point so they talked a little bit about other forms of fundraisers we could do to help ourselves reach our goals. Then the talk sort of shifted towards how to procure the necessary gears for our training and the actual climbs. Colleen said she was planning to organize an used gear sales where all the people involved, past and present, would bring in the gears they didn't need anymore to pass them on to those who would need them.

Another training hike is coming up this Saturday. See you guys then!!

Status:


Thanks to the support of all my friends like you, I have been able to raise $965 so far since I sent out my first appeal emails on February 1st. That's almost 1/3 of the commitment I made!!! This is fantastic!!!!!!!