Westside LA Team In Training - Summer 2009 Marathon & Half Marathon Team

Archive for the ‘fundraising’ Category

Your teammate, Shannon Payne, planned this fundraiser with Nicole Miller, from now until 4/30/09.

Clients who use the attached coupon will receive 10% off of their purchase at Nicole Miller, at the end of the promotion the LLS will get 10% of the total profits of those sales.

Print out this flyer and visit the Nicole Miller retail store in West Hollywood (or tell your friends!)

Nicole Miller Retail Store
8633 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

I know it’s tough fundraising alone, so we recommend teaming up to help spread the word of your events and fundraisers. One place to start is your mentor group. Another is someone from your pace group. It doesn’t stop there.

It’s common to see fundraisers hosted by multiple teams within our Greater LA chapter of Team in Training. We’ve had large fundraisers with the Tri Team, and the Iron Man Team for the Bachelor Auction, Karaoke Nights, and Pub Crawls, but I just had a few thoughts while driving to work this morning. Hopefully it will spark up some new ideas for upcoming events.

How about joining forces with other teams and chapters? Do you know friends from the Valley, SGV, Long Beach, or Orange County Teams? Why not meet some over TNT forums and social sites? What kind of fundraisers are possible there? This way we’re not always marketing to ourselves, we can have a wider reach, and you get to meet other TNT participants from other areas.

How about having fundraisers with other non-profits? I think these type of events could get a lot more marketing coverage, and showing that Team in Training is willing to work with other organizations is a good thing. As far as donations go, just split it as you would working with another team member. Imagine a joint TNT and American Cancer Society event. The potential for this could be HUGE.

I think joining forces will ease your own stress. It’s beneficial because you can divide up your tasks to multiple people, and focus on things that you excel in. In brainstorm sessions you will see many different angles. The buzz for your event will be that much greater because you’ll cover many circles of friends that you normally wouldn’t get if you did all this alone.

Good luck and GO TEAM!

You’ve seen this jacket worn by your Leadership Team throughout the season. Did you know that it’s worn by Team in Training teammates across the nation? Our Mission Captain, Javier Rivera, is the man with the jackets, and it’s one of his ongoing fundraisers. It comes in Asphalt Grey and Kelley Green, and it’s made by American Apparel.

Buy Your Jacket Here (or you can approach him at practice)

It’s so AMAZING we have so many events lined up this early in the season! We’ll assume you’re already done with event logistical planning, and you need to get your event known to everyone. What do you do? Of course, the obvious is to tell all your friends and family. How? Is that enough? There’s never enough! We’ve compiled a list to the top places to go to post your event and get the buzz going!

First e-mail our Fundraising Captain, Erin Shulsinger, so your event could be added to her weekly HOT EVENTS e-mail to our internal team. Try not to conflict event dates unless your target audiences are completely different.

Event Invite Systems

• Evite.com
• Facebook Events
• MySpace Events

More Event Listings
The following are good supplemental event systems to get many people outside of your circle aware of the event. People might run into your event on several sites and become constantly reminded of it.

• Going.com
• Upcoming.com
• The Scene
• My Modern Met
• Experience LA
• Eventful
• Culture Mob

(more…)

It’s awesome to see so many fundraising events planned this early in the season! There’s been so many that we can’t be at all of them. This is where you come in.

If you have an event coming up, please write us a small article on what it’s all about! Give us the details (date, location, times, websites, and flyers), and we’ll post it here on the site! Realize that you can’t rely on just Erin’s e-mails to push your event out, or just an e-vite. Try to use as many resources as you can get if you want to your event to succeed.

If your event already passed, we would like to know how it went! Send us links to photo albums, videos – all of it. Please write us a little recap of how you thought your event went. Let the readers know of what your expectations were, and also what you’ve learned coming out of it. Why should you do this? So we can all learn as a group, so our events could improve as time goes on. It’s great to learn from other people’s experiences. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel if someone else wants to do the same event!

E-mail your events & stories to: westsidelatnt [at] gmail.com

Thank you all for your support and readership so far!

I see many TNT participants use Facebook in a variety of ways. It’s a great way to reach out to your close friends and family on there. Let me walk you through using Facebook to its full potential, so you can get maximum exposure for your fundraising.

Don’t have a Facebook account?
http://www.facebook.com to sign up. Go to the Friends link up top and click on “Find Friends” to start your social network.

Photo
Upload a photo of yourself wearing your TNT training jersey.

What’s On Your Mind?
It’s the new status updates. If you have a blog, be sure to add your link to your post each time. You may post your fundraising page here, but don’t do it too frequently – you don’t want to spam people’s news feeds.

Basic Info
Click on your name on the top nav bar to view your own profile. The first thing you should do is click on the “Info” tab next to the “Wall” tab and click “Edit Information”. Under Personal Information, add some TNT keywords to your Activities, Interests, and About Me. Add that you’re training for a marathon. Under Contact Information, under Website, add all your links for your fundraising page, running blog, and/or other website profiles you may have.

Your Wall
Since you’re on your profile, you can automate your blog feeds to your wall too. Under the status update button, “share”, there’s a button called “settings.” Under “Stories Posted by You”, click on “Blog/RSS” and enter your blog URL. Your updates will be fed in as “Notes”, but it’s not in real time, so don’t be alarmed if it’s not there right away.

Interacting with other TNT
Check out the TNT Facebook Group’s Forum and meet those who have gone through the program. Also join our season’s Facebook Group and interact with your teammates!

Advanced
There’s plenty of other ways to use Facebook to help promote your fundraising. You can add apps, connect your Twitter updates to Facebook status updates, join Causes, start groups, create events, and more. I would suggest to create a Facebook Group instead of a Facebook Event to get people aware of your fundraising page, because an event will eventually expire. You can keep the group and use it for potential future seasons.

I hope this is a good start for those just getting into Facebook. Some may find this more useful than mass e-mailing, some don’t. Just think of it as another avenue to fundraise. I’m sure it will also open the doors to new ideas, and also making new friends. Good luck everyone!

If you’re a fan of comic books, writers/artists The Luna Brothers name should be familiar to you. If not, they’re huge in that world. One of our participants, Rommel Calderon is one of their good friends and it’s awesome to hear some celebrities backing the Leukemia & Lymphoma’s Team in Training.

“When our friend, Rommel, told us that he was running the San Diego Rock N Roll Marathon and raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to help fight blood cancers, we were more than happy to help out for such a worthy cause,” Jonathan Luna said.

His fundraising has been featured on Ain’t It Cool News, The Luna Brothers’ Blog, and even on the FRONT page of the Image Comics website! Talk about some good PR!

Check out Rommel’s custom designed fundraising page here!

E-mails and letters are a great way to start off your fundraisers, but if you want to go that extra step, you should get creative.

Campaign Names
You must differentiate yourself from your teammates. Sure, it’s not a competition, and we’re all in it for the same goal, but creating campaign names will make your fundraising fun, and also more compelling to your potential donors. Create a catchy name so that you can refer to your fundraising later if they didn’t donate to you after your first e-mail push. For example, Jacque Wing’s Sponsor A Mile, or Rebecca Cohan’s Do You Want a Piece of Me?.

Creative Event Names
Some successful events have a memorable name attached to it. I’m not talking only TNT events, but events and parties in general. Would you rather go to Karaoke Night, or Karaoke for a Cause ?

Team Up
Soon mentor groups will have their own fundraising events and campaigns, but you’re not limited to just your mentor group. Coach Chris, Lori Jomski, and Javier Rivera has Madness For a Cure. My friends and I are throwing America’s Best Pub Crawl this coming weekend. You can go by the power by numbers approach, and divide from there.

Fundraising Tools
When you have your campaign name set, think about how you will market your fundraising. There are many online tools, in which I will only touch the surface on this post. If you have the resources, create a unique logo and/or online flyer for distribution. If not, you can go viral with using Facebook tools such as Groups and Events, Evites, MySpace Bulletins, forums, and Twitter. For the more advanced, you can buy your own domain name, and create a standalone website.

Coming Soon
In the coming weeks, I will also feature creative fundraising ideas by your teammates and other TNT participants from across the country. It could be a special strategy on your TNT pages, it could be a specific event, or it could be a supplemental website. In this post, I’ll discuss some of the basic starting points on some of the most creative TNT fundraising I’ve seen.

Did you know that there’s a search tool to find companies that offer matching gifts? Some of your friends and family may not realize that the company they work for does such a thing. Send them the following website

Matching Gifts

That website is amazing. Search a company name, you’ll get some search results, and if the company offers a match, it will tell you the proper procedures (most of the time) for that company.

One helpful tip is to research some of your contacts before you send them that e-mail (at this stage it should be your REMINDER e-mail, right?). If you have a LinkedIn account, you can easily find your contacts’ employers. If you plan to message some of your work contacts, go through your stack of business cards.

Your approach will be key though, because you don’t want them to think you are using them for their match, or don’t make them feel they are forced to donate now because their donation is potentially 2x greater. Take a friendly approach, reminding them that you’re fundraising for the Luekemia & Lymphoma Society and you noticed that their employer would give a matching donation. Add some of your personal touch to it. Ask them to fill out their employer’s matching gift form and send the payment to you. Also, you should only approach the people you personally know on LinkedIn. It will be difficult otherwise.

If you receive a donation from someone who works for a company that matches, please read the following:
Matching Gifts Procedure Page

You know how long it took me to search and find everyone’s fundraising pages? A long time! The wait is over, and if you visit the participant roster page, you can view your teammates pages by clicking on their first name! If you’re name is not highlighted, BUSTED! Just kidding, your name didn’t show up on the search results, so if I there was an error, let me know!

I’ve skimmed through most of your pages, and I’d like to say that you guys are doing an awesome job! I see some of you picked up the selling a piece of your body campaign, or a sponsor a mile campaign! I see some original photos, and some very interesting and inspiring stories and updates. I invite you to do the same… browse through everyone’s pages, and get some ideas! Share the knowledge. If you find that some other teammates already made their minimum, ask them at Sunday practice! Brainstorm some ideas. Keep up the good work everyone!

In the next week or so I will have posts on fundraising strategies and campaigns so come back daily for updates!

That reminds me… I still need to take some of your photos! I will be out of town this Sunday, but look for me the following Sunday.