More from the LLS YouTube, “LLSpotlight – Leukemia – Where We Are Today”

If you’re not on the Team, we hope to see you at one of these events!

View the Events Calendar

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

For larger scale events
The following are more focused to nightlife type of events or large scale events (100+), but it wouldn’t hurt to try.

• Napkin NIghts
• Flavorpill

Other strategies

• Work with a Meetup.com group to see if they can throw an event for charity, utilizing their present member list. This works best if you’re already an active member of that group.
• Know any popular Bloggers? See if they can help promote your event as a blog post or video
• Get a radio show to help promote your event (it has been done before)
• Get a local newspaper to feature your event in an article

Spreading the word
Once you have your events out to the public. Keep the conversation going with friends. Update your Facebook, Gmail, LinkedIn, and Twitter status messages. Get friends to post your events on their social networking sites, get active on forums, get active on your Facebook fundraising groups, get active on your special interest forums/bulletin boards.

Offline Promotions
Once you have your online presence covered, don’t stop there! Don’t forget about promoting your event offline. Go to your favorite local restaurants and drop off flyers. Some grocery stores have community cork boards which you could post events (ask the manager first). Post a flyer on your desk, and have a stack for your co-workers who come by.

Hopefully this will help you take your event to the next level. Don’t take your events too lightly by just depending on one source of promotions. There’s so much more potential. Sure it will take some time doing all this, but plan accordingly. Keep talking about it with your friends, and try to get them to tell their friends and so on…. and so on. If you have more ideas and strategies, please add them to the comments section of this article!

For some of you, recommitment is around the corner. I’ve been approached by some participants about some unique and exciting ideas for fundraising. Most of my ideas come from researching other TNT fundraising pages outside of LA, checking out fundraising forums, and researching how other nonprofit organizations fundraise. The information is definitely out there, but the tough part is figuring out where to look.

A great resource for fundraising ideas are various Team In Training related and running forums. Skimming through some of the following forums, I already picked up some unique and exciting ideas such as bowling nights, magnets, buttons, having a table at an auto dealership, gift card fundraisers, restaurant revenue shares, local business reviews, and much much more.

Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Community Forums
This is the official Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Fundraising Forum for Team in Training. This is HIGHLY recommended, and contains a lot of valuable fundraising information.

Facebook Team in Training Group Forums
This is a great resource for fundraising knowledge sharing from experienced and new Team in Training members. It seems to be updated with new topics and replies frequently, and reading some of the old archives are very helpful too.

MySpace Team in Training Group Forums
Topic threads don’t go very deep, but there’s pages and pages of topics which you can read through for many ideas.

Active Running Community – Fundraising Topic
This forum isn’t a Team in Training focused page, but you can use the same ideas and techniques from other nonprofit organizations. Not much going on here, but archives can also give you some great ideas.

You really have to take the time to read through some. I encourage you to also participate and contribute. Network with other TNT participants and alumni, meet some new friends, share ideas!

This site now utilizes Facebook Connect. What does that mean? Without being too technical, it allows us to integrate Facebook features. Like what? Well, you don’t need to re-register or keep filling out your name and e-mail on this site each time you want to comment. It’s one less username/password to remember. You just have to click on “Connect” on the lower part of the 2nd column of this site (see the facebook logo?), and login with your existing account.

You can also invite people from your Facebook friends list to come check out our site. You can tell them how great this Team is! As you can see in the Facebook Connect area, your profile pic and information will be posted for other TNT to find and connect with you. We’ve added this feature to make this site a little more interactive and fun.

One feature that seems to be buggy at the moment is being able to post your comment activity to your Facebook News Feed. Everything else seems to work. Please let us know if you come across any weird issues. Also, if you want to be a contributor for the blog section, just let us know too!

Please note: By connecting to Facebook on our site, it may leave you still connected to Facebook after you leave our site, so please be aware of your login sessions in and out of our website.

I started a Twitter account about a year ago because too many interesting things were happening in my life that I wanted to document instantly. Twitter allowed me to do so because there were so many ways to update it, via text message, online through my phone, my laptop, and through various websites. Since I was starting my 3rd TNT season, I thought it would be a good way to let my friends & family know what’s going on with my training, and also my life. So I sent everyone my Twitter address (http://www.twitter.com/sketch678) so they could follow what’s up.

Throughout the season they would see my updates, from “We just ran 12 miles!”, “We’re eating a good breakfast at The Firehouse with my new teammates”, “Please donate to my page [link]“, “We’re having a fundraiser tonight! Come out!” to “7am is sooo early! I’m barely half awake!”. It was a fun way for my friends to see what I was going through. I also had Twitter followers whom I haven’t met in person, but were very encouraging throughout the season.

Come marathon day, I updated everyone who couldn’t make it to San Diego with regular updates from “We’re awake bright and early for the big event! Now where’s that bagel!”, “About to Start!”, “…mile 17!”, “mile 24!”, “0.2 to go!” to “Where’s that free beer everyone keeps talking about?”. It was also a way for my sister and parents to anticipate what mile I was at so they don’t have to always keep searching for me. It allowed them to move from the beginning of the course to the finish line, or also gave them time to grab a snack. People thought I was crazy updating while running, but it was fun! I got Twitter replies back with words of encouragement, which also helped (Thank you! you know who you are!). Of course, I wasn’t really concerned about time (especially if this will be your first marathon), so there I was, on my walk breaks, you’d find me updating and reading Twitter. Even though I wasn’t concerned with the time, AND I was Twittering, I still beat my PR (Personal Record) by 40 minutes! Maybe it was the virtual encouragement from friends and family, or that I had so many people engaged in the marathon experience with me, that it helped me focused on the finish line.

I’ve only touched the tip of how powerful Twitter is. It has truly helped me a lot, networking with many TNT participants, coaches, staff, and alumni across the country. We’re all a friendly bunch, and it’s a great way to find out more fundraising ideas. I’ll have more Twitter-type posts in the future, but I hope it was enough for you to consider trying it out.

If you haven’t noticed, I created a Twitter account for our Westside LA Chapter. Follow us here – http://www.twitter.com/westsidelatnt

Team In Training also has a Twitter account which has valuable fundraising tips – http://www.twitter.com/teamintraining

More Twitter links soon. I’m compiling a list of TNT participants, staff, and alumni – http://bit.ly/tnt_twitter

Here’s one that I didn’t know about:
“Three times a year, Whole Foods will hold “5% Days” (or Community giving Days). They will donate 5% of that day’s total sales to a local non-profit organization. Contact the Marketing Director at the nearest Whole Foods Market.”

Did you know that?

Log in to LLS eFundraising and check it out for yourself!