Planning My Fundraising Campaign

Now that I have joined the summer team for the Seattle Half-Marathon, it is time to plan and start executing my fundraising campaign. My goal is to send my first note this coming Tuesday night. I have been working hard getting prepared but still have a lot to do. My first year in Team in Training, I didn't even get the link to create my web page until after first training, but LLS has organized this really well now and we can start fundraising litterally the day we sign up.

I’ve been trying to come up with a theme for my campaign. Last year was perfect with the presidential campaign underway for the first few months of fundraising. My notes reflected, hopefully with some humor, what campaign messages would look like: an announcement that I was “running,” press conferences, an attack ad, and even campaign buttons. This year, there is no natural a theme to use that I can think of. So far, I have not come up with a unified concept, so I think I will do more what I did in 2007-2008 for Arizona: write what comes to mind for each update. I am going to try to focus at least some on the tales of people affected by cancer, making it a more mission focused message. I will also try again to interject some humor. My kick-off note Tuesday will discuss rumors about me and Team in Training. Hopefully I can get some laughs while illustrating the very serious nature of cancer. That first note is partially written.

So what is left to do before Tuesday? My biggest job is updating my email messages. I deleted some that came back as undeliverable, but I am in the process of going through new contacts and adding addresses. This is fairly laborious and I have much yet to do. I also have to consolidate the names of my personal honorees and put them on my blog, and I have to finish my TNT fundraising web page. Then I will be ready to rock and roll.

After much thought, I came up with my fundraising goal: $8,500. It feels ambitious in this continued poor economy, especially now that there is a major international crisis in Haiti that so desperately cries out for badly needed donations (including mine). But I like setting my goals high when I am doing Team in Training. This spring marks eight years surviving lymphoma and my fifth team in training event, so I wanted to use those two numbers. I could have more easily made it $5,800 but if I don’t try for $8,500 (and beyond) then I will never know, will I?