Message #11 From Your Artful Mentor

Happy Tuesday, my merry mentees. Yes, Tuesday – fooled you, didn’t I? ‘Tis I, your Artful Mentor, and you were just starting to think that I had forgotten about you. Some of you were happy about this (Oh, Yes! My Artful Mentor left me alone for a week!) and some of you were sad about it (Doesn’t my Artful Mentor care how I am doing anymore?). But no matter – glad or sad – here I am. I didn’t forget, I just was busy.

I strongly encourage any of you struggling a bit with fundraising to get in touch. I will do all I can to help, but with your event only weeks away now, there is no time to lose. Or if you are coming to training and want to chat for a bit, I will be there Saturday and perhaps tomorrow night if I can get a car fixed in time. Or we can meet some other night. Just let me know what you need.

As always, let our coaches know if you can’t make it tomorrow night or Saturday.

Hopefully you are getting regular notes out, and hopefully you have letters out now or shortly to help close any gaps.

My fundraising idea for this week is Teamwork! Several of you are friends. Have a joint fundraiser, either splitting the money evenly or giving a larger share to someone who is still below their minimum. Or even if you didn’t join the team with close friends, find a pal who is still fundraising below their minimum, and plan out a fundraiser together. Here is one idea for a fundraiser idea perfect for this warm weather – a topless car wash! (It is not quite as exciting as it sounds):

http://www.fundraising-ideas.org/DIY/toplesswash.htm

For all kinds of other ideas, go to the parent site of the above link:

http://www.fundraising-ideas.org/DIY/

The key thing, especially now, is to do something every single week. You are literally coming down the stretch, with 7.5 weeks until your event. So if you are $2,000 short of the minimum, that translates to raising about $250-300 each week on average. Set up a plan to do just that. It is doable right now, so don’t let it become a crisis by still needing $2,000 four weeks from now.

Keep in mind that almost any fundraiser you can come up with requires more effort per dollar raised than a good email / letter campaign. So spend time on these other ideas if you feel you have taken the letter campaign as far as you can. Otherwise, keep updating potential donors as well, or as your primary focus.

Let me know how I can help.
Your Artful Mentor