Last week I attended the Northeast Ohio tour de cure launch party for the tour which will be on June 13 this year.
It is my first time participating on the tour as a Red Rider, mostly I have always just put my contribution in the mail but more and more I find myself wanting and have made the decision to be more involved.
So here I was at the launch party with a few goals to introduce myself to the local ADA community and volunteers and also to find a team I could join this year.
My initial desire was to create my own team but having absentmindedly not realized how close the date was till it was too late, I cant see that goal being a realization this year. (fingers crossed for next year and team the poor diabetic)
The Tour fund raising guidelines require that you raise a minimum of $ 150 and to me that was not a monumental task in the least and I figured if after I my family and friends I could just top off the difference. Easy as pie right or so I thought.
The team I joined, consider themselves a class above the rest and I am by no means complaining about any of the stuff they do, matter of fact I am very excited to join them in their fund raising efforts.
In their zeal to be better, they decided to raise their fund raising minimum to $ 250 and while I am committed to surpassing this goal, it seems to mean that I have to raise my game and go beyond the usual suspects that I hit up for money (my family and friends).
The prospect of pounding the pavement and approaching strangers in the name of a good cause even as good as the tour has me a little bit apprehensive, did I tell you this is my very first time raising funds this way beyond my comfort zone.
A few etiquette questions come in mind to me before I venture out and hopefully you guys can answer them for me.
1. How do you approach someone?
2. What kind of information to offer?
3. How much to ask for?
4. Any other advice you can offer is appreciated
Ronald Gregory from the diabetes management blog
I presume you have looked through all the material at the tour site (http://tour.diabetes.org/site/PageServer?pagename=TC_frtips and http://tour.diabetes.org/tdc/fundraising_guide.pdf). An obvious way to start is to post your story on your blog, why you are doing this and ask for donations with a pointer with your donation link.
And if you really want to reach out, find a good diabetes awareness and prevention flyer, stand out in front of your local grocery store and just hand it out, tell people your story, tell them you are riding in a charity ride and ask for their help.
Good luck.
I contacted the local pharmacy asking them to have more Diabetes products, and more Diabetes awareness… and they have gone gung ho and even have signed up for the Tour De Cure, and are sponsoring two of their employees for this. Maybe a local pharmacy could help out? They are also holding barbecues every Friday, to help sponsor them. That’s not a bad idea, really… a way to raise awareness and involve the community.
thanks Liz I was actually thinking about the same thing as well so one of my first stops was to the local pharmacy though it didn’t yield any donations, they still let me leave my material.
@bsc…Yes I did look through the material…I am working on the blog right now, even added the Facebook badge.
I have managed to implement a few online ideas with some success and I am looking forward to implementing your idea thanks
I am not good about asking people for money. I always give money. I lucked out because I work for a company that does matching funds. So when I signed up for the tour the cure as a red rider my company did a 100% match and I was easily able to reach the 150 goal. But you could set up a table and just ask for cash donations from people walking by.
Friends have been good to me this year, I think I will be able to meet my set goals, but then again i am not there yet