Volunteer Agency Fundraisers

[FF/EMT Sam]

For those of you in volunteer agencies, what do you do for your community fundraisers? Our station does flower sales, family protraits (done by professionals), mass mailings, BBQ sales, and car washes, but doing the same fundraisers over and over again gets boring, and it's always the same people doing all the work.

What does your volunteer agency do to raise money? How do you get everyone involved in carrying it out?

 

[mfrjason]

It really depends on what sounds good at the time. We had a pancake breakfast to help raise money for a new cot to put in our new rig. The fire department sometimes also had a pancake breakfast or whatever else they could think of.

 

[BossyCow]

We do raffles at a local summer festival at our booth where we do free b/p checks with a donation jar out.

We've done spaghetti dinners, ice cream socials, but you just can't beat a good old fashioned 'Fireman's Ball' for bringing out the locals. One district where I volunteered used to have one every year on Ground Hog's Day.

We also have an auxiliary which acts as a fund raising group. Many local fire districts are limited in the kind of fund raising they can do. So, get a foundation or auxiliary set up with a 501c3 or at the very least legal status as a non-profit corporation. That way the donations can be earmarked for what the volunteers think would be nice to have instead of what the board thinks would be most cost effective. It also enables you to apply for a lot of community grant funds.

 

[jeepmedic]

Try BINGO. If you can get the help, it is wonderful. If you can't get help you will go broke. Also car shows do well in some parts of Virginia, also Golf tourn.

 

[Airwaygoddess]

You could also try talking to a local restaurant about letting the firefighters be waiters for the night, The local PD here does it for fundraising they call it "Tip a cop" I guess they do pretty well because they do them about twice a year.

 

[BossyCow]

they call it "Tip a cop"

Out here in the country, we have something we call "Cow Tipping" is it similar to that?:unsure:

 

[Airwaygoddess]

Hi Bossycow!! I don't think so but after too much beer I guess anyone can be "tippy":lol: :lol: :lol: :beerchug: :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[BossyCow]

I'm thinking cops would be easier to tip than cows. And my shoes would stay cleaner!

 

[Airwaygoddess]

You are funny!

 

[Silverado94]

Out in this area any sort of food with bring the best out in people. But we also do fishing tourneys those do really well.

 

[Flight-LP]

What does your volunteer agency do to raise money? How do you get everyone involved in carrying it out?

Establish an Emergency Services District and increase your revenue through community taxation.................

 

[BossyCow]

We looked into sponsoring a marathon a few years back. Apparently if you have a corporate sponsor, they furnish pretty much everything you need. There were a few people who were really behind the idea but the majority preferred Pampered Chef Parties and those stupid overpriced baskets. For some reason they never quite grasped the concept of raising money from someone other than themselves.:wacko:

 

[Jon]

I think it is a shame that we must spend our time raising money to keep the trucks running - espicially on the fire side.

Around here, many departments do "Boot Drives" or "Tag Day" - we all stand in the street at major intersections with boots/buckets and hand out "thank you for donating" cards.

 

[Airwaygoddess]

Around here, many departments do "Boot Drives" or "Tag Day" - we all stand in the street at major intersections with boots/buckets and hand out "thank you for donating" cards.

Hey Jon! You know, that is a pretty good idea!! ^_^

 

[mfrjason]

Alot of the departments around here do boot drives to help raise funds for equipment and anything else that the department can profit from,so maybe ems personnel should consider doing some version of that to raise money for stuff that they need.

 

[emtkelley]

A little spin on the pancake breakfast idea: One year we did blueberry pancakes and increased our donations twice over. People came out in droves for them and they were delicious. I don't know if they still do the blueberry pancakes or not as I am not on the dept anymore but the dept I am on now may do them for a fundraiser.

If you do a fundraiser which involves food, try to get food donations from area stores or even purchase things at cost. Afterward, make sure you put an ad in the local paper thanking these folks. It's free PR for them and lets them know you appreciated their efforts.

We also put a "fill the boot" up too along with the ladies auxillary raffle. We raffled off theme baskets (movie night, personal care, kids toys, ect) and blankets which were made with some of the proceeds going towards the state burn unit.

Dances, garage sales, and craft booths are some other ideas. Perhaps add a remote broadcast from a popular radio station to your fundraiser to increase public awareness. Make sure you personally invite surrounding area depts as we love to support each other, whether paid or volunteer.

We do letters and porkchop sandwiches at our annual Fun Days, right now. That might change with tonights meeting as we will be discussing other alternatives.

As to getting everyone involved, there is no magical "cure" for the ones who always do the work. What really sucks is the ones who don't get involved who actually show up for the fundraiser and then leave without even giving anyone who is working a break.

If you do a letter, make sure you explain what the donations will be going for and what function the equipment actually serves. I have recieved some pretty poor donations letters and some excellent ones which made me open my checkbook before I finished reading them. People want to know what you have done to help yourself, facts and figures (equipment costs, calls per year, maintainance costs, ect.), and what their donation check is going towards. It also doesn't hurt to include a picture of a well uniformed, professional looking department so they have a face to put with the letter.

Sorry for the lengthy post but I have done alot of fundraising and love being involved in it.

 

[mfrjason]

We didnt have a real big turnout for the pancake breakfast but it was enough to purchase our new cot to go with our new rig,we also did get the local grocery stores to donate the stuff for the breakfast and we did send them a card signed by all of us thanking them for the donations.

 

[oktom]

What does your volunteer agency do to raise money? How do you get everyone involved in carrying it out?

I have kind of a different take on this, having been involved in several non-profits, but none of them were Fire or EMS. There've already been some really good ideas posted, but here are some more "traditional" methods:

* Start a foundation, this allows people to leave you money in their estate - tax free. After that you contact people who might be interested, letters are good.

* Contact other non-profit foundations and organizations. There's money out there that people want to spend, and some foundations do nothing but give away money. Often these grants will be for some specific initiatives, like AEDs or whatever.

* Public awareness. If you can keep the public aware of you much good you are doing, it's a lot easier to ask for donations. I can't think of how you would apply this to Fire / EMS because of HIPAA, but clipping newspaper articles can work. A "We need new bunker gear" letter along with an article about saving lives could accomplish something.

* Work with other groups. There are groups out there with lots of volunteers and little guidance (PTA, sorry if that offends, comes to mind). The more groups you work with, the more opportunities present themselves. Like shared fundraisers - "$1 from every dozen cookies sold goes to the fire department".

* Barter / leverage your way to bigger funds. The local schoolkids can jump rope and grandma pays you five cents for every minute, a local business owner matches all those funds, and whoever does the most gets a certificate for a free catered meal that was donated. Or photo shoot.

* Ask community leaders to form a "ways and means" volunteer committee.

emtkelley has some brilliant ideas!

There are many good books on fundraising for non-profits out there. Hope any of this helps.

Regards,

Tom White,
K5EHX