Community Events & Other Fundraisers Guidelines & Planning Packet

Transcription

1 Community Events & Other Fundraisers Guidelines & Planning Packet

2 Mission Statement To ensure that all people impacted by cancer are empowered by knowledge, strengthened by action, and sustained by community. No one should have to face cancer alone. What We Do The Cancer Support Community Greater Philadelphia provides free cancer support programs and services to families living with cancer in Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties. We serve men, women, and children who are living with their own cancer diagnosis (any type, any stage) are living with a loved one s cancer diagnosis have lost a loved one to cancer are cancer survivors Our programs include support groups, lectures, workshops, mindbody wellness classes (yoga, Tai Chi, Pilates, meditation), nutritional programs, and purely fun social activities. Thank You We are only able to provide our programs at no cost because of the generosity of local individuals, businesses, and foundations who support our organization and our work. Thank you for your interest in raising money to support local families affected by cancer. You make free cancer support possible.

3 Purpose of this Packet This booklet is designed for groups or individuals who wish to organize an event or other fundraising activity to benefit the Cancer Support Community of Greater Philadelphia (CSCGP) thereby helping local families living with cancer. The packet provides guidance on how to plan and promote your event or fundraising activity. It also details the assistance CSCGP can provide. Finally, it explains the areas in which CSCGP regrets that it is not able to help typically due to legal reasons or the time constraints faced by its small staff. Table of Contents Some Event & Fundraising Ideas Holding Your Event at CSCGP Pre-Planning Your Event or Fundraiser Informing CSCGP of Your Event or Fundraiser How CSCGP Can Help Areas Where CSCGP is Not Able to Help Promoting Your Event or Fundraiser CSCGP at Your Event or Fundraiser Thanks & Recognition Table

4 Some Event & Other Fundraising Ideas With the support of their family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors, people of all ages can organize amazing events or other fundraising activities! To get the wheels turning, here s a list of some of the easy fundraising activities that groups and individuals have organized to benefit the Cancer Support Community Greater Philadelphia and local families living with cancer. Instead of Gifts birthday: Guests donate to CSCGP instead of giving a birthday gift. Evening of Friends party: Host a dinner party, barbecue, or other fun event. Guests make a set donation for CSCGP to attend. Since the donation typically isn t much more than a night out would have cost, people are usually very happy to pay to attend. Woof & Wine party: A variation on the Evening of Friends where canine companions are also welcome. Bowl-a-thon: Your local alley will typically be willing to rent a set of lanes to you for a couple hours for a set fee. Your guests pay to bowl at a higher rate allowing the difference to be donated to CSCGP. Bake Sale: Great for kids, but also for adults! Some brownies and cupcakes are very tempting after a long meeting. Coin Collection Challenge: Even pennies quickly add up! Bring in a challenge element classroom versus classroom or department versus department and you ll have people throwing their change at you. Craft Fair: One person s talent is another person s treasure! Do You Dare Me? : You ll skydive or you ll eat that food that you hate if friends, family, coworkers, and neighbors get you to your fundraising goal. Group Athletic challenge: Everyone has to raise a set donation to participate in some team event. Individual Athletic challenge: You re going to run a 5K or last 10 hours at a Dance-a-thon and are seeking donations. Dress Down Day: Coworkers can dress down in exchange for a donation. Do You Know About Firstgiving.com? For only a small percentage of the funds you raise, this site lets you set up a fundraising page. People can use credit cards to register for your event or donate to your fundraiser. Their gifts will come straight to CSCGP and they ll get instanteous tax receipts. 2

5 Holding Your Event at CSCGP The Cancer Support Community Greater Philadelphia has two main locations: one in Fairmount Park, Philadelpia and another in Warminster, Bucks County. Both are beautiful, renovated historic homes on more than an acre of property. We hear from many groups who are planning fundraising events and want to hold them on one of our properties. The thinking is typically that doing so would cost CSCGP nothing and that we can consequently provide the venue for free. It is certainly possible to host an event at one of the CSCGP locations, and that is something you can discuss with our Special Events Manager (see page 5). Some things to keep in mind, however, are: We incur costs in hosting your event: We have to pay a staff member to be present for the entirety of the event, including set up and clean up. We ll also likely have increased utility costs, trash costs, etc. Hosting your event gives CSCGP potential liability issues: If one of your guests hurt himself on our property, we could have an insurance claim. The date you want might not be available: Our Fairmount Park location is rented out for weddings and other events. We run more than 150 cancer support programs at our locations including some on weekends. Finally, we have to have a staff member with the availability to be on site for your event. So what does this mean for you? When you discuss holding an event at one of our locations with our Special Events Manager, you may be asked: To provide insurance coverage for the event and to indemnify CSCGP. To guarantee a minimum donation amount to CSCGP to ensure that we can meet our costs. To pay a refundable deposit toward that donation. (We did host a full-day fundraiser for a group once. They disappeared without ever donating.) To pay a rental fee (non tax-deductible) for using the property. We recognize that the people reaching out to us want to support our organization. We are very grateful to them. And we do our best to work with them. We ask that you keep the reality of our costs and limitations in mind, however. If you hold an eight-hour craft fair on property and you end up raising $150 after your costs, that s not $150 we wouldn t have had otherwise. In this case, we actually lost money by being involved in the event. 3

6 Pre-Planning Your Event or Fundraiser When you start planning your event or fundraiser, the first question you want to ask is who? Who is going to support you, either as an event attendee or a donor. Typically, the answer is your family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. You might be able to extend this to their family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors. The biggest caution we can offer is to not plan on hundreds of strangers or scores of CSCGP donors as supporters. CSCGP is very limited in the promotion it can do for events and fundraisers besides its own signature ones. And, while it does happen occasionally, it is rare for a bunch of individuals with no connection to you to, say, pick up one of your flyers and decide to support you. After you figure out who your supporters will be: Confirm that you ve chosen a fundraising activity they will support: If your supporters are a bunch of coach potatoes, for example, the 10K is not the way to go. Likewise, if they re on limited incomes, don t throw a Gala. If you re holding an event, recruit a planning committee: Events involve an incredible about of detail and time-consuming tasks which somehow multiply as the event approaches. For your sanity, you need to have someone else preferably several someone elses on hand to help you. Plan and budget: Figure out how you ll raise revenue. Donations? Ticket sales? A raffle? How much can you reasonably expect to raise. Just as importantly, figure out what all your expenses will be and make sure you have a plan for meeting them. As we ll discuss later, CSCGP is not able to cover any of your expenses or reimburse you for them. Set a conservative financial goal: A goal for your gift to CSCGP will motivate you. Don t, however, make it a pie-in-the-sky one. People who issue too high a challenge to themselves end up feeling disappointed when they don t make it. You re doing someone amazing for families with cancer. You deserve to feel good about yourself when you finish. Loop CSCGP in: Whether you re raising funds by running a 5K or throwing a black-tie event, we want to know that you re working to support CSCGP. (See the next page.) 4

7 Informing CSCGP of Your Event or Fundraiser When you ve finished your pre-planning, pick up the phone or breakout that laptop. You want to get in touch with two people at CSCGP: Kathy O Mara Director of Special Events kathy@cancersupportphiladelphia.org Beth Starrantino Director of Individual Giving & Marketing beth@cancersupportphiladelphia.org Why? If you re doing something you consider fairly simple such as asking a couple friends to support you in that 10K by donating to CSCGP you may be asking yourself why we d like you to get in touch. First and foremost, we want to be able to say thank you. Second, we can pretty much guarantee you that that one coworker is going to call us asking if we can charge his credit card for you know, that run Ryan s doing for you guys. We feel really bad when someone s trying to help us and we re clueless. Finally, if you re doing something more elaborate, there may be ways we can help. There may be materials we need to give you (our logo, for example). There may be advice we can offer you. There may be things we need to ask you to do or to not do. And, of course, if you re planning an event and would like to hold it on one of our properties, that s a conversation we need to have. So, please, give us a call or send us an . Let us know. If only so we can say thank you. 5

8 How CSCGP Can Help We are so honored that you ve chosen to support CSCGP with your event or other fundraising activity. Please know that all the funds you raise will stay right here in the region to help thousands of local men, women, and children living with cancer. CSCGP can help you in the following ways with your fundraising activity: Provide event planning guidance: We can provide some advice, and a list of vendors we use (printers, graphic designers, etc.) who we know do great work. Provide a letter of support: If you re seeking donations or sponsorships from local businesses, you might be required to have an official letter, on our letterhead, stating that you are fundraising to benefit our organization. Approve the use of our name and logo: Whether you re making T-shirts or flyers, you might want to be able to us our logo. Any use of our name and logo must be approved by our marketing director prior to distribution. Provide informational materials: Our brochures, monthly program calendars, and newsletters are helpful materials to have when you re asking for donations or showing your supporters what a difference they ve helped to make. Provide acknowledgment letters and tax receipts: CSCGP can provide IRS-compliant acknowledgement letters and tax receipts for any credit card or check donation made directly to CSCGP. If we can determine who provided the gift, we can also issue letters and receipts for cash and in-kind gifts made directly to CSCGP. (If your supporters give directly to you and you write a check to CSCGP, the receipt will just come to you.) Inform our supporters of your fundraiser: If it makes sense, CSCGP can include your fundraiser in our list of Upcoming Community Fundraisers in the twice-monthly e-newsletter our supporters receive. We could also publish a blog post, Facebook post, and/or tweet about your fundraiser. Potentially provide volunteers for your fundraiser: If you give us detailed information about volunteer requirements and roles, CSCGP can promote your fundraiser as a volunteer opportunity to our volunteer list. (Coordinating the volunteers would still be your resposibility.) Send a staff member, board member, or key volunteer to your fundraiser: With enough notice, CSCGP can almost always send a representative to your fundraiser to thank you and your supporters, answer questions about our organization and work, and, if you d like, staff a table of CSCGP materials. 6

9 Areas Where CSCGP is Not Able to Help We are very grateful that you have chosen to give your time and talent to support CSCGP. We regret that, due to legal issues, limitations on our small staff s time, or other issues, there are several areas in which we cannot help with your fundraiser. To ensure that you re aware of these limitations before you start planning your fundraiser, please review the following areas where we cannot provide support: Expenses/reimbursement: For accounting and auditing reasons, CSCGP cannot cover the cost of any of your expenses or reimburse you for them. Please make sure you will be collecting enough funds to meet your expenses, that you re collecting them in time to pay your expenses, and that you re collecting them in a way that will let you pay your expenses. (If someone gives you a $1,000 donation, but does so as a check to CSCGP, you won t be able to use that to pay your T-shirt vendor.) Donor/payment tracking: You are welcome to have donations come directly to CSCGP. If you would like us to provide you with a list of people who donated directly to CSCGP for your fundraiser -- or a total amount for their donations -- you need to tell us in advance to track this. Additionally, you need to ensure that your donors clearly indicate that their donation is for your fundraiser. We can t do any retroactive tracking. We also cannot give you information on individual donor s amount of support. Ticket tracking or similar tracking: We cannot be responsible for tracking your donors for anything. For example, if you re selling tickets to your fundraising event, we can t maintain a registration list of people who sent payments directly to CSCGP. Promote your fundraiser to internal or external audiences: The ways in which CSCGP can promote your fundraiser are listed on the previous page on the sixth bullet point. We cannot do any additional promotion for you, such as press releases, calling reporters, creating flyers, asking people or groups to support you, mailing information to our supporters, sending out e-blasts about your fundraiser, etc. Enter into an exclusive relationship with you: CSCGP reserves the right to benefit from similar fundraisers, promotions, and events and to work with similar organizations. Provide tax receipts for gifts not made directly to CSCGP: If a check or other gift is made out to you or given directly to you, we cannot provide a tax receipt for it. 7

10 Promoting Your Fundraiser To maximize the success of your event or other fundraiser, we encourage you to promote it in whichever ways make sense, including printed materials, social media, attempts to garner press coverage, direct requests, and other forms of outreach. We do ask that you follow these guidelines while promotiong your event: CSCGP Logo and Name: Our name can be used to promote your event or fundraiser as soon as our Director of Special Events has approved the fundraising activity. At that point, we will provide you with image files of our logo.. Promotional Materials: We ask that you show drafts/proofs of any planned printed materials and, where possible, electronic materials to our Director of Marketing for approval prior to printing, publishing, or otherwise distributing the materials. Media Outreach: We ask that you submit any press releases, media advisories, or other requests for coverage to our Director of Marketing for approval prior to distribution. We need to make sure the correct language is used to describe CSCGP and our work. Endorsements: While CSCGP welcomes the support of any individual or organization, we do not endorse any product, firm, organization, individual, or service. We respectfully request that you promote and conduct your fundraiser in a manner that avoids statements or appearances that imply an endorsement from CSCGP. Photography: Don t forget to photograph your event! Photos are a great way to promote your event after it s over -- on your website, blog, newsletter, or annual report! (It can also help build excitement for next year if you re planning a recurring event.) Please share photos with us -- we love to see all the ways people are supporting CSCGP -- and we love to share the photos and the news of your support with our supporters! How CSCGP Can Help Promote Your Event: Please see the sixth bullet point on page 6 for information on how CSCGP can help promote your event. You are welcome to contact our Director of Marketing to discuss this further. Limitations to How CSCGP Can Help Promote Your Event: Please see the fourth bullet point on page 7 for information on the ways in which CSCGP regrets that it cannot help you promote your event. 8

11 CSCGP at Your Event CSCGP is always happy to try to provide a board member, staff member, or key volunteer to attend your fundraising event, thank you and your supporters, and answer any questions about the Cancer Support Community Greater Philadelphia and how your fundraising event helps us help more people living with cancer. If you would like to have a CSCGP representative at your event, please provide the following information to our Director of Special Events or our Director of Marketing and Individual Giving as soon as you have it available. Date and location of your event Timeframe during which you d like a CSCGP representative to be present What you would like the CSCGP representative to be prepared to do? For example, are you looking for someone to give a 10 minute speech to 100 people about CSCGP s work and how your event is helping local families living with cancer? Or are you looking for someone to sit at a table, answer questions, and hand out brochures to those interested. What does the CSCGP representative need to bring? If you would like us to have an information table, for example, do we need to provide our own table and chair? Presumably we should also bring a tablecloth, display board, brochures, etc. in this scenario? Conversely, if the representative is coming simply to explain our work and sincerely thank you and your guests, he or she might not need to bring anything. Would you be comfortable letting CSCGP collect information from your guests? CSCGP is always looking to expand its mailing list and list to share cancer support news and ways to further support families living with cancer. Would you be comfortable having a CSCGP at your event with information cards on hand for guests to voluntarily fill out? If you re holding a larger event, would you be comfortable having CSCGP run a free raffle with the information cards as entry tickets? Kathy O Mara Director of Special Events kathy@cancersupportphiladelphia.org Beth Starrantino Director of Individual Giving & Marketing beth@cancersupportphiladelphia.org 9

12 Thanks & Recognition CSCGP is incredibly grateful to you and your supporters for supporting our organization and local families living with cancer. Since we provide all of our services at no cost so there is never a barrier to anyone who needs cancer support, we are only able to keep our doors open and our programs free because of the support of wonderful people like youl Here are the ways in which we d like to say thank you. Acknowledgement letters and tax receipts: Prompt acknowledgement letters and IRS-compliant tax receipts will be issued to you or to your supporters for any check or credit card gift made directly to CSCGP. We also issue letters and receipts for cash and in-kind gifts when we can determine precisely who gave what. We do need to have mailing or information for each donor to get them their letter and receipt. Attend your fundraiser to thank you and your supporters: With enough notice, CSCGP can almost always send a representative to your event to thank you and your supporters. Please let our Director of Special Events or our Director of Individual Giving and Marketing know as soon as possible if you would like a representative to attend. Share the results of your fundraiser with our supporters: We like to thank you and announce the success of your fundraiser to our supporters in our e-newsletter and through our social media sites. Please let us know if you re comfortable with this. And please provide us with any pictures of your fundraiser so we can share those with our supporters as well. on page 6 for information on how CSCGP can help promote your event. Thank you again for supporting CSCGP and local families living with cancer. You make everything we do possible. 10

13 About the Cancer Support Community Greater Philadelphia Backed by evidence that the best cancer care includes emotional and social support, the Cancer Support Community Greater Philadelphia (CSCGP) offers these services to all people affected by cancer in the region. All of CSCGP s programs are provided free of cost to area families living with cancer -- thanks to the generosity of local individuals, businesses, and foundations. CSCGP was formed at the end of 2013 following the merger of Gilda s Club Delaware Valley and the Cancer Support Community of Philadelphia. City Headquarters: Suzanne Morgan Center at Ridgeland 4100 Chamounix Drive Philadelphia, PA (phone) (fax) info@cancersupportphiladelphia.org Suburban Headquarters: Gilda s Club in Warminster 200 Kirk Road Warminster, PA (phone) (fax) info@cancersupportphiladelphia.org Satellites: Abington Memorial Hospital Doylestown Hospital St. Mary Medical Center