NYC SEFA Campaign Ideas. Ideas for putting the fun in fundraising

Transcription

1 NYC SEFA Campaign Ideas Ideas for putting the fun in fundraising The most succesful campaigns are those where the Campaign Volunteers do more than just distribute pledge cards and donor charity listings. The most successful campaigns are those where the Campaign Volunteers add an element of FUN to their FUNdraising.

2 Increase employee participation in the SEFA by using special events and other creative, FUN activities! Review the guidelines listed herein, and be sure to discuss your plans with your Agency Head and the SEFA office!

3 SEFA Messages for Sharing on DID YOU KNOW...? SEFA is owned and operated by the State employees and regulated by OGS. You can designate your gift to any charity(ies) or federation(s) in the SEFA Donor Brochure. A gift of $5 per pay period for one year will help feed a hungry child for six months through Feed the Children. Your payroll deduction gift will begin in January of 2012 and will expire on December 31, Hundreds of your State co-workers are being served by SEFA supported agencies right here in New York City. All charities in the SEFA brochure have to apply and meet certain criteria to participate in SEFA. A gift of $2 per pay period for a year can provide materials for diagnostic dental x-rays for 22 children through the Ronald McDonald House In NYC, EarthShare is the Fiscal Manager for the campaign, responsible for ensuring that your donation goes to your designated charities. Interesting statistics about who in the US gives to charities* 48% of charitable dollars come from households with an income under $30, % of charitable dollars come from individuals. 75% of Americans report they give money to charities. 38% of Americans say they wish they had given more to charity. 14% of Americans would have donated if asked. Most people give between 1% and 2% of their income to charity. Most people who give to charity also volunteer. The most effective fundraisers are those who have made their own donations first. * Source: survey from The Independent Sector

4 Speakers Bureau Throughout the campaign, one of the best ways to help educate your co-workers is by providing a charity speaker for a group meeting or hosting a charity fair for the employees. During these presentations, charity representatives can provide useful insight into the services and benefits of its organization, far more than what is listed in the Donor Brochure.

5 2011 SEFA NYC SPEAKER REQUEST FORM Meeting Date: Meeting Time: Agency Name: Address: City/St/Zip: Cross Street: Floor/Room #: Time allowed for presentation: Expected Attendance: TYPE OF MEETING: AGENCY KICK-OFF GROUP SOLICITATION STAFF MEETING VOLUNTEER TRAINING Number of speakers requested Type of nonprofit services requested: (Please circle your choices) Animal Welfare Education Health and Human Services Children and Youth Development Employment and Support Programs Housing and Emergency Services Diseases, Disorders and Medical Research Environmental Protection International Programs Specific Charity Requested: Please note specific requests for a charity will only be fulfilled based on their availability CONTACT PERSON(S) at site: Name: Phone: DIRECTIONS TO SITE: Person Making Request Date Phone Return this form to: Sheila O Connor, sheila@sefanyc.org

6 2011 Charity Fair Request Form Charity Fair Date: State Agency Name: Address: City/St/Zip: Fair Start Time: Fair End Time: Cross Street: Floor/Room #: Specific Instructions for Charity Participants: Expected Attendance: How many employees will attend the fair? How many charities will there be space for? Specific Charity Requests: 1 st code 2 nd code 3 rd code CONTACT PERSON(S) at site: Name Phone DIRECTIONS TO SITE : Person Making Request Date Phone Return this form to: Sheila O Connor, Sheila@nycsefa.org

7 DO THIS!! DON T DO THIS!! DO ask other campaign managers for good ideas that are working in their departments/ agencies. DON T surprise your boss with a golf tournament on company time! DO check out your ideas with your department/agency head! DON T do the same old thing. DO something different to bring interest to your campaign. DON T solicit items or services from outside businesses, whether or not they are actual vendors of your department/agency. DO solicit services or items from your co-workers. See the next few pages for ideas of what has worked for others. DON T overlook the tried and true elements of a successful campaign. DO use a special event to focus attention on the campaign not as the total campaign effort. DO use special events as frosting on the cake to put you over goal. DO tie special events to completed pledge cards, and encourage the use of payroll deduction. DON T forget the cake : a solid, well-planned employee solicitation campaign. DON T encourage employees to participate with a small cash donation. Encourage payroll deduction. Having fun with SEFA means that your co-workers will look forward to campaign activities, feel better about the campaign and want to participate.

8 FUN AND CREATIVE CAMPAIGN IDEAS Try to make your campaign as informative and fun as possible. Below are some suggested FUNdraising activities and incentives to boost your campaign contributions and get your co-workers excited about your campaign. Incentives to Engage Your co-workers When to Use Incentives For payroll deduction gifts For turning in a pledge Form For leadership giving For the department with the highest participation FUNdraising Activities Bake Sales Silent Auctions Contests Balloon or Candy Sales Book Fairs Sporting Tournaments Themed Meetings Drawings Meals Vacation Days Casual Days Special Event Tickets SEFA Items Parking Spaces Executive Car Washes Gift Certificates Where to Get Incentives SEFA Office (limited supply) Your Vendors Your own Agency Your Employees Local Businesses

9 23 NEW IDEAS TO INVIGORATE YOUR CAMPAIGN 1. A-Dollar-An-Inch Contest Agency executives participate in an all-day competition to end the day with the shortest tie. Employees who donate to the campaign cut an inch off their favorite executive s tie. Prizes are awarded for the shortest tie, ugliest tie, etc. 2. Auction Hotline Ask co-workers to donate items or services to be auctioned off for your campaign. Outline items and prices in a flyer. Set up a broadcast voic with weekly messages announcing auction items. Employees call the hotline or your voic to record their bids. Update the recorded hotline message daily, announcing the highest bids received to date. Each Friday, announce auction results for the week and introduce next week s items. 3. Baby Picture Match Game Invite co-workers to try their luck matching baby and/or pet pictures with pictures of management, employees, etc. Charge $2 per ballot. Award the winning entry with a prize or fun incentive. 4. Balloon Pop Ask co-workers and/or managers to donate prizes. Put names of prizes inside balloons, preferably filled with helium. Charge $5 to buy a balloon and pop it to find out what prize they ve won. 5. Book/Video Sale Ask co-workers to donate old books, videos, CDs and cassette tapes for an employee sale. Sell paperbacks for $2, hardbacks for $4 and cassettes, CDs and videos for up to $5. 6. Carnation Trade Ask your CFC office to see if they can find a florist who might donate flowers that employees can buy for $2 to send to co-workers. Try the same event with cookies or candy donated by employees. 7. Casual Day Sell Casual Day tickets to employees for designated dress down days. Designate certain casual days as Crazy Days and encourage your co-workers to show their wild side. For instance: Tuesday Stupid Hat Day; Wednesday Outrageous Socks Day; Thursday Sports Team Day. 8. CEO Car Wash Ask co-workers to donate $5 to have their cars washed by management. Charge extra for special services like cleaning the interior or polishing the rims. Charge for Polaroid pictures of the event. 9. Children s Drawing Contest Give employees official photographs of one or two executives to take home for their children to draw. Limit contest to children who are 12 or under. Charge a $5 entry fee per child. Employees vote for the best drawing by paying $1 per vote. Give prizes to all participants. Display winning portraits as part of the organization s permanent art collection.

10 10. Chili Cook-Off Contest Ask co-workers to cook a favorite chili recipe and enter it into a cook-off contest. Invite employees to pay $5 for lunch. Have a panel of nominated chili experts select the official chili champion. 11. Coin War Have each department find a large empty water bottle. Invite employees to drop in spare quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. For a fun twist, designate quarters as sabotage and encourage competing departments to drop quarters into each other s bottles. At the end of the campaign, count coins and subtract quarters. The department with the most $$$ wins and all proceeds go to SEFA. 12. Craft and Bake Sale Invite co-workers to participate by shopping at a craft and bake sale! Ask employees to donate baked goods and other talents. This popular activity gives everyone a chance to share hobbies. 13. Employee Cookbook Collect employee recipes and helpful household hints into a customized cookbook. Ask children of employees to create illustrations for the cookbook, including the cover. Print or copy and bind books and charge $5 for each copy. This event has been so popular that some organizations have not been able to fill all requests. Plan for an enthusiastic response! 14. Executive Prison Transform an office into a jail cell. Arrest managers and executives and allow them to make phone calls to their staff members to bail them out. 15. Grandma s Heart Attack Chocolate Cake Sell your grandma s favorite chocolate cake recipe to interested co-workers. Tempt them first with little bite-sized pieces of samples. 16. Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest Plan a Halloween theme and hold a pumpkin-carving contest. Ask employees to enter carved pumpkins either individually or by department. Charge $5 to enter and $1 per vote. Award prizes in various categories: Best Traditional Pumpkin, Most Creative Pumpkin, Best Effort by a Group, Best Effort by an Individual. 17. Hawaiian Luau Hold a mini luau for an employee-giving meeting. Serve ham, pineapple upside-down cake and other Hawaiian fare. Give prizes to employees wearing the most outrageous Hawaiian attire. 18. International Food Day Invite employees to team together to create taste treats from around the world. Employees decorate booths and dress in appropriate costumes. Hold the event over the lunch hour, allowing employees to purchase tickets redeemable for food at the booths. Have a panel of celebrity judges award prizes. 19. Olympics Invite employees to compete in crazy :athletic events for silly prizes. Participants donate a $5 fee to enter. Observers wager bets on their favorite entrants and/or pay admission to watch.

11 20. Lunch Auction Ask different departments to donate lunches to auction every day for one week. Use your organization s intercom system, or other communication system to auction off the temptations. Employees call in with their bids. A variation could have employees pay $5 for their boss to deliver coffee and muffins to them, with all proceeds going to SEFA. 21. Miniature Golf Build a 9-hole course featuring slinkys, ramps, water, and sand traps around the office to test the golf skills of your co-workers. Charge participants an entry fee and ask them to bring a putter the day of the event. Or, find a couple of avid golfers and borrow their putters. Award prizes for the lowest score. 22. Scavenger Hunts Invite co-workers to participate in a scavenger hunt requiring them to find unusual items from around the neighborhood or office building. For a fun twist, you can plant items with selected employees for others to discover. Organize in teams of four and charge and entrance fee. Award different points for various items. Teams have one hour to accumulate as many points as possible. The entire team must be present at the end of one hour. If a team arrives late, assess a penalty of 2 points per minute (or fraction thereof). Award the team with the most points a special incentive or prize. 23. Tailgate Party Create a sports theme for your campaign kickoff to coincide with football or baseball season. Back a truck into the employee lounge, lower the tailgate and sell sports fare: hot dogs, soft drinks, chips and peanuts. Please be sure to clear all of the above activities with your boss before planning. Many of the above activities also make for great stories or photos in your newsletter or bulletin board. Be creative and have fun!

12 TRIED AND SUCCESSFUL EVENTS, PARTIES, KICKOFFS, PICNICS WHO S HUNGRY? Many agencies like to have kickoff events, such as continental breakfasts, to open their campaigns. This is a great time for the agency head to endorse the SEFA and talk about upcoming campaign activities. Your breakfast can include a formal SEFA group meeting, with speakers, a film, etc. WE ALL SCREAM! Organize your group meeting around an ice cream bar, where folks can build their own sundaes. Provide several types of ice cream, nuts, sprinkles, etc. Then provide an interesting SEFA speaker and/or film while they are eating. They ll love you! COMPETITION WORKS! Get your best cooks out to show their stuff. Chili, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream it doesn t matter! Tie in a lunch and contest with a group meeting and let your folks share their accomplishments. Let people vote for the best in each category and award simple prizes or create a traveling trophy. HALLOWEEN NONSENSE Some agencies combined a potluck holiday lunch with SEFA. Try a costume contest, pumpkin carving and dunking for apples. If your building includes a childcare center, invite the kids for a costume parade and trick-ortreating with employees. Combine with a SEFA solicitation meeting and follow up to collect pledge cards. PROGRESSIVE LUNCHEON One creative local Federal agency sponsored an all-hands potluck lunch where the employees received part of their lunch in each of five conference rooms. Participating SEFA agencies provided interesting displays in each room. ALL-HANDS QUARTERLY MEETING Can you make this event a little more fun with SEFA? Add food, an interesting presentation by co-workers who have been touched by SEFA agencies and a raffle at the end. MUSIC MAKERS If your staff is blessed with musicians, invite them to donate their talents to a SEFA rally. SEFA AGENCY FAIR Work with your SEFA Office and request SEFA charity booths for a limitedtime event in your agency. Campaign Leaders can staff a SEFA information table and collect pledge cards. Publicize the fair heavily to ensure a good turnout of agency employees. Give out door prizes, provide food, schedule entertainment, etc.

13 AUCTIONS, SALES AND COMPETITIONS It s very helpful to get a talented auctioneer to conduct your auction. With his/her help and using pledge cards, you can raise $50 for a pie and $100 for a picnic basket filled with goodies or $500 for getting the boss to do your job for a day! Be sure to solicit bids on a pay period basis your campaign will grow very quickly. LUNCH BOX AUCTION Employees supply lunches to be auctioned off at the end of a group meeting. Prizes are awarded for the most creative or elegant lunches. Employees use their pledge cards to buy their lunches. Get a lively auctioneer to promote the bidding! EXECUTIVE AUCTION Get the Manager, Postmaster, Director, Supervisor or other staff to donate a half-day to SEFA. Then auction each executive off to the highest bidder. The executive must take over the employee s job for half a day. You can have a lot of fun with this idea! FOOD FOR THE MASSES Never under-estimate the power of food, The way to a donor s heart! Bake sale Pie-eating contest Lunch-time tacos, chili or spaghetti Pancake feed Lunchtime barbecue Oktoberfest theme Ice cream social Popcorn at the Group Meeting Popcorn every Friday while Keyworkers collect pledge cards Design a chili competition with judges and prizes! BALLOON SALES Encourage employees to send one another special messages in helium balloons delivered by Keyworkers. A fun way to raise morale, brighten up the office and make a little extra money for SEFA at $1 per balloon. WHITE ELEPHANT SALE Ask all employees to bring their most interesting - and useless - treasures. Auction off to folks using pledge cards. Got an Elvis-on-black-velvet you could donate? DRESS DOWN FOR SEFA/CASUAL DAYS Employees who turn in their pledge cards by a certain deadline get to wear casual clothes on a certain day. Each employee who participates receives a SEFA pin to wear with his or her most comfortable outfit. MANAGER S TIE PROGRESS CHART Instead of the tired old thermometer chart in the lobby, ask your manager to wear a tie on which are painted various stages of campaign progress, starting from the bottom. As each dollar level is met, have the campaign Chairperson cut off a new piece of the boss s tie! UGLY HAT OR TIE CONTEST Volunteer staff members wear their ugliest tie or hats and solicit votes (pledge cards) from employees. The person with the most pledges at the end of the day wins a prize.

14 PRIZES AND INCENTIVES One way to encourage early turn-in of pledge cards is to provide additional incentives and drawings. The list below is only to get you started with creative ideas. Items may be donated by employees, managers or campaign leaders. You might ask your Employee Association for funding to kick off the campaign. DO NOT jeopardize your employment as a Federal employee by soliciting prizes or services from vendors or public businesses pizza party for the first department to reach goal or reach highest participation level tickets to sporting events, donated by employees use of a condo for a special weekend, donated by an employee golf/tennis/sailing/art/fly-tying lessons personal services: baby-sitting, car washing, lawn-mowing, snow-shoveling, etc. Federal agency items: baseball caps, t-shirts, posters, etc. covered or close-in parking for a month pie-a-month by your best baker thank-you breakfast for all donors, prepared and served by managers or campaign leaders team. CEO works in a specific department for a half day tax preparation by a qualified employee in-office massages by a qualified employee trail ride and picnic lunch flight in private plane artwork by an employee in-home dinner for four, cooked and delivered by an employee lunch with the boss lunch without the boss!