FastTrack Fundraising Tips and Articles

Yoga can be a tremendous aid to cancer patients, survivors and family members as they battle the disease. Physically, mentally, and emotionally yoga provides the care, security, support, acceptance and rehabilitation needed during these crucial times. Breathing techniques, visualizations, and gentle asana practice all contribute to a healthy lifestyle and help cope with the ravages of cancer.

We’ve all been touched in some way by cancer. My grandparents have died from it, numerous friends are survivors, and a high school girlfriend’s little boy continues to fight brain cancer. I encourage you to show your support of these brave individuals by getting involved with your favorite cancer charity in the coming months. Kids and teens are often especially willing to lend a hand or help raise money and awareness demonstrating a high level of empathy and understanding. Get them involved in serving in the community. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Yoga Bear, an organization which aids and supports cancer patients & survivors, is encouraging an awareness campaign which encourages people to wear yellow on October 2nd to recognize the anniversary of Lance Armstrong’s cancer diagnosis. Learn more about Lance Armstrong andLIVESTRONG here.

Movember, a world wide movement which started in Australia, is bringing back the ’stash’. Men begin clean shaven on November 1st and grow a moustache throughout the month to increase prostrate cancer awareness. Learn more here.

The St. Valentine’s Day Hair Massacure, an annual event to raise money for the Stollery Children’s Hospital. To date this annual fundraiser has raised over $3 million with celebrities, families, 24 participating schools, even dogs participating by dying their hair vibrant pink and/or going bald.

Show your support. Get involved. Make a difference.

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If your last fundraising event fell short of your expectations, you might consider switching up the theme of the event to increase the excitement and draw in a larger crowd. Casino Night themed fundraisers are increasingly growing in popularity and provide a great way to raise money while allowing everyone to have a great time for a good cause.

When attending a fundraiser such as a casino night, people are looking for a chance to get dressed up and enjoy a fun evening out so take that thought into consideration throughout your planning phases and create an event that outshines other events in the area. One way to ensure that your event is successful is to make the casino experience as real as you possibly can. You can do this by using customized game boards, event signage, playing cards and even game chips or funny money to transform a seemingly ordinary event hall into a frenzied casino floor.

To give your event attendees the feeling of being on a real casino floor try mixing in customized game boards for Plinko, Pick Till You Win and Punch-out Giveaways with more standard casino tables for Blackjack, Craps, Roulette and Texas Hold’em tables. These larger game boards can be used to create a backdrop for your casino floor and can help to fill in space that would otherwise be left empty. You can even have a display board created to track the progress of the event earnings throughout the evening.

Large scale, customized game boards not only provide a great way to enhance your casino floor, but they also provide you with plenty of space to list your event name and organization as well as to publicize your event sponsors. Adding sponsorship placement on each game board will allow you to cover the cost of each customized item and will give each sponsor a designated space for advertising their contribution to the event. When you have these names and logos emblazoned on the game boards, your casino players will be sure to be reminded that their playing for a good cause.

When it comes to customizing each game board, you can stick with a basic theme for each board or you can give each sponsor the opportunity to create a unique board design. Either way, you’ll be able to create eye catching game boards. Using vivid colors and even having the boards cut out in unique shapes can help to create a customized look. To give your game boards an added touch of Vegas flare you may even consider incorporating a few strings flashing lights onto them.

While creating ambiance with event décor is not your sole priority of the fundraiser, it can definitely contribute to the success of the evening. An event of this magnitude typically requires a year of planning in order to have everything from games and dealers to sponsors and catering coordinated before the final event so taking the time to create a realistic casino atmosphere can really take your fundraiser to the next level. Remember the better the experience you create, the more fun your attendees are having the more money you will raise.

This article was provided by Elizabeth Catalanotto with Pixus Digital Printing in Lafayette, Louisiana. Pixus is an industry leading provider of large format digital graphics, as well as many other digital printing solutions. Visit http://www.Pixus.com for more information on the services offered at Pixus, including Custom Casino Gameboards.

In the previous article are some tips on how to organize a successful trivia night. In this article, some basic issues are explained in order to help you get everything under control:

• Venue: The venue chosen for your trivia night as a special fundraising event should be easily accessible for most people, with sufficient parking and located near public transport. The venue should have music facilities, microphones, and plenty of tables, chairs and stationary. A tally board is a great idea for everyone to see how the participating teams are doing.
• Food and drink: Finger foods such as wedges, sandwiches and spring rolls are ideal for a trivia night. Light alcohol and soft drink can be supplied by the venue, while participants can bring their own wine.
• Prizes: Try to have these donated by local businesses, both to establish good relationships with members of your local community and to maximize the profits gathered from the trivia night. The prizes do not have to be extravagant.
• Mastermind and Quiz Master: The Mastermind is the person who prepares the questions, while the Quiz Master as the host or hostess of the night is responsible for reading the questions, adding up the scores and keeping the crowds entertained. Previous experience is not required for either position. However, the Mastermind should be able to present both general and novelty questions, while the Quiz Master needs to have plenty of energy, quick wit and friendly banter.
• Judge: To ease the burden of the Quiz Master, there can be a Judge who is responsible for determining the best answers, keeping the scores and displaying them on the tally board.

In short, getting the basics right helps you organize a successful trivia night. Why not put some serious fun back into fundraising?

A trivia night is great as a special fundraising event. As people are inquisitive and competitive by nature, the winner of the night is awarded the title “Master of the Trivia”. Meanwhile, all the participants get to have hours of fun in a relaxing yet exciting environment.

Here are some tips on how to organize a successful trivia night:

• Invite people to participate. You will need between five and ten groups, each with four to ten people. Publicize the location, time frame and entry fees of the trivia night, as well as the kinds of food and drink that either will be provided or need to be brought along by the participants. As individuals generally work better with people they know, it is recommended that participants register as a group.
• For a trivia night that lasts up to four hours, you need six to seven rounds of ten questions. Each round can have a well-liked theme such as popular music, famous movies, general history, superheros or sports stars. Within each round, try to mix up general and novelty questions. Alternatively, you can have six rounds of general questions and a final round of novelty ones.
• Between rounds, arrange some games or physical activities for teams to win extra points. For example, each team can send a representative to compete in Karaoke, Twister or Music Chair. Games are fun and can produce a lot of laughter, and a bottle of champagne can be given to the winner.

Whether you are raising funds for your school, church, charity or community group, a trivia night is a great opportunity for individuals from all backgrounds to join each other in a friendly test of general knowledge. More tips on how to organize a trivia night are provided in the next article.

One of the most common ways to raise funds is through a concert. Everybody loves good music once in a while. For this type of fundraiser, it would be good to get an array of singers and musicians. The organizers should choose a venue for this event. An open space area would be good for it can accommodate a lot of people. Furthermore it would not be so cramped. The organizers should already have an estimated number of attendees so they can choose a place for this. However if you would choose to have this concert done outdoors, make sure that it is not during rainy seasons as no one would go if it does rain.

The next thing the organizers should look into would be which musicians and singers to ask. It would be good to pick current artists and classic artists to be able to bridge the generation gap and get people from different generations. Look for artists that are willing to sing for free or a very very low cost to help out your cause. Decide on the number of hours you would want your concert to last and from there decide on how many artists and singers you would invite over. Do invite more than the allotted number of artists in case one or two might cancel out last minute. If all artists do confirm, fix the schedule by giving each group or individual a lesser number of sets to sing. If someone would cancel, then arrange with the artists or singers to probably sing another extra one or two sets each.

Most importantly do get sponsors to pay for the venue and the costs of the preparation for the stage, sound system and lightings. As it is a concert, each company or individual that would sponsor would definitely get full exposure and it would aid them in their business. So finding sponsors would definitely be easy. Also invite some food establishments to sell their wares at the venue. Arrange with them that a certain percentage would go to the cause in order to add to the expected amount for the cause.

As it is a concert, it would be advisable to advertise at malls, schools and heavily populated areas. Do not make the prices very expensive to ensure that many people would be able to attend. Posters should be placed at different venues to ensure that many people would indeed know about these events. Also try to advertise over the radio. Contact radio stations that play music in order for listeners to be well aware that there is such a concert that would be held at a certain date. Do regular radio advertisements to reach out to many listeners. Lastly spread out the word through emails and websites. It will be able to reach people who do not regularly go to malls and listen to the radio. But the best form of advertisement would be through word of mouth. Talk to friends about it and get them to tell other people about it too.