Fundraising and Special Events

Most people are very familiar with the concept of a telethon, a word coined to combine "television" and "marathon." It’s a televised fundraising event, lasting many hours or even days, in order to raise money for a charitable or other worthy cause by combining a variety show or television production with solicitations for pledges from the viewing audiences. The first national telethon was hosted by Milton Berle in 1949, raising $1.1 million for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation over the course of 16 hours. Because the idea worked, the concept spread quickly and today examples of telethons can be found around the world.

One of the key factors in a successful telethon is, of course, volunteer involvement – and the presence of volunteers is frequently acknowledged on air. The celebrities who perform during the show donate their time, so they are certainly volunteers. The people who answer the telephones to accept pledges are all volunteers. And they are just the tip of the iceberg of people running special event fundraisers in conjunction with the telethon.

Over time, many factors have changed the impact of telethons, most critically the ability of the Internet to spread the word more broadly than television, with much less effort and cost. This Voices article shares this telethon evolution and reviews how volunteers continue to be part of the process.

How can texting a friend raise significant funds to help patients and families who are battling brain tumors? The answer is simple for Judy Zocchi and Olivia Questore, the two driving forces behind “Text for 10,” a unique fundraising event to benefit Monmouth Medical Center’s Davis S. Zocchi Brain Tumor Center in Long Beach, New Jersey.

In 2007, Zocchi had just learned to text. Questore, like all teens and tweens today, could nimbly text like the best of them. And both shared the experience of losing a loved one to a brain tumor. So Zocchi, the CEO of a multi-media company, and Questore, then a middle school student, created an innovative fundraiser – one that has been repeated every year since.

e-Volunteerism Senior Editor Margaret O. Kirk interviews both Zocchi and Questore for this story, which presents their creative, replicable idea and probes the volunteer management challenges that both faced in this inter-generational, modern media effort.

Established in 1964 and held every year in Western Australia, the Dowerin Field Day is an effort to find ways to prevent the small, wheat belt community of Dowerin from becoming a ghost town and to raise funds for improved community facilities. In an attempt to engender community backing for the project, organizers decided to “pay” each volunteer who contributes time to the event, by way of a cheque presented to a local charity or project chosen by the volunteer. As the Field Day's Web site says, "It was and continues to be a masterstroke in distributing much needed funds to deserving organisations across Western Australia’s wheat belt."

Should volunteers be paid for their time and efforts? Is the method a “masterstroke” to cleverly distribute money to deserving organizations? In this Keyboard Roundtable, leading commentators Susan J. Ellis, Steve McCurley, Jayne Cravens, Martin J. Cowling, Andy Fryar, Linda Graff and Betty Stallings debate the pros and cons of this and other alternate economy projects, which translate the hours contributed by volunteers into real cash.

In the scenic Olympic Peninsula town of Port Angeles, Washington, businesses were struggling to survive the national economic meltdown. The six-week Hood Canal Bridge closure from May 1 to June 15, 2009, temporarily slowing the economy-driving flow of tourists from the Greater Seattle area to the Peninsula, was enough to make these businesses brace for the knock-out punch. Instead, residents of this feisty former logging community banded together, organized and launched an unprecedented drive toward sustainability. The plan: use the six-week period of isolation to transform the downtown core into a colorful, vibrant tourist destination that would draw visitors across the newly opened bridge.

In this e-Volunteerism feature article, Deborah A. Black reveals the step-by-step process that allowed a group of dedicated Port Angeles volunteers to take an ambitious community idea and turn it into a community success that exceeded all expectations. Today, the town has never looked better, the volunteer spirit has never been stronger and the tourists are coming back to Port Angeles.

Have you ever wondered what grantmakers and foundations look for when considering whether or not to give money to your group? In this excerpt from the new book, Grassroots Philanthropy: Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker, leading philanthropist Bill Somerville and writer Fred Setterberg take you behind the scenes and describe how the search for outstanding people often drives the process, and explain why it should. Somerville outlines how he defines “outstanding” people, and reveals what grantmakers should look for in nonprofit leaders. You’ll want fundraisers in your community to think like this!

With its insights into fundraising and its application to volunteer management,
e-Volunteerism readers will no doubt find this article both interesting and valuable. Consider how a search for outstanding people might affect your volunteer recruitment goals. 

Formal volunteer awards are designed to acknowledge the extraordinary achievements of extraordinary individuals, those volunteers who’ve extended themselves beyond expectation and contributed their services to an issue, project or cause. But it’s not easy to jump into the award nomination process. Criteria vary widely, nomination deadlines don’t always coincide with a particular time of year, and awards aren’t always well publicized. The good news, however, is that award opportunities for volunteers are increasing with the growth and accessibility of the Internet. And there appears to be a growing appreciation and understanding of the value of nominating volunteers for individual awards.

In this Training Design, we review how to avoid existing road blocks when nominating a volunteer for an award. We’ll also highlight the multiple benefits that come from seeking formal recognition for volunteers. Training Design materials include the development of a nomination timeline, award do’s and don’ts, and techniques for writing a winning nomination. This training will inform participants from start to finish on the process of nominating a volunteer for a formal award. And it will emphasize the benefits and value of tackling such a process by answering, “Why should our organization nominate a volunteer for an award?”

This is a landmark article, in that it tackles a critical subject rarely presented in depth:  what it takes to raise money to support volunteers and the infrastructure of a volunteer program.  As the title says, noted trainer and author Betty Stallings covers both the attitudes necessary to fundraising success and a wide variety of ideas for finding or generating adequate funds.  Included are:

• Reasons why it is a challenge to raise money for a volunteer program.
• How to develop a strong case for support – specific “talking points.”
• Moving from begging to marketing.
• Visualizing success.
• Suggested methods of raising resources for your volunteer program, including donations from current volunteers, outreach to corporations and foundations, special events, gifts in honor of volunteers, and other creative approaches.
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  • Read more about Generating Funds for Your Volunteer Program: The Mindset and Methods

Nonprofit organizations are required to identify funding streams and raise a significant amount of financial resources to provide services to clientele, operate facilities, and to pay staff.  At the same time, organizations conduct capital campaigns to raise a large amount of money for endowments or to build or renovate a facility.  This article describes a capital campaign that the Ohio 4-H Youth Development organization undertook, a first in the history of the program.  The authors describe the challenges, opportunities, and lessons learned by this quasi-nonprofit organization that is a part of an institution of higher education and has funding partners at the county, state, and federal level.

The article is written from the perspective of paid staff members regarding their experience working with volunteers in a different capacity than what the organization and many of its paid staff have traditionally experienced. The original goal of raising $12 million was met and 97% of the revised goal of $14.2 million has been reached.