Fundraising

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Raising $1,500 is no easy task. These tips will help!

Lombardi Party's Giggles comedy club fundraiser

Written by Events on January 6, 2012 at 12:35 pm

Support the Lombardi Party at its fifth annual comedy night fundraiser! Doors to the Giggles Comedy Club open on March 25 at 6:30 PM, with the show starting at 8 PM. A requested $25 donation gets you Boston's top comics, all-you-can-eat cheese pizza, a cash bar, and raffles! Proceeds benefit the MS Challenge Walk.

This is the events calendar, featuring official NMSS rallies and meetings as well as volunteer-sponsored fundraisers. Want to see your event listed here? Please submit the details, and we'll add it!

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Edible Arrangements promotion a success!

Written by Danielle on November 4, 2011 at 8:35 am

You may remember back in September when you were encouraged to purchase an "Orange Blossom" from Edible Arrangements. You may have ordered an Orange Blossom yourself and many of you asked your friends to order, too.

On Thursday, October 27th, Nick D'Alleva, Edible Arrangements store owner, stopped by to present the National MS Society Greater New England Chapter with a check for $5,240!

Nick D'Alleva's Edible Arrangements check

What a delicious sum!

Nick owns three Edible Arrangements franchises — one each in Lynn, Peabody and Beverly. His family has been touched by multiple sclerosis. "My brother-in-law has MS and his mother passed away from it," Nick said. "Now his daughter, my niece, has it and they have two cousins as well that have it."

Nick brought the idea of the Orange Blossom donation program to Edible Arrangements, and he's proud that the success will lead to expanding it.

Thanks to your orders, Edible Arrangements and National MS Society staff are in discussions to have a nationwide MS Awareness month program in March, with donations going to the National MS Society. We appreciate everyone's support!

Danielle is a Development Coordinator for the Greater New England Chapter of the National MS Society. Prior to joining the staff at the National MS Society, she served as a crew team captain during the 2009 and 2010 MS Challenge Walks.

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Team Apparel

Written by Danielle on July 13, 2011 at 9:09 am

Are you planning on purchasing team t-shirts or other apparel to wear during the Cape Cod Challenge Walk? If you purchase a tee shirt through Spreadshirt, 20% of the proceeds will be donated to the National MS Society. The shirt can be fully customized with your team's name, logo, or any other design you wish.

If you order merchandise between July 13 and 20, use coupon code CHALLENGE (case-sensitive!) during checkout to receive 15% off the orders. Spreadshirt will still donate 20% of the pre-discount price.

Looking good while raising funds has never been so easy!

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This week is fundraising week!

Written by Danielle on July 12, 2011 at 8:08 am

Have you reached your personal fundraising goal for the MS Challenge Walk 2011? This week (July 11–15) is a great opportunity to meet your goal as well as help to move toward reaching our overall Challenge Walk MS goal of $1,150,000!

Each walker is challenged to raise $1,500. Our goal is to support and encourage your fundraising efforts every step of the way! With that in mind, we are offering three special fundraising incentives for walkers and teams participating in the Challenge Walk.

We will be hosting an informational phone and online presentation for walkers to ask questions about fundraising and also to exchange unique ways to solicit donations! Visit the event's listing for details on how you can participate.

It�??s not too late to register your friends and family, fundraise and join the movement.

One of the keys to successful fundraising for the MS Challenge Walk is to ask absolutely everyone for support. The more donors you solicit, the more donations you get! The walker with the highest number of donors as of August 15th will �??feel the love�?� and receive special recognition along the walk route and lunch stop each day and during the evening programs.

Mini-Challenges This Week

Fundraise Online! Each person who raises at least $250 online this week will be entered to win a fabulous gift certificate for dinner at a local restaurant!*

Show Yourself Some Love! Did you know that walkers who make self-pledges and ask friends for donations typically raise up to six times more money than those who only do one or the other? Each person who makes a self-donation of $10 or more will be entered to win a gift card for Dunkin Donuts!

THE GRAND PRIZE: The person who turns in the most money this week will win an Amazon.com gift card!

Winners will be announced on the MS Challenge Walk Facebook page on Monday, July 18th.

*Participants must raise donations online to be eligible for prizes. Enter offline donations in your participant center before mailing the checks to our PO Box.

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Yard sale adventures

Written by Jill on July 11, 2011 at 8:00 am

Awhile back, our friendly neighborhood weatherman predicted a nice weekend. Warm, but not too hot; a chance of a few thunderstorms; and oh, a ginormous yard sale in East Taunton.

The two days of our fundraising yard sale are always interesting. Last year's was held in the rain; this year, we endured acaterpillar invasion. They were everywhere — and I do mean EVERYWHERE. I spent most of the day walking around the sale doing my part to save the trees by squishing the caterpillars. I must have stepped on five hyndred of them, with my sister laughing at me every time I squished another one.

To hold these yard sales, we have braved monsoons (or at least it felt like one), blazing hot temperatures, the aforementioned caterpillars, and lots and lots of crazy people. But we have also had some really great stuff come out of it as well. Years ago, three neighbors we had never met came over to help; now they help out each year. The bikers from the "social club" lend us tables and check in to see how things are going.

That's one full garage!

As you can see from the photo to the right (click for a larger view), the garage this year was filled to the brim with donations for the sale. Deirdre had to crawl out of the garage when we had packed almost everything in and then we filled up even that small space. I really hope that we do not need to get to the electrical panel in the back of the garage before the sale. If we do, we may be sitting in the dark for a few days!

In the end, it was all worth it. We saw plenty of friendly faces, turned one person's trash into another person's treasure — and, best of all, we raised $1,100!

Interested in holding your own yard sale? Read this checklist for tips to get you started.

Jill lives in East Taunton with her husband and a very annoying cat. She was diagnosed with MS a little over 10 years ago when she was 24. She has been participating in the Challenge Walk since the beginning as a crew member and can also be found at many other fundraising events.

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Let the fundraising begin!

Written by Todd on March 28, 2011 at 10:27 am

I was in Columbia, South Carolina, for the weekend as my family there hosted our team's annual fundraising golf tournament. It is always a beautiful time of year down there, and a great time is had out on the course. My deepest thanks and love go out to my family for continuing to support the National MS Society by organizing this fundraising tournament each year.

Our family's team fundraising campaign is kicked off each year with golf tournament, which raises a significant portion of the team's funds. We are fortunate for so many wonderful personal and corporate supporters.

Now that we have entered our fundraising season, I look forward to reaching out to friends, family and new co-workers (if done selectively) to ask them to support our family's team at the upcoming MS Challenge Walk. As I've been mentally (and manually) organizing my "ask", and starting to compile a list of people to solicit, I am eager to take advantage of the online tools in my Participant Center.

While its functionality (and ease) is great, I don't it to lull me into laziness in my solicitations. It would be easiest to import all the email addresses from my contact list into my Participant Center and shoot out a generic email to all, asking them for money. While there is a group of people to whom I will send such an email, I'll avoid this approach for just everyone. When you think about it, there are some people who should be sent an individualized email or letter. I mean, isn't the money they give valuable enough to take another moment to send them a special correspondence. I think it is.

The point is this: think about each person to whom you are soliciting. If someone falls into the category of receiving a more general email, that is fine. But if you come across someone who for whatever reason prompts your mind (or heart) to pause and suggest you send a personalized correspondence, follow your instincts and go that route. If you need help writing your letter, check out our advice and templates. The extra minute it will take to send them a personal solicitation may just turn out to be your biggest donor because of the attention and care you showed them. The money they give is worth your investment of time.

Todd is formerly the Director of Development for the Greater New England Chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. In addition to reading his blog posts, you can also find Todd on Twitter.

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Ideas for workplace fundraising

Written by Todd on February 16, 2011 at 11:39 am

For those who read my first blog post on the subject, you'll know that I am trying to uncover a little information and guidance about how to solicit donations from colleagues at my new job.

While every work culture is different, I plan to selectively solicit new professional colleagues with whom I have already developed a bond. I'm not gearing up to email the entire department asking for money. They work in fundraising already, and at least half of the recipients wouldn't know me from a hole in the wall. But I'll create a list of 15–25 employees with whom I can correspond with confidence that they will donate. My stretch goal then will be to have others hear about what I'm doing at the MS Challenge Walk and want to donate because they have been touched in some way by MS.

As part of my research, I have uncovered several resources. I don't know if these are practical for me in the first year of my new work, but they are great ideas that I wish to share. There are some really cool workplace party ideas here that could easily be a fundraising. eHow provides some basic charity fundraising ideas for the workplace. There is good money to be made with ten fun and great fundraising ideas for your workplace. And if that's not enough, here are one hundred fundraising ideas at work.

Could you envision your workplace doing any of these? If so, start making them happen!

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