Relay for Life is an amazing opportunity for all Bryant students to get involved in something that is both fun and gives back to the community. The annual event raises money for the American Cancer Society when teams sign up and get donations for the cause from family and friends. With every team looking to meet their fundraising goals, it sparks a little friendly competition between clubs and groups on campus looking to come out as number one. Want your team to reach their goal of fundraising super-stardom? As HC Bryant’s team has reached #2 in the highest amount raised this year, we wanted to share a few tips on how to fundraise like a champion!
Social Media: Let’s be honest… who doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter these days? An easy and effective way to get the word out about your Relay fundraising is to share it with the world online! Whether you post a link to your team’s page where people can donate on your wall for all your friends to see, send out IM’s and messages to people individually or tweet a link to the Relay for Life site, people are guaranteed to take notice and send some donations your way! Don’t just do it once and be done though, update your friends periodically on how the fundraising is going and making a status to remind them where they can go to make a donation.
E-mail: Sending individual e-mails is a super effective fundraising strategy (it helped me raise $250 to date!). Shoot a nice personal email to close family and friends who you think would be willing to help you out. In your message, explain what Relay for Life does and tell them about your personal and team goals. Provide a link to your page where they can make an online donation or offer an address where the less internet-savvy can send a check to.
Parents: Remember doing school fundraisers or selling Girl Scout cookies when we were younger? Even though we were supposed to doing the fundraising, we definitely owe most of our income to our parents who always bought the most or got their coworkers to buy dozens of boxes of Thin Mints. Sure we’re grown-up college girls now but it doesn’t mean that we can’t get a little help from mom and dad! Give your parents a call and ask them to spread the word about Relay by forwarding your emails or telling their friends and coworkers about the event. If your parents use Facebook (even if we wish they didn’t) ask them to share the link to your Relay site on their wall. This has helped many of our girls raise money.
No matter what approach you take to reaching your goal, make sure to thank all the people that help you getting there! Always send a nice letter, email or make a phone call to your donors to thank them for their gift! No donation should go unnoticed and every cent counts!Â
Want to give back to the cause? Click here to donate to Her Campus Bryant’s Relay team!