Golden Rules of Fundraising

• The key to successful fundraising is to START EARLY!
  You raise money only when you ask.
• Ask BIG – Don’t ask for just a $10 donation, ask for $50. You may get $50, or you may get less, but if you ask for only $10, that is probably all you will get!
• Keep a good attitude. Be prepared that not everyone is going to donate. The more people you ask, the more donations you will get. If you don’t hear “no” a couple times a week, you are not asking enough people.
• Don’t feel bad about asking people for money. Remember that you are not asking for money for yourself. It is going to a great cause. The more people you ask, the easier it becomes.
• Set a goal to ask at least one new person for a donation every day. You have nothing to lose by asking.
• Talk about it! Tell everyone you know/meet about what you are doing and what the money goes toward. The more you talk about it, the more interest you will generate.
• Make it easy for people to donate. Explain how to make a secure online donation through the Summit for Someone web site, http://www.summitforsomeone.org. Remember to mention that they will receive a tax receipt directly from BCM.
• It is important for you to decide what methods will best fit each of your donors so that you can maximize the amount of money you raise for the cause.
• Remember you are not in this alone. Enlist the help of your spouse, family and friends.
• Most importantly, have fun with it! If you think of fundraising as a chore, it will become one.

2015 Summit for Someone Fundraising Guide

Are you looking for fundraising ideas? An updated 2015 Summit for Someone Fundraising Guide has been released.. you can check it out here!

We also have a new resource available for our climbers: a library full of inspirational stories, videos, and quotes from BCM youth. Available on the fundraising page of the SFS site.

Fundraising Friday: Do a Bingo Fundraiser!

Looking for fundraising ideas for your Summit for Someone climb?

Who doesn’t know how to play BINGO? This is simple and a lot of fun! Pick someone funny and loud to emcee the event. Call a local Bingo parlor or local restaurant/bar to see about hosting the Bingo night. Think of a creative theme for the night:

• Costume party
• Holiday Bingo

What You Will Need:

• Bingo supplies (cards, ink blotters, the bingo balls in a basket or hopper). The place you hold this may already have these items and may let you use them.
• Secure donated prizes through local businesses and your own personal contacts and connections – a good idea is to put them all together as gift baskets or bags and make them look pretty
• Promote your event any way you can. Send out a mass email, put it up on craigslist.org.org, make flyers and hand them out and tell everyone you know!
• Charge a “suggested” donation at the door of $20 and have someone
  there to collect the funds. Please note: If you are producing flyers, you may wish to state the donation charge at the door. According to state laws, bingo does not have a charge, therefore all donations are
  “suggested” and the bingo games are free.
• Have someone (fun and loud) to act as the emcee and call out the bingo numbers as you go.
• You can set up a different bingo line on the card for each game (i.e.
  diagonally, the four corners, all around the free space, etc.) to make it more fun and challenging.
• Give a prize to the winner of each game (9 or 10 games is the suggested number and takes about 1-1/2 hours).
• Give a “grand prize” to the final winner (suggested game is to have this one be to fill in an entire card).
• You can also increase your donations by auctioning off items between the games (like a tooth whitening session from your dentist or perhaps a local artist that is willing to donate a piece of their work).
• If there is ever a tie, you can decide the tie by having them each reach into the hopper and whoever gets the higher numbered ball wins. Have a bag of silly, dollar store items for the tie loser to pick a consolation prize.

Training and fundraising combined: Jordan Duncan and Kyle Gerecke, Mexico Volcanoes

From Kyle and Jordan’s friend, Aaron Picar:

A couple good friends of mine, Kyle Gerecke and Jordan Duncan will be climbing the 18,410-foot Pico de Orizaba and 17,158 “Ixta” in Mexico to raise money for Big City Mountaineers.

They’ve got $7500 to raise and the money will fund backpacking and canoeing
trips for at-risk inner-city teens in Colorado, California, the Pacific Northwest and the Boundary Waters. All the participants come from youth agencies like College Track and The Boys & Girls Club. and help a bunch of teens spend a week in the mountains next summer, and hopefully alter the course of their lives. An $18 donation will pay for part of the costs of a teen to spend a week in the backcountry with some positive role models.

So to raise part of their money, Kyle and Jordan started climbing the courthouse steps at 3am. It’s about 54 steps and 32 feet.

I joined in at 1pm, really to provide moral support and get a good workout. What
resulted is quite possibly the most epic thing I’ve done.

By the time we finished at 7pm, I ended up going 6 hours, climbed the stairs 200
times, for about ten miles.

Kyle and Jordan climbed for 16 hours, 500 climbs, for 26 miles each. That’s a
marathon worth of steps. I’m in good shape, but these boys are in extreme
shape.

Most of the downtown businesses donated, telling us, “We’ve been watching you
all day,” as they put money in the donation box.

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Interested in climbing the volcanoes in Mexico? There’s still time to sign up!