The Great Gorilla Run

We ask our donors to do (and put up with) a lot... but have you ever asked them to dress up as a gorilla and run 4.3 miles?

According to The Sunday Telegraph, this past Saturday's sixth annual 7K Great Gorilla Run in London featured 750 runners raising money for the Gorilla Organization. Some say the race had over 1,000.

Participants in London had to pay 75 pounds and promise to raise another 400 pounds in sponsorships.

Race spokeswoman Jillian Miller, estimated the race would raise nearly $400,000 in London... but the event has quickly spread to a worldwide phenomenon. In San Francisco last year, the event drew an equally crazy crowd.



Here is a cute video from the San Francisco event in 2006.

Cow pie bingo and the poop pool

When I was growing up, a local group used to raise money during my town's annual summer fair with an event called the "Daisy Drop."

It's known by different names in different parts of the country... some people call it "cow pie bingo" and others call it "cow chip fundraisers" or even a "poop pool."

The rules were pretty simple... donors could buy a square of land in a big field... then a poor cow (named Daisy) would be released and everyone would wait to see where she dropped her first pile of crap... and if it landed in your sqaure - you won a 50/50 raffle of cash.

It's gross and it's somewhat cruel to the animal involved to have hundreds of locals yelling at it with begging pleas to dump on their square... but I credit this as one of the turning points in my life that made me want to learn more about fundraising.

For some reason, when I read this morning that "five out of the seven winners of the Dar es Salaam Goat races held in Dar es Salaam on Saturday, donated their cash prizes to a charity fund pool," it brough back childhood memories of Daisy.

Fundraising plan to use erotic calendars backfires

I read a funny story today about these seven middle-aged Spanish moms who posed for a tongue-in-cheek erotic calendar as fundraiser for their children's tiny, rural school. Unfortunately, the plan backfired and now they are saddled with debt and 5,000 unwanted copies.

One of the photos shows the mothers with discreetly placed Christmas tinsel as their only garb. Other goofy poses include a shotgun-toting mom wearing only a fox pelt, and another covering her body with a red umbrella.

Goofy? That's one way to put it.

I've got no problem with middle-aged moms poising for goofy calendars. I actually think it's kinda funny. But I do have a problem with half ass "fundraising" ideas that focus too much on the goofy stuff and not enough on the necessary planning and budgeting stuff. The AP article goes on to say:

The calendars came out in November and at first were a big hit. But the plan fizzled. The women acknowledge being amateurs in publishing and advertising, and they missed the Christmas shopping rush. Now, sales of the $8 calendar have dried up and they owe a printer nearly $16,000.

Unfortunately, these moms are now up against an insurmountable enemy... a ticking clock. A lot of amateur fundraising plans fail to account for "time" in their hastily arraigned plans. And for every day that passes their problem gets bigger.

Nonprofit legal humor

I found a cool website recently that shares dozens of humorous anecdotes about nonprofit legal issues. Don Kramer publishes a legal newsletter that has "Nonprofit Law You Need to Know."

I thought this real thank you note sent to a donor was priceless:

The charity sent out its thank you letter to supporters a little more than two weeks after the fundraising event. It read in its entirety as follows:

“On behalf of the [Special] Awards Committee, thank you for your support of the [Special] Awards Breakfast and the important work of the [charity]. Your gift will make a difference in the lives of so many.

“This special fundraising event took place on Friday, [date] with a networking and VIP reception that started at 7:15 a.m. and the Breakfast & Award Ceremony commencing at 8:00 a.m. The breakfast was held at the [name] Hotel, [address], in the Millennium Ballroom.

“It is because of donors like you that we are able to keep our promise [to better the world].”

One can only wonder whether the second paragraph was included because it was such a memorable event that the donors would have forgotten where they had been.

Wow. Talk about a mail merge malfunction!

Funny fundraising video?

Someone sent me a link today to this funny video from eTapestry which was posted on YouTube. It's titled "The Mystery of the Successful Fundraising Organization."



It's a creative advertisement. But, I'm curious if you are more or less willing to consider using a fundraising software that produces videos like this?

Make-A-Wish Foundation Bankrupted by Greedy Kid

The folks at The Onion produced this excellent satirical video claiming that a 8-year-old Boston boy who "took advantage of some bureaucratic loophole" in the charter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation by asking the organization to provide him with unlimited wishes.

Apparently, Chad's "non-stop" wish fulfillment" has grown to include "nine trips to Walt Disney World for himself and his family of five," "a real live F-14 Tomcat (which had to be decommissioned from Afghanistann)," and "daily hot dog lunches with Yankee slugger Johnny Damon," with the result that Chad alone has cost Make-A-Wish Foundation five times its annual budget.


Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation With Wish For Unlimited Wishes

The spoof has been so popular, it even got an official response on Snopes..

If you want to give a gift to Make-A-Wish Foundation, you can go here.

Thanks to a loyal reader of Don't Tell the Donor who lives in Israel for sending me an email about this story... and congrats to Jeff Brooks for beating me to this post :)

Barefoot coach gets huge donation

A college basketball coach named Ron Hunter in Indianapolis wanted to raise 40,000 pairs of shoes for Samaritan's Feet - a charity based in Charlotte, N.C. that helps children in the U.S. and around the world.

To draw attention to this feat - he decided to go barefoot while coaching a game for his team at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

Soo... it was a little unorthodox, it might have violated some health codes, and it most certainly stunk... but it worked.

The coach appeared on several ESPN shows on Thursday, and secured donations of thousands of shoes from Converse, Wal-Mart, Nine West and the Department of Homeland Security.The mission of the nonprofit, Christian-based Samaritan charity is to send 10 million shoes in 10 years to children living in poverty.

By the time the results, nearly $20,000 and 110,000 pairs of shoes were donated.

Hunter, 43, who almost never sits when coaching games, didn't have his feet stepped on, but they were still sore.

"My feet hurt so bad," he said after the game. "But imagine a child or a human going their whole lives without shoes."

As a small footnote to the story (get it?), IUPUI beat Oakland 82-69.

400 Santas running for charity

The 2007 Santa Run attracted more than 400 people dressed as Santa to run the annual charity fund raiser in Newtown, Powys (located in Wales).

“We still had up to 400 santas running the four-and-a-half-mile course which was marvellous,” said organiser Michael Jones.

Event organizers are disputing reports that bad weather kept more people away. To check out more photos from past events, go here... and be sure to check out this story about the Santas arrested for starting a street brawl in 2004.

Hockey team waxes their hair for fundraiser

Douglas Reid coaches the Central Cobra-Mavericks hockey team in New Zealand.

Unfortunately, it costs $18,000 each year for the team to compete in the New Zealand Hockey League and Reid doesn't like to charge his players more than $500 each.

When the coach started looking for a fundraising idea instead of the usual "sausage sizzle" the team usually throws he thought of a very painful idea. The players would eventually raise $5,000 by having their body hair waxed in the shape of sponsors.

Seventeen year old Nick Wilson had his legs waxed. Charles Jenkins got a strawberry flavour chest and armpit wax. Coach Reid had the letters "UR" waxed into his chest for IT company Unlimited Realities, who sponsored him $500 for the sacrifice.

Jody O'Callaghan at the Manawatu Standard reports that Reid then had a chest and back wax, which his wife in Scotland knew nothing about, for a further $1,000 worth of sponsorship.

I'm not sure if it's financial despair or male bravado, but either way I would hope stories like this make your fundraising responsibilities a little easier today.

Rap video makes college telemarketing cool

The rumors of telemarketing's death have been greatly exaggerated.

It can be a very effective integrated marketing technique and even though Trent Stamp hates it, telemarketing can also be an efficient and engaging way to keep in touch with your donors.

If your program is slumping maybe all you need is a cool rap video to train your callers. The telemarketers at the University of Toronto put this video together.

Hats off to Dori Sonntag for the posting of this video and other great college telemarketing training tips at her blog, Inspired Annual Giving.

Doonesbury does Second Life philanthropy

Lucy Bernholz at Philanthrophy 2173 reminds us that once something goes mainstream, it's time to find the next big thing.

Sunday, September 9 the strip ran a bit on philanthropy and fundraising in Second Life. (if the strip doesn't come up on this link, scroll to 9/9/07)

Thanks for the link Lucy.

A little inspired fundraising humor

Dori Sonntag is the Director of Annual Giving at Gonzaga University. She publishes her own fundraising blog called Inspired Annual Giving.

It's a great new site and it makes me jealous that she uses her real name and identity when posting... but she also made me laugh with this video today.

Fundraising, flamingo style

Some of you may have heard that Union Products, the Massachusetts company that produced kitschy pink plastic yard flamingos, closed this month. If only their marketing department had heard of Shannon Mammen earlier.

Shannon is a Sunday school teacher at St. Luke's Lutheran Church in New Richmond, Wisconsin. According to the Pioneer Press, this past fall she had the idea to raise money for Hurricane Katrina. She ordered a flock of flamingos from eBay and then she notified her congregation the birds would randomly appear in their yards unless they paid "flamingo insurance" for $10. After that - the real fun started.

Flamingos were placed in the yards of congregation members and were removed only when the members donated money to the fundraising event. The members were not required to donate a set sum, and Mammen said donations ranged from $5 to $50.

The fun of the event, Mammen said, was that once members were "flamingoed," they could choose whose house would be next.

The event raised $2,000. But if you ask me... that sounds more like extortion than fundraising. And you thought telemarketing was invasive?