From Pennies to Millions of Dollars: Fund Raising Ideas That Work

Special Event Mimics Speed Dating to Match Grant Makers and Seekers

Coupling speed dating with grant seeking has proved to be a winning match for Canadian charities and grant makers.

In February, the Hamilton Funders Network, in Ontario, taking a page from the increasingly popular approach to meeting prospective dates, hosted the area’s first speed-fund-raising event for 300 people, 25 of them from grant-making organizations and the rest from grant-seeking charities.

The event, a continental breakfast followed by three hours’ worth of short meetings between grant makers and charity officials, was free for the grant seekers. The grant makers, along with two other sponsors, picked up the $5,000 tab for the food, space for the event, and other incidental expenses.

While eating breakfast and waiting for the doors to open at 9 a.m., grant seekers were given a list of the grant makers attending the session, plus information about what causes each one supported and how to contact them afterward.

Once inside, groups of 10 to 15 grant seekers sat down with each grant maker for a series of 20-minute meetings that ended with the gong of a bell. (Each grant maker had a table for the meetings that also displayed information, such as the foundation’s annual report and brochures that grant seekers could take with them.)

As with speed dating, participants were allowed only brief encounters: For the first 10 minutes of each meeting, grant makers gave a brief explanation of their work. For the remaining 10 minutes, grant seekers had the floor, introducing their organizations and asking specific questions. Over the course of the event, they were able to meet with five grant makers; each grant maker was introduced to nearly 75 nonprofit officials.

The event was the brainchild of Susan West, a member of the Hamilton network and a program officer at the Ontario Trillium Foundation. She came up with the idea after attending a speed-dating event a year ago and meeting a man she is still dating.

The approach was popular: So many charity officials registered for the event that organizers had to create a waiting list. And according to a survey conducted after the event, 86 percent of the participants categorized it as “good or great,” and said they were likely to attend again. A second gathering is planned for next year.

Ms. West says the event was a good use of time because it quickly introduced her to many charities she did not know and helped in “weeding out applications that wouldn’t really fit.”

As for the grant seekers, some received grants immediately after the event: One of them was Jim Hudson, executive director of the Bay Area Restoration Council, which arranges for 6,000 elementary-school students to grow marsh plants in the classroom that are later replanted by a local botanical garden.

After joining one of the meetings with Rachel Milan, a grant maker at the Teachers Credit Union, he was pleased to learn that her organization supports educational projects, and could potentially help Mr. Hudson’s charity out of a jam.

The charity’s work with students was in jeopardy because its marsh-plant supplier had closed its wetlands greenhouse, forcing the organization to turn to another supplier that charged more for the same items.

After speaking to Ms. Milan at the Friday event, Mr. Hudson sent her an e-mail message later in the day with a description of the marsh project, including a budget and photographs of children working with plants. By Monday, a grant for the project was approved. Mr. Hudson had requested $2,500 but received a $3,000 grant to cover any unexpected costs.

The event surpassed all of his expectations, Mr. Hudson says. “The key points from my perspective were the painless nature of it, and you get to meet a bunch of possible funders at once and see their priorities.”

Ms. Milan was pleased with the experience as well. Within three weeks of the event, she says, she had scheduled meetings with 35 of the nonprofit officials she had met there.

Penny Campaign Raises Big Money for a Georgia Theater

A passion for collecting rare pennies helped a nonprofit theater in Marietta, Ga., raise a quarter of a million dollars.

The campaign got its start after Michael Thoresen, a local philanthropist, came across some rare pennies in a drawer and decided to offer Theatre in the Square a challenge. He pledged that his family’s Thoresen Foundation, in Canton, Ga., would donate $100 for each penny the theater could find with two shafts of wheat engraved on its back.

The pennies, minted from 1909 to 1958, are prized by collectors but each one is worth only a few cents apiece.

Mr. Thoresen said his foundation would give up to $150,000 for 1,500 pennies, but the drive brought in nearly 12,000 of the wheat pennies. As it became clear that the goal would be surpassed, Mr. Thoresen offered another $100,000 as a bonus for the extra pennies, bringing the total gift up to $250,000.

Through his foundation, Mr. Thoresen has supported the theater with annual gifts for six years, but he thought the penny project would not only be fun but also bring attention to the organization, says Palmer Wells, a co-founder of the 25-year-old theater, which has an annual budget of $1.8-million.

The penny drive accomplished Mr. Thoresen’s goals, generating articles in two local newspapers, and spots on a local television news program and on an Atlanta Web site that tracks entertainment and other city activities. Thousands of coins were brought to the theater, mailed in on postcards and in letters, and sent overnight by Federal Express. As news of the fund-raising project spread, pennies even started arriving from out of state, Mr. Wells says.

“We were overwhelmed by the gift and the response, not just from our subscribers but from some total strangers too,” he says. “We had no idea so many people out there fancied wheat pennies.”

The $250,000 donation will be used to support the theater’s general operating costs and help pay for performances of two plays, All the King’s Men and a holiday production next season.

The campaign, says Mr. Wells, “not only brought attention to the theater, but I think it made a lot of friends for us as well.” What’s more, he says, “for a number of people who normally couldn’t afford to make a contribution, this was a way for them to help us out.”

Hair-Razing Events Generate Money to Support Research on Children’s Cancers

A charity started by three volunteers now raises millions of dollars by persuading large numbers of people to shave their heads to help kids with cancer. The goal is not just to raise money, but to show solidarity with children who have lost their hair during chemotherapy.

The St. Baldrick’s Foundation, in Pasadena, Calif., raised $8.3-million last year for research on cancers that affect children and is aiming for $10-million this year. To participate, volunteers across the country recruit sponsors who pay them to go bald and help organize events at which several people get their heads shaved at once.

Last year’s volunteers, about 15,000 people, coordinated shaving events in 43 states and eight countries, and the charity is on track to meet its goal this year, with more than $7-million raised so far and 264 events scheduled out of the 300 it plans to hold.

To get advice on how to run an event, the organization’s network of volunteers can participate in telephone calls or e-mail exchanges or use the charity’s Web site. Since volunteers who organize the events encourage donors to pay their pledges online, 90 percent of the money the charity raises is donated that way.

The money-making concept came from the charity’s founders, Tim Kenny, John Bender, and Enda McDonnell, all reinsurance executives. The name St. Baldrick’s is a play on St. Patrick’s Day because most of the initial shaving events took place on or around that holiday, though they now occur throughout the year. The men’s first event was held in an Irish pub in New York and raised $140,000 for the National Childhood Cancer Foundation, in Bethesda, Md.

“They knew early on that they were onto something really big,” says Kathleen Ruddy, the foundation’s executive director. By the time St. Baldrick’s Foundation became a tax-exempt organization in 2004, she notes, contributions had reached $3.5-million annually.

The foundation has since become a grant-making institution with a staff of 13, distributing more than $6-million last year to organizations conducting pediatric-cancer research. Eighty-three cents of every dollar raised goes toward research, with the remainder spent on administrative costs, the charity says.

While the founders initially spread shaving events nationwide by getting others in the reinsurance business involved, their fund-raising efforts have attracted other industries. Firefighters have become one of the largest supporters, followed by police officers.

Schoolchildren have also been drawn to the cause. “We teach kids that they can be philanthropists too,” says Ms. Ruddy. “One of the great things about this program is that if you have hair or money to spare, you can participate.”

Participants tend to have fun at the events, and competition is a part of that, she says. Teams of people often vie to see which one can get the most heads shaved, or raise the most money.

Arlene Sanchez, who has been organizing shaving events in Albuquerque since 2004, says that there isn’t a typical “shavee.” She recalls a pair of “stunning” sorority sisters going bald for the cause at her event last year. One wrote to Ms. Sanchez afterward, telling her how profound the experience had been. This year the sorority is returning and has challenged other sororities and fraternities to participate.

Ms. Sanchez started raising money for St. Baldrick’s after her daughter, Seneca, was diagnosed with cancer at age 6. “I thought I needed to find a cure before it was too late,” she says.

Ms. Sanchez’s three events have brought in a total of nearly $200,000, and her daughter, now 10, is doing well after treatment at the University of New Mexico Hospital.

“Childhood cancer is something everyone is terrified of, and it seems so overwhelming to deal with,” says the foundation’s Ms. Ruddy. “This is a way to do it through humor and fun.”

Luxury-Travel Auction Raises Awareness and Dollars for Cancer Research

Combining her personal and professional interests, a travel consultant organizes her own online luxury-travel auction to fight cancer, raising $90,000 this year for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, in New York.

Stacy Small, a Palm Beach, Fla., consultant who arranges high-end vacations around the world for wealthy clients, began her Trips for Cancer auction last year to support her father, who was battling cancer and has since died. The auction raised $84,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

While Ms. Small donated 100 percent of the auction proceeds to charity again this year, she chose the breast-cancer foundation as the beneficiary in honor of her mother, who has survived two bouts with the disease.

Here’s how it works: Ms. Small persuades airlines and the same luxury resorts and hotels that she recommends to clients to donate airfare and rooms. Then, using a section of her company’s Web site, she encourages people to bid on the trips. Winning bidders provide their credit-card information; Ms. Small gives that information to the breast-cancer charity, which bills the trip buyer’s credit card.

Anyone can bid on the trips, though people must register on the site before bidding. Ms. Small’s company and the charity beneficiary both publicize the event to clients and supporters.

This year’s auction, which ran from March 1 to March 25, featured 55 trips for two, all at top-tier hotels or resorts in destinations such as Bali, Key West, Rio de Janeiro, or a combination of cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, Australia. Most of the travel packages included breakfast, and many came with spa treatments, golf outings, or dinners. Nine trips also came with round-trip airfare donated by Continental Airlines.

Opening bids this year ranged from $300 for a two-night stay at the W New Orleans in the French Quarter to $4,600 for a seven-night stay in Italy. All bids were required to be at least $100 higher than the preceding one.

For people who found a vacation they couldn’t pass up, an “It’s Yours” price gave them the opportunity to purchase the trip outright and avoid losing their dream vacation to another bidder: Those prices ranged from $1,300 for the W New Orleans to $10,000 for a trip to Italy that included stays in Florence and Venice.

“The idea is that your travel will benefit the cause. This isn’t about trying to get a cut-rate deal on a trip,” says Ms. Small.

Nevertheless, to encourage bargain hunters this year, she offered all visitors to the Web site, whether they bid or not, the chance to enter a raffle and win a trip or other luxury items such as a diamond necklace. Entering the raffle cost $200 for a single ticket and $500 for three. The top prize: a tour of four Italian cities with business-class airfare worth more than $15,000.

Like Ms. Small, other supporters have “taken a passion and turned it into revenue for the organization,” says Myra Biblowit, president of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. For instance, women in a group called Quilting for a Cure create and sell quilts to aid the foundation, raising $25,000 so far this year.

As with the quilters and other supporters, focusing on research to find a cure for cancer is the driving motivation behind Ms. Small’s travel auction. “If this helps fund one researcher’s study,” she says, “I can sleep better at night.”