Chopperguy's TNT Blog

I am unclear exactly who came up with this list, so I give Team in Training th credit for it!

1. Speak at clubs or organizations you are a member of and ask for a donation
2. Hold a bake sale
3. Ask a restaurant or bar to donate a portion of one day’s income to your fundraising (you publicize the LLS Day to everyone you know)
4. Hold a garage sale
5. Provide a service (babysitting, dog walking, house cleaning, etc.) in exchange for a donation
6. Hold a dinner party at your home in exchange for donations
7. Organize a dress down day at work – employees can dress casually on a specific day in exchange for a donation
8. Ask friends, significant other, and parents to send a fundraising letter to their friends and associates on your behalf
9. Create a gift basket with wine, food or other goodies and hold a raffle
10. Put all your change in a jar and then roll the coins and use the money toward your fundraising goal
11. Email your friends, family and co-workers to follow up with those who haven’t sent in a donation
12. Ask your employer to donate a day off that you can raffle off at work
13. Bachelorette Party or Bachelor Auction
14. Ask your house of worship if you can speak about your fundraising or include your LLS participation in the newsletter
15. Ask vendors who you do business with for a donation
16. Return bottles and cans and donate the funds
17. Offer to write your donor’s names on parts of your body (head, arms, legs) during the event. The better the donation, the better the body part.
18. Sell arts and crafts and donate the funds
19. Publicize your efforts in your college alumni magazine
20. Publicize your efforts in your office newsletter
21. Hold a silent auction and have local businesses and restaurants donate their goods and services
22. Buy donuts for breakfast (or get them donated) and sell them every Monday morning at work or school
23. Auction off your unwanted but valuable items on E-Bay (or get donated items to auction off)
24. Provide pizza every Friday for lunch at work – take donations for each slice (don’t forget to get the pizza donated!)
25. Organize a TV or Movie night- have everyone over for popcorn and snacks and they donate to you what they would pay for a movie ticket (idea: place bets on the winner of a reality show!)

I have been working hard and coming up with ideas for Fundraising.

The steps I have taken are these:

• Set up your TNT personal website, there are many great ones out there, find one that you like and emulate it.
• Get a Facebook (or any other social Networking site) Account and get friends. If you got one, use it!
• Go to Godaddy.com and spend the 10 bucks to get your own domain name and set up forwarding to your TNT page. You can re-use it if you participate in TNT again. Mine is chopperTNT.com
• Vistaprint.com is your BFF. Order the Free Business Cards. If you don't mind spending a couple bucks, get your mission on the back. This is where you put your web address, email address, contact information and blog address
• Start a Blog and link to your TNT page
• Get on Twitter.com and start collecting followers.
• Send an email to your ENTIRE email address book. Even if you only contacted them once, even to just order something. Ask thm to send your email to everyone in their contact list. There are many people out there that are ready to donate to something. Include your blog and website address.
• Find a corporate sponsor. Someone who will do campaign matching.
• Mail out your letters to every address you can find. Go on the web and contact every business you use, including restuants and everyone. Make a "Donation Request" letter, include your business card, blog and website address, and send it to these businesses.
• Hold a Silent Auction, find a business to host it, and ask people to donate items.
• Hand out Business cards to everyone you meet, put them on your desk at work, drop them in the bowl at a resturant, leave one with your waitress with their tip.
• SELL YOURSELF! - Sell advertising space on your body, arms, legs, forehead. Anything

Although, these are but a few suggestions, I could go on, and will probably do so soon. This is all for now.

Good Luck!

If you want to check out the pictures from the Silent Auction, Please click Here. Half of the net proceeds from sales from this gallery will be donated back to the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. Last day to order is 3/31/2009!

UPDATE: The wife and I raised nearly $2,000 for the LL&S/TNT Silent Auction Wednesday night! Keep checking back for updates!

Do you Twitter? Well, really, I don't, but I'm trying to. Just another way to get information out as it's needed.

So, check out my Twitter site at http://www.twitter.com/chopperguy and "Follow Me" as I run for a cure.

Silent Auction items updated! Click here to check it out.

I would like to thank everyone who came out to support us at Big Al's, and thank you for bidding on all the wonderful items available! The team had a very successful night! There were so many items that many items were not even bid on. Also, a few Team members had to be turned away because there was no space for their items.

Because of that, the team will be holding another auction very soon! info to come when it's available.

Once the numbers are crunched, I will post them on the blog.

Thank you, together, we will provide the families with comfort, help a child never to suffer, and hopefully find a cure!

Last week I put in 14 miles running and 4000 steps on the elliptical machine. Even after 5 years in the military, the farthest I had ever run was 5 miles. Saturday, running with the team, I made it 7 . Yeah, I'm still feeling that today.