TracyP   7 days later

It depends on what your goal is and how much money you need to raise. Mass mailings are helpful for getting new people introduced to your cause, but they're expensive and surprisingly labor-intensive. Also, people don't generally donate a lot of money based on one letter. This method is better for introducing your project to someone and then getting them more involved over time. Talking with people one-on-one takes a lot of time as well, but for a local project, it can make it easier to get larger individual donations, and if you're volunteering your time anyway, it's a lot cheaper than mailing to people. By talking directly with people, you can engage them more and develop a better long-term connection. Ideally, you could do a targeted mailing that includes calling specific people or meeting those people in person to discuss your project. If the person being solicited is a friend or associate of someone involved with the project, then that also lends credibility to you.

skycheif   14 days later

I found that it does depend on how big the project. I did a skate park 4 years ago and the skate kids did dances and door to door donations but we got the big donations everytime that newspaper did an artical in the paper for us. we made it a point to have something in the paper every week if not every 2-3 days. it was free advertising and people knew everything that was going on. We were able to raise $28,000 in a year just by doing those things. Now we just finished building a Kaboom/kool aid build June 13 and we had to find the food donations. this was easy becasue we talked to the local pizza shops and asked for a doantion and then played them against each other ( Dominos gave 10 pizza's would you be willing to donate 3 and that how we ended up with PIzza) we did that with the donuts and coffe. we even had a hair stlyist donate orange juice. I have found that as long as you take a letter with your tax exempt numer on letter head and you go and talk to people I am able to receive more things donated. Some think it takes longer but I have sen people throw away letters because they dont fully read or understand the cause. But if you talk to them personally they have a face with the cause and will be more likely to say yes then no.

MoniqueK   8 months later

I agree that personal face to face works alot better. Speaking to people personally also can help in making the committement. When we did our silent auction and we dropped off letters without speaking to the people in charge of the donations we did not get a call back from them. But, when we spoke to them and answered any questions they had it was easier to promote the cause and obtain the committement. Seeing your committement and excitment I believe helps seal the deal so to speak. Our group has not done mailings as yet, but I would tend to agree that they are costly and just as time consuming.

abalter   10 months later

We have been doing very well with online efforts. In a month we have over 147 folks on Facebook. We have used the PTO and neighborhood listservs successfully. We also have been in print in the PTO listserv. In our case, there is really pent up demand for this park and it is hard to disagree that a renovation is needed. The big catch is that the costs are astronomical.

csmith1987   over 1 year later

Our project has done a lot of online promotion for the park but we have only gotten donations from face-to-face contact. We are new and still learning but I think, like the the others have said, that seeing your excitement and commitment to the project helps a lot.