3 steps to successful fundraising
By Chelsea Low
Choosing and hosting a PwYF team fundraiser can seem daunting at first, but if you follow these three tricks, you’re guaranteed success:
- Choose something you really want to do yourself!
- Create a Facebook event AND put it on the PwYF.ca calendar.
- Share widely and encourage people outside PwYF to attend!
Hosting a successful fundraiser really is this simple. Let me break it down for you:
If you pick an event based on something you’re interested in, you’re going to be a lot more passionate, engaged, and enthusiastic when you talk about it. This will naturally get people interested and excited to attend. It will shine through in your social media posts as you share the event and will help you make connections with the event attendees when the date comes.
Also, don’t be afraid to step outside the board game box (hee hee)! Feel free to plan something that engages people outside of the board game community, because there are many people within the community that love Carmichael and want to support them in any way they can. They might not come to a board gaming event, but they might attend a tea tasting, a cooking class, or a birdwatching walk.
Creating an event on the PwYF calendar will allow you to reach a larger and more public target audience and gain some PwYF social media love. If you also link that event back to a public Facebook event, you’ll engage all your followers on your own social media, but you’ll also get the interest of anyone associated with anyone you invite. It will allow you to interact with your potential attendees via discussion posts, allow you to communicate important information about the event, and help to create new friendships through shared interests.
Lastly, share your event on social media! Get your friends/family members to click “interested”, because then their friends will also see your event and your event will show up on their feeds, increasing the amount of exposure your event gets.
Also, there are tons of groups on Facebook that you can share your event to, advertising to a wider audience. For example, you could tag local and regional community event groups and board game groups. If you’re organizing an event focused on a specific game, you can post to groups focused on that game – during last year’s campaign, that approach drew in one of our Wingspan tournament finalists, who drove to Regina from Manitoba for the event!
Don’t forget to tag the sponsors and/or the supporting venue for the event, giving them a nod of thanks while attracting attention from their followers as well.
Bonus tip: all teams have access to the PwYF Team Handbook and a team coach. If you run into challenges anywhere along the planning journey, just consult the handbook or ask your coach. No team will ever be left to figure everything out on their own. We’re a community, and we support one another to ensure everyone is putting the FUN in fundraising.
