You’ve heard the expression, ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’. But you’ve probably also heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Put those two things together and you have quite a conundrum.
For the past few years we ran a fundraising campaign asking people not to talk for 24 or 12 hours (depending on the year of the event) with the goal of people understanding how much we take for granted being able to easily communicate, as well as helping people understand the needs of the grant recipients from our foundation.
I for one, thought this was the most brilliant fundraising idea ever. People would get sponsors to support keeping them quiet for a day. But all in all it wasn’t successful. It was too hard for people to give up a day, or maybe it was too overwhelming to consider. I’m not sure. We tried it three years in a row and it just didn’t click.
So that was our try the same thing over and over… But we are pretty adamant about working hard and any non profit knows, fundraising is key or there is no non profit. So we went with try, try again.
During 2020 as an example, when the world was at a slow down, the try, try again theory worked as our team developed the 100 holes of golf fundraiser. It has since become our most profitable event.
This year we ran a Night at the Races event. If you haven’t been before it’s a fun night of watching random pre-recorded horse races, and betting on who you think the winner of the race will be. What we learned too is that we have an amazing group of people around us willing to support the work we do. I think we finally found a way that they can participate in a fun event that raises money for a great cause, and it doesn’t involve golf (ha ha).
There’s also an energy around in-person events that I have been familiar with for most of my working career. Plus, people like to have tangible things, like the race program and the betting ticket or their lucky sideboard number. It’s A LOT more work then the previous fundraiser but it pays off in seeing such a wonderful group of people have such a great time!
Like all good events, we couldn’t do it without our sponsors. They are very supportive and generous all year long but we want to give them an extra shout out here and thank them for their hard work that pays off for kids who want to communicate.
