AIDG Fundraising Guide

AIDG Fundraising Guide for TecoTours

This fundraising guide contains the following:

1. Introduction

2. Talking points

3. Fundraising ideas

4. Paperwork—Donating through AIDG

5. Sample timeline

6. Sample fundraising letter

7. Sponsor record sheet

1. Introduction

Although raising $990 for your TecoTour may seem overwhelming at first, your fundraising goals can be easily achieved with careful planning and dedication. Give yourself plenty of time, brainstorm a list of a wide array of resources, and be confident and creative.

Begin by making a budget. Add together the cost of the TecoTour, airfare, vaccinations, travel insurance, and ground transportation in your home country: the result will be your total expenses. Subtract out all of your resources, which may be a combination of personal savings and known contributions from parents or other family members. The remaining amount is what you will have to fundraise. Next, make yourself a timeline. Give yourself at least two months. Make a careful plan for each week and stick to it. Use a combination of approaches to reach your fundraising goal.

When approaching a potential donor in any forum there are a few basic points you should keep in mind. Be friendly, polite, sincere, and prepared. Clearly explain where you are going, what purpose the money will serve, why this is important to you and why it would be beneficial to your potential donor to support you. Speak slowly and answer all questions. Don’t be scared of asking for donations, and ask as many people as possible. Don’t get discouraged if someone cannot donate, and ask for suggestions of donors or fundraising techniques that may prove more fruitful. Make sure you also write thank-you letters to all of your donors, and offer to send e-mail updates from your trip. Before you head out to fundraise, you may also find it useful to practice your talk with friends or a family member.
2. Talking points

You may find it useful to cover the following points in letters, emails, phone calls, and personal meetings.

Overview of TecoTour

On your TecoTour you will travel to Xela, Guatemala for over a week to learn about and install appropriate technology in needy rural communities. These technologies not only protect the environment but also improve people’s health and livelihoods.

Describe appropriate technology

Appropriate technology is a broad based term referring to technologies that can be produced and maintained by small communities. Most often it refers to technologies that attempt to keep in balance local natural resources while serving basic infrastructure needs such as water, electricity, cook fuel, heat, sanitation, and housing. Most appropriate technology discussions revolve around the understanding that much of the benefit of quality infrastructure can be gained without harming the environment, without using complex, hard-to-manufacture systems, and without requiring the prohibitive level of financing needed for large infrastructure projects. The technologies are preferably made by local people from local materials, such that if something ever breaks down, someone local knows how to fix it and where to get the needed tool or broken part. With the proper tools and knowledge communities of limited means, often in very simple and elegant ways, can solve on their own problems which the industrialized world has relegated to expensive specialists.

Provide background information on AIDG

AIDG is a non-profit organization that seeks out and refines appropriate technology designs, and works through education, outreach and business incubation, to see them implemented in communities. AIDG uses designs that are public domain and sometimes have been used by people in certain parts of the world for centuries. The organization seeks to find elegant balanced solutions to people's problems, solutions that not only take into account immediate need but consider the impact of the solution on future generations. In Guatemala, AIDG provides direction and support for XelaTeco, an enterprise that employs local workers to build appropriate technology for local communities. As XelaTeco grows into a self-sustainable business, AIDG will withdraw and expand its work to other regions.

Describe your role

On a TecoTour, you will provide the funding and impetus to install much-needed appropriate technology in a rural community in Guatemala. You will learn about the technologies involved and communities you will serve. You will be building cross-cultural understanding, sharing information about your culture and learning from the community you visit. You will return home, more educated, and able to share your new understanding with those around you.

3. Fundraising ideas

Your fundraising money may come from a diverse set of resources. Below we’ve outlined a number of possible approaches, but you should be creative and find the approach that works for you. If you are going on a TecoTour with friends, work together to raise money! It is easier and more fun to fundraise with friends. Also be sure to ask friends and families for any ideas or potential contacts they may have.

Contact friends and relatives

Make a list of potential donors that you know personally, including friends, family members, neighbors, doctors, teachers, etc. You can use a combination of approaches, including letters, emails, phone calls and meetings. After about a week, be sure to follow up letters with a phone call or meeting if possible. Letters should also include a stamped and address return envelope to make donations easy. Suggest a minimum donation – people will often meet it. Make sure you remind potential donors that their contribution is tax-deductible (see details below).

Contact service organizations

Identify all of the local charities, civil and service organizations in your area that have a history of supporting student activities. This can include school and church groups, your local Rotary Clubs, Lion’s Clubs, etc. Make personal contacts with an appropriate member of the organization. Contact them by letter if necessary, but if possible set up a personal meeting. Come to the meeting prepared and enthusiastic, and be ready to sell your cause. Explain why the trip is important to you, the purpose of AIDG, where the money will go, and how this will reflect well on your community when you return.

Approach local businesses

When approaching local businesses, start with the ones you frequent and remind them that you go there often. You can ask either for monetary donations or the contribution of goods that you can sell as part of a fundraiser. Unless you have an inside connection, you are less likely to be successful contacting huge business or asking for corporate sponsorship than if you stick with your local favorites.

Media

Write up a press release for your local or school newspaper describing your trip. Describe your cause and ask for donations and support. You can also consider calling your favorite local radio stations.

Tabling

Set up a table at street fairs, in the local mall, or in a popular shopping district asking for donations. Use a catchy theme or presentation to attract the attention of passers-by. Include information on AIDG, photographs, brochures, or anything else that will help support your cause. Make sure your presentation is attractive. Be friendly and outgoing, and stand in front of your table so you are more approachable.

Service

Raise money for your trip by providing services for your community. This can include yard work, dog walking, baby-sitting, washing cars, etc. Put up flyers around your neighborhood advertising your services and purpose. People will be more likely to hire you knowing the money is going to a good cause.

Bake sales

Hold a bake sale at school, church, or other community gatherings. Ask friends, family members and local bakeries to donate goods. Bakes sales can be held in conjunction with other fundraising events, like tabling and garage sales.

Garage sales

Encourage friends, neighbors, and classmates to donate to your garage sale. You can tailor it to the needs of your community, such as holding a used prom dress sale in the spring. Put up signs in your neighborhood and an ad in your local newspaper.

Consignment sales

A number of companies will provide consignment goods and give sellers a cut of the sales. This can include chocolate and other candy, fruit, or other small goods. You can sell these at school, door-to-door, or at any large gathering of people. Ask your parents to bring chocolate to work and sell it to their co-workers. Make sure buyers know about your cause. Ask your school if students have a history of working with a given company.

Car wash

Hold a car wash at a local gas station or in a school parking lot. Put up posters to direct people to your car wash. Use a creative theme to attract attention.

Performance

Hold a talent show, musical performance, or stage some similar event to support your trip. Invite your friends to help put on the show. Earn money from ticket sales and concessions at intermission.

50-50 raffle

Regular raffles with donations from businesses can be difficult to organize and are not always lucrative. In this version, half of the money goes to the winner and half goes to you.

Restaurant fundraisers

Ask a local restaurant to support your TecoTour and AIDG for a meal. Suggest a deal where 20% of the restaurant’s proceeds for a given lunch or dinner will support your trip. Pass out fliers to friends, classmates, and people on the street asking them to go to the restaurant on the selected day.

4. Paperwork—donating through AIDG

Donations that contribute directly to the cost of your TecoTour are tax-deductible in the United States. Donations that fund personal expenses, such as your plane flight, are not tax-deductible. Sponsors that wish to give a tax-deductible donation should make checks out to AIDG, and this money should be directed towards the TecoTour component of your expenses. In the United States, AIDG is a public charity described under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. It is not a private foundation, as it is an organization described in Section 509(a)(1) and 170(b)(1)(A)(VI) of the Internal Revenue Code. In general, contributions of cash, securities and property donated by US citizens to support educational and outreach projects sponsored by AIDG are tax-deductible. Note: Contributions of cash or securities to a charitable organization are tax deductible only upon completion of giving. As such, your payment(s) towards an AIDG may be tax deductible only after such payment(s) is non-refundable or, in other words, 30 days before your trip start date (when Contribution is no longer refundable). Under certain circumstances, volunteers may deduct reasonable out-of-pocket expenses associated with their participation in an AIDG trip including the mandatory travel and health insurance and some expenses for transportation to and from the project site. AS WITH ALL TAX MATTERS, PLEASE CONSULT YOUR PERSONAL TAX ADVISOR ON ALL ISSUES CONCERNING TAX DEDUCTIBILITY.

If you get started now, your fundraising goal should be easy to accomplish.

GOOD LUCK!!

5. Sample timeline

WEEK 1: (Busiest Week)

Contact family members for donations, advice, and to practice your “pitch”
Determine your fundraising needs, strategy and timeline
Gather lists of names and addresses of prospective donors from family and friends
Contact AIDG for brochures.
Go to office supply store, post office, etc., for supplies
Write your “master copy” fundraising letter
Plan out when you will hold other fundraising activities, such as garage or bake sales

WEEK 2: (2nd-Busiest Week)

Send at least 20 letters to family and friends
Try to get the names and addresses for prospects from service organizations
Start laying out all the details of your other fundraising activities. Find locations, solicit help, identify supplies you will need and look into where you can find them.

WEEK 3:

Send at least 10 letters to the service organizations identified above
Spend an afternoon at your local mall or downtown talking to store managers about your drive.
Begin to call those people to whom you mailed letters in Week 2
Finalize plans for your other fundraising activities (as described earlier)

WEEK 4:

Send at least 10 more letters to local businesses
Call all the people from week 2 from whom you haven’t heard and schedule meetings with those people likely to give
Carry out other fundraising activities

WEEK 5:

Call any people from Week 2 from whom you still haven’t heard and begin to call the people from Week 3
Go back downtown or to the mall and solicit more stores
Carry out other fundraising activities

WEEK 6:

Call the rest of the people from Week 3 and from Week 4
Finish meeting with those people who want to meet you
Begin to write your thank-you letters

WEEKS 7 & 8:

Call any remaining people who haven’t responded to your letter
Continue writing thank-you letters for all of those contributions!
Follow-up any other leads you may have been given with letters and phone calls

6. Sample fundraising letter

Dear Mr. Morton,

This summer I will be traveling to Guatemala to learn about and improve the situation of the rural community of Santa Anita. We will be installing appropriate technology that will help improve the standard of living in that community. We will be giving business to a local Guatemalan company, helping them to provide clean energy and water solutions, thereby allowing the country to develop with self-sufficiency and environmental sustainability.

Upon my return to the U.S I plan to educate my friends, neighbors and colleagues about what I learned in order to bring greater attention to the ways we as Americans can help the people of less developed countries help themselves. The knowledge I gain on this trip will help me further my goals when I return which include participating in social entrepreneurship work for sustainable development, and will connect me to many people in Guatemala.

My trip is going to cost $990 plus an estimated $500 for airfare – this cost also includes contributions to the community in the form of a technology installation (stove, biogas-collector, and/or water filters/pumps) and income from meals and lodging. I am contributing $600 of my own money, which means I need to raise $890. I am seeking contributions from everyone I know. Any amount will be helpful.

It is hard to ask for money. I am doing so because I believe that our trip is a powerful form of service-learning that will lead towards a more just and sustainable world and will be personally enriching. Please help me in one or all of the following ways:

• Send me a check to help fund my trip and goals.

• Give me moral support about seeking funding.

• Donate frequent flyer miles.

• Donate supplies to AIDG (go to

• Give me names of people you know who might be interested in helping to fund my trip.

I greatly appreciate your caring and your good will. If you are interested in helping, I would be more than happy to provide you with additional information. I will call you at the end of this week to discuss my request and to see if you are interested in helping me in my efforts. Thank you so much for your time and generosity.

Sincerely,

Sarah Wilson

P.S. If you would like to learn more about AIDG, appropriate technology, or rural Guatemala, please visit aidg.org

I hope I can count on your support!

7. Sponsor Record Sheet

Donors toward TecoTour (tax-deductible)

NameAddress AmountThank you

1. ______

2. ______

3. ______

4. ______

5. ______

6. ______

7. ______

8. ______

9. ______

10. ______

11. ______