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Raise Disease Awareness and Money With Charity Drives

By on October 17, 2012

We have all seen them before: charity drives to help benefit a particular ailment. Whether it’s a specific form of cancer, heart disease, or developmental disorders, charities have been using large scale events to spur awareness and raise money. There’s a reason why you see these events so often: they work.

If you know someone who has a rare or under-acknowledged ailment, you can start your own charity drive for them. It takes just a few steps.

1. Find and contact a charity

Before you start organizing an event you’ll need to involve a charity. Why wouldn’t a charity set up their own event, for their own benefit? Oftentimes smaller charities for lesser publicized ailments don’t have the resources to organize a large scale event. But with a few volunteers like yourself the situation changes.

You can start looking with large charity directories, such as the one at Freelanthropy.com, but you might be better off looking locally. Many states have directories of registered charities (here is New Jersey’s). It shouldn’t take long to find multiple charities that fit your needs.

The next step is to contact the charity and talk to them about organizing the event. If they are the beneficiaries oftentimes they can lend you resources that will make the task easier.

2. Pick an event

There are dozens upon dozens of ways to raise money for charity. We so often see races, such as 5Ks, and walks, but they’re not the only ways to raise money. You can pick something that goes with the theme of the ailment, such as a physical activity for heart disease. Or you can go with something seasonal, such as a hayride during the fall seasons.

You’re not on your own thinking of the event, either. There are many sites, such as Fundraiser Insight, that provide plenty of ideas for a fundraiser. There will be plenty of ideas there that never occurred to you, so make sure to read through plenty before deciding. Rest assured, though, there is a good idea for you and your event.

3. Create the environment

Successful charity fundraisers get people in a joyful mood. In other words, they make people happy to donate money to a cause. This is best accomplished by creating a positive environment. You can do this in many ways.

Recruit a core of volunteers. It is difficult to handle fundraiser organization solo. Recruiting a core of volunteers will make the task easier. It will also lend enthusiasm to the event, since it will exude from everyone in that core.

Keep people occupied. When planning an event, it is important to plan for zero downtime. Certain parts of the event will run short, undoubtedly, creating a little downtime. But it’s essential to plan the event to run smoothly from start to finish, keeping the mood high.

Give them something to remember. Many breast cancer charities hand out pink ribbons to participants. Others hand out pins and wristbands. Others might distribute high-quality, keepsake tickets for the event. Whatever your method, make sure people have something to remember the event by. It can increase their chances of giving in the future.

Oftentimes we can feel helpless when it comes to diseases and ailments. It feels like we have no control as our friends and family members suffer. Yet there are small steps we can take to help them, and future generations with the same ailments and diseases. By organizing charity drives we can raise money for research that can bring treatments and cures. Sometimes it’s all we can do.

Lance Trebesch is the CEO of TicketPrinting.com & Ticket River which offers a variety of event products and ticketing services. After nineteen years of Silicon Valley experience, Lance found the key to happiness is helping customers worldwide beautify and monetize their events with brilliant print products and event services. Listening to his customers and learning about how they plan their events – ranging from concerts to fundraisers has helped him gain insight and expertise on how to host a successful event that he is always eager to share.