28. raise an anxiety-provoking amount of money for a good cause (32x32)

In October 2012 I felt restless. I was anxious about the upcoming winter blues and the fact that I was providing direct service as an employment specialist for people who have been diagnosed with serious mental illness. I thought that a good way to mediate the winter blues would be to create a training schedule, and I could hold myself accountable to the schedule by signing up for the Lavaman triathlon in Hawaii in March 2013 and compete with Tiffany like we did in 2011. I went to sign up for the race only to find that all race slots had been sold and that the only way to get in on the race was to sign up with Team in Training (which I knew about due to tagging along with the Greater LA team in 2011 at Nation's Triathlon).

Here is the most brilliant crowd-sourcing ever thought up: team in training.

and it all started organically:

"In 1988, Bruce Cleland assembled a NYC Marathon team to raise money in honor of his daughter, a leukemia survivor. Thirty-eight runners raised $322,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) work to discover new treatments for blood cancers. During the next 25 years, LLS's Team In Training (TNT) has become the leader in endurance sports training for charity, funding significant therapies like chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, which have a significant impact on blood cancer patients. Only Team In Training has trained over a half a million runners, walkers, triathletes, cyclists and hikers and raised over $1.3 billion to fund lifesaving research. Once you sign up, you'll be training with our huge network of certified coaches who will have weekly group runs with you and your team. You'll even have mentors for fundraising support as well as your own website for online fundraising."

LLS basically developed one of the most effective and cost-efficient fundraising models to date. In exchange for endurance sport training, the participant raises a certain amount of money for LLS. It creates a team of people all purposed and focused, supporting one another, and helping each other raise their fundraising goals. Participants have choices about which event they want to enter, then depending on the event, the participant raises an amount of money which ensures that LLS keeps their overhead to 22%.



"LLS receives no federal funding. Because of the continued support of you and our partners and sponsors, in fiscal year 2010 we were able to:

1. invest $72 million, which includes funding for 103 new grants to researchers in academic institutions and $8 million in
2. contracts through the LLS Therapy Acceleration Program
3. support 347 research projects in the United States, Canada and 9 other countries
4. provide financial assistance to patients
5. sponsor scientific conferences around the country
6. produce educational materials and videos
7. run dozens of Family Support Groups nationwide."

In order for me to ride with TNT to Lavaman I would have to raise $5,000 minimum (and buy my own plane ticket). I sent out some feelers on facebook to see if my fundraising idea (making memory quilts) had any legs. After 10 people committed to "buying" memory quilts from me, I signed up.

In January I started to sweat that I wasn't near 50% of my fundraising goal so I sent a letter to a wider group of potential donors:

“Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”
― Thomas Jefferson

In six weeks, I'm getting in the water to swim 1500 meters then getting on a bike to ride 26 miles and then running 6.1 miles to help find a cure for blood cancer... in Hawaii! I'm going to get to swim with turtles and cancer survivors; ride along a tropical coast-line with heroes; and run alongside men and women who never ever ever ever give up. My goal is to raise $5,000 by March 1, 2013 and so far I've raised 30%! I'm going to try to raise $1,000 each week and I need your help! http://pages.teamintraining.org/nca/lavatri13/banannas

My main fundraising event is making memory quilts. Over the past three years I have collected a trunk full of event shirts, maybe you have a friend/spouse/sibling/parent who has a drawer full of old concert t-shirts which they never wear; maybe they can be more efficiently used as a blanket! You don't have to give away your memory shirts to GoodWill (I'm probably going to have to pay back some dharma for that statement) you can repurpose them and keep them close! Make them into a quilt that can be given to your children's children etc. Check out my blog, it has pictures of recent memory quilts made for the TNT fundraising! http://twoneedlestosay.blogspot.com/

Prices:
9 shirts for a child's blanket = $ 250
16 shirts is roughly a twin bed blanket = $350
25 shirts is roughly a queen bed blanket = $500
36 shirts (because I know some avid concert-goers who have more than this) is roughly a king bed blanket = $650

Please say you'll join me in this fight against blood cancer and donate money in exchange for a memory quilt!

Or, if you're not interested in a quilt, I also knit hats, scarves, and baby blankets and would love to exchange my crafty skills for a donation to the cause! Really, any donation would be much appreciated :)

Go TEAM!"

My buddies Kevin, Adam, and Kristina were all very helpful giving me feedback and direction on how to implement a fundraising campaign on facebook. Kevin said I had to update my status almost daily with information about training or fundraising. Adam suggested that I needed to solicit smaller donation amounts and to update my fundraising page (which TNT provided) because people still might think that I was looking for hundred dollar donations. Then Kristina reminded me to make my gratitude public, I needed to tag people in posts denoting that they were donating to my fundraiser, building social capital.

In the end, I raised $5,732! 115% of my fundraising goal! It took it's toll though. For an impetus based on decreasing mental illness during the winter, it had an opposite effect. From what I understand, there are some tacit rules to fundraising: if someone donates to my fundraising goal I should donate to theirs within the next two years and I should also not solicit further funds from them for at least two years.

All that anxiety but, now I have the fitness from winter training which makes my Spring that much more beautiful :) and i got to swim with turtles, in hawaii, with my best friend, learned how to hula, improved my race time, visited a volcano, played otter, went bowling at the white house, established Needles to say, smelled a coffee plantation, and ate a few things I never knew existed.