Raising money

The hardest part of this job is asking people for money. I am not very good at it and am embarrassed by the need to do it every time. The second hardest thing I do is ask others to help with raising money. I know most people hate doing it. It makes me feel like a panhandler every time I ask people for money–and like Fagan every time I ask others to do so.

…we will launch a weekly Walking with Jane NET Cancer News podcast on our YouTube channel.

As I said in my last post, though, killing carcinoid/NETs requires we find large amounts of money–and that we find it every year. Further, what we have raised so far comes nowhere near the amount we really need to make a cure a reality in the relatively near term. There are people dying of this disease every day out there. I really want that to stop.

Boosting our Jimmy Fund Walk performance

Last year, our Jimmy Fund Walk team fielded a team of 48 walkers who raised a combined total of nearly $70,000. As good as that was, we need to do better. As I write this, the goal listed on our site for 2015 is $80,000. It is a safe number, I think. I set it in November before I had a series of meeting with members of the Walk staff and people at the Program for Neuroendocrine and Carcinoid Tumors. Now, what I really hope we can do this year, is break $100,000.

…killing carcinoid/NETs requires we find large amounts of money…

Over the next few months I will meet with members of two of the higher performing teams in the Walk and in the Pan-Mass Challenge. I intend to pick their brains about how they have done what they have done and try to apply those lessons to our own team.

Helping team members reach their goals

My hope is we will also do a better job of supporting the fundraising efforts of our team members. I have more than a little experience, at this point, in marketing events. It’s time I shared that knowledge more broadly in support of events run by other team members. If I’ve learned one thing over the past four years, it is that I cannot do everything all the time.

…what I really hope we can do this year, is break $100,000.

Jenaleigh Landers, one of our team captains,  got help from some of her late father’s friends last year who wanted to put on a golf tournament in his memory. The Hank Landers Memorial Golf Tournament in northeastern Massachusetts raised about $6000 last year. And it has significant growth potential, given what Jena and her friends learned from last year’s efforts. Their success has inspired me to consider trying two new events–a golf tournament and a mini golf tournament–in the Greater Fall River-New Bedford area this summer.

Backing creative ideas

But we also need to help people use their own creativity. One of our team members last year raised a considerable amount of money through the sale of small zebra themed sculptures made from polymer clay. She also made stitch markers for knitting projects and a range of other items. In total, between those efforts and others, she raised nearly $7000 for the cause.

Their success has inspired me…

My letter-writing efforts have generated as much as $6000 a year. Each year, I offer that letter to others on the team to use with people on their Christmas card lists. Very few people use it. But if only ten people did so, the results for their fundraising efforts–and for our team–could be significant.

What is your special talent?

Each year, I also seek sponsors for our team t-shirts. I tell team members the prices and provide a letter for businesses they may know. I routinely raise $1000 myself from that effort. But there is room on the shirt for another $1200-$1800 worth of sponsorships.

…we also need to help people use their own creativity.

Every person has a talent of some kind that could produce a significant sum of money for our Walk team efforts. We need to help people do that. Some of those things require more effort than others. I’ve heard people on other teams talk about yard sales, product parties, and softball tournaments. It is all a question of what people are willing to take on.

Starting with easy

My advantage is that I am retired and have more time than many others do to undertake larger and more complex projects. But my experience is that often the easiest projects raise more money than the more complex ones do.

…I also seek sponsors for our team t-shirts.

A dinner, for example, requires lots of people and lots of effort spread out over weeks. My letter-writing campaign, which goes out to 400+ recipients, takes a couple of afternoons once the letter is written–and a couple of hours if I have help stuffing the envelopes. The dinner might gross $2000 and net about half that. The letters generally gross $3000 and net about $2400 once the stamps and envelopes are paid for.

Recruiting more Walkers

The first task in reaching that $100,000 Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk goal is simply to help those already committed to the team to raise more money. The second task is to recruit more walkers. My goal is to build the team to 80 this year. That is a more complicated task.

…often the easiest projects raise more money…

But we will have more support from both the Walk team and the Program in Neuroendocrine and Carcinoid Tumors than we did a year ago–not that we didn’t have their support before. For example, the Program has just launched a newsletter for NET cancer patients at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Our NETwalkers Alliance team and its activities will get regular coverage in that publication. It will not do any active recruiting for the team–there are ethical issues involved in that–but just the knowledge that a team exists should bring more people to our door.

Building momentum

We will also try to encourage people on both the clinical and research staffs to become more involved with the team. We will try to set up tours of the DFCI facility and labs for team members and perspective team members through the efforts of the Jimmy Fund Walk team. And we will get local media involved wherever we have team members through interviews and press releases. In addition, we have launched a NETwalkers Alliance Facebook page where both team members and the general public will be able to learn about our efforts.

My goal is to build the team to 80 this year.

Finally, this week, we will launch a weekly Walking with Jane NET Cancer News podcast on our YouTube channel. That program will have regular updates on NETwalkers Alliance team activities to support everything we are doing, in addition to providing news about NET cancer research going on at DFCI and elsewhere, as well as what other groups are doing to raise money for NET cancer research.

(Editor’s Note: While the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk is one of our major initiatives in our efforts to raise money for research into NET cancer in the coming year, it is not the only effort we have made a commitment to, even at Dana-Farber. In the next part of this series on goals and planning for 2015, we’ll look at the other NET cancer specific money efforts on our agenda.)