Let me start by saying, as I sit here I am watching my 2 1/2 year old son play around in front of me. He is adopted. My wife and I struggled for years to have our first child and we lost 2 trying for a second.
Yeah - and interestingly, some could say there is substantial “marketing value” in keeping a low profile and putting the ‘word-of-mouth’ machine in motion instead.
Perhaps thats why it worked for me in reply 17? They didn’t have a newsletter.
I think in all these cases its a gut feeling if you have your free work advertised or not. I’m just a little weary of some of the big charitys spending 200k on a marketeer for their company & then asking for charity work (which they do).
There is a bigger picture that is privy to the companys involved, the more I think about it & dissect the reasoning, the more I get sickened.
louie,
If your saying that the school isn’t in dire straits and isn’t laying off teachers, getting rid of sports, canceling the bus transportation (you know what im saying) then you pretty much answered your own question. Try to find out how many people go to the auction if you can. We do a few gift certificates for $150.00 each on any service we offer. It has an expiration date of 1 year. It is for childrens hospital and it gets auctioned off in front of over 5,000 attendees. These people are mostly upper class (Doctors, CEOs of companies, the whos who in town). These kind of people want to donate anyway for a good cause. The lady -who is one of my customers- that organizes it every year told me that my certificates fetched $500.00 each. She said that I was the man of the night. Alot of folks wanted that gift certificate! My certificate landed $1,000.00 for sick kids and I got a little exposure to boot. We also do the same for the optimist in my town. Ive been doing this for about 6 years.
It is brand new… The fundraiser is for the Parent Teacher Assoc. representing that school. The zoning of who can go to this public school was cut around neighborhoods where the houses were less than $300,000 in value.
Really… I can’t believe the elitist attitude of the people in this area. Actually I can… we are known for it.
Either way…
I am doing the Certificate for $100 off Complete Window Cleaning. Basically donating a little of my time to get my name put out there. I already do A LOT of the gated golf course community across from the school. So I don’t know if I will gain new customers perse but I do know that I will build my companies image as a part of the community.
They say around here, “it’s not what you know but WHO you know.”
Now these snobby ________ (insert slang for female dogs) will all know me.
Don’t do the work for free! I would maybe do a gift certificate for $50-100.
I know that at my kids school they do all sorts of events to raise money for the PTA. I’m much more comfortable donating money for these events because I get advertising. For example in December they do a charachter breakfast with Snow white, cinderella, spider man etc. For $50 we sponsor a table of 10. In the center of the table they display our business cards (great advertising-minimal cost) the event is open to everyone in the town and hundreds of people turn out. We’ve helped the PTA and had nothing more to think about!!!
My point is you may be able to help the PTA raise money without donating your time or labor and still get the exposure your looking for!!