If you don’t wear one yourself, chances are someone you know wears one of the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s yellow LIVESTRONG wristbands – after all, 33 million of them have already been distributed by this nonprofit organization dedicated to cancer prevention and survivorship.

But yellow isn’t the only color people – on behalf of their favorite charities – are wearing on their wrists these days.

Indeed, the phenomenal, overwhelming success the Lance Armstrong Foundation has had with yellow wristbands has caused nonprofits everywhere to sit up, take notice and adopt the very same idea, launching fundraising campaigns of their own around colored silicone rubber wristbands that symbolize their respective causes.

For instance, fans of the Boston Celtics can now demonstrate their support of their favorite basketball team by wearing a green, “I am a Celtic” wristband. These new Celtics wristbands cost $2 each, and all proceeds go to the Boston Celtics Shamrock Foundation, which supports nonprofit organizations providing healthcare, shelter and vital services for New England children.

This year, the Shamrock Foundation’s community partners are Children’s Hospital Boston, Horizons for Homeless Children and the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

And just last week, another example of the popularity of these newfangled wristbands hit even closer to home. My eight-year-old son, Scott, handed me a letter from his principal, Annette Doyle, that said his school, the Peter Noyes Elementary School, was partnering with several others in Sudbury, MA – the Nixon, Haynes and Loring schools – to raise funds to help rebuild another school in the Aceh province of Indonesia, one of the places impacted by the recent tsunami disaster.

“Our goal is to raise funds to benefit Save the Children, an organization that has been working in Indonesia for 30 years,” wrote Principal Doyle. “Save the Children has also agreed to help us establish contact with a ‘sister school,’ so that ongoing connections between our students and the Indonesian school can be realized. We view this as a multiyear commitment and a powerful opportunity for our students to contribute something meaningful to children in need, as well as learn about the culture and heritage of the people of this region.”

“The kickoff fundraiser is a silicone bracelet drive,” continued the principal. “These are similar to the popular Live Strong bracelets. Our bracelet says ‘Kids Helping Kids’ and is a beautiful royal blue, our school color. Other elementary schools have chosen different colors with the same slogan. The bracelets sell for $3 apiece; however, we encourage you to consider donating more if possible.”

The Celtics and these four Sudbury elementary schools deserve kudos not just for their magnanimity and benevolence, but also for how intelligently they’ve gone about the business of fundraising. They realized the success of the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s yellow wristband campaign paved the way for other nonprofits to follow suit, offering colored, private label wristbands to their own constituencies in exchange for charitable donations. They saw it as a win-win proposition:

• Donors get something cool to wear, what’s become a fashion statement among young and old alike.
• And, if all goes as planned, fundraisers get more individual contributors (because the demand for such wristbands is so strong), a higher average gift (because people are willing to give more when they’re getting something extra in return) and a glut of free publicity and promotion (because these wristbands attract so much attention and build such big buzz).

So if you’re a nonprofit organization of any size, shape or form, and you haven’t yet experimented with wristbands as a premium, this is the time. Yes, they’re that hot. In fact, they’re so hot that if you wait much longer, there’s a good chance the market will have become oversaturated with them, and your opportunity to take advantage of them will have come and gone – which is why you should test wristbands now.

In the January/February 2005 issue of FundRaising Success magazine, Tim Burgess’ column (”Because It Matters”) explores “The Fundraising Landscape, Circa 2005,” pointing out that “the smartest fundraisers are paying attention to what promises to be next in breakthrough fundraising trends, strategies and tactics that will revolutionize the way funds are raised in the years ahead.”

“So get on board if you want to ride the coming surge of fundraising effectiveness,” writes Burgess, co-founder of the Domain Group, providing readers with a handful of great recommendations, including but not limited to the following:

Diversify Your Channels (“Acquiring new donors is like managing your stock portfolio: Diversification is crucial to minimizing risk and maximizing return on investment.”)

Bond With New Donors (“The biggest mistake nonprofits make is failing to pay close attention to new donors who have just given their first gift.”)

Grant Donors Choice and Control (“Strategically, the most successful nonprofits will grant donors choice and control. They will allow them to set their own communication preferences and choose to opt in or opt out of direct mail, telemarketing, e-mail or other contact programs.”)

Offer a ‘Money-Back’ Guarantee (“More discerning donors would flock to charities that demonstrate this kind of unwavering confidence in their mission.”)

Personally, I like all of Burgess’ recommendations (to read the column in its entirety, click here), but my favorite is his idea of a money-back guarantee. Practically any nonprofit organization could guarantee the satisfaction of its donors and, chances are, no one would take unfair advantage of such an offer. After all, most donors give for altruistic reasons – because they are kind and compassionate and genuinely charitable – and derive a great deal of pleasure just knowing they are helping others. Commercial direct marketers have proven time and again that a guarantee increases response. Why should it be any different on the nonprofit side?

http://www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com/

Ten weeks from today, I’ll be running the Boston Marathon for the seventh time in my life, the fourth time for charity. This year, I’ll be running it for Children’s Hospital Boston.

Children’s Hospital Boston is a 325-bed comprehensive center for pediatric health care. As the largest pediatric medical center in the United States, Children’s offers a complete range of health care services for children from 15 weeks gestation through 21 years of age (and older in special cases).

Children’s records approximately 18,000 inpatient admissions each year, and its more than 150 outpatient programs and emergency services care for more than 300,000 patients annually. The hospital also performs 120,000 radiological examinations every year.

For the 15th year in a row, Children’s Hospital Boston was recently rated one of the nation’s top hospitals specializing in pediatric care, according to a survey by U.S. News & World Report.

I’m lucky enough to be able to run the Boston Marathon. I’m even more fortunate to be running it for such an outstanding organization as Children’s Hospital Boston.

Indeed, as I just wrote in my fundraising appeal for the hospital, “as much as I’m excited to be among the marathon field of 20,000 athletes, it’s much more important that I’ll be running as one of the few, proud members of the Children’s Hospital Kids at Heart Marathon Team, raising funds for one of the best pediatric hospitals in the country, located right here in Boston.”

“Please help me help Children’s Hospital Boston make dreams come true for more boys and girls,” I added. “Please sponsor my Boston Marathon run with a gift of $25, $15, $50 or more to Children’s Hospital Boston. I’ll be so grateful for your support. And so will the hospital.”

In my appeal, I also told the story of a courageous, young child named Hailey (my patient partner):

“Your generosity will help Children’s Hospital Boston help children like Hailey, a cute, little girl living with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), a rare genetic disorder – characterized by bones that break easily, often from little or no apparent cause – for which there is not yet a cure.”

“Imagine, Hailey is only six, but she’s already suffered 47 broken bones and undergone a number of serious surgeries,” I explained. “Thanks to Children’s Hospital Boston, however, Hailey’s OI is under control, and she’s making the most of her young life.”

In addition to my letter, I included a reply form and pre-addressed, postage-paid envelope as well as a snapshot of Hailey with the following caption (in her own handwriting):

“Please help Bob raise funds for Children’s Hospital Boston! Thank you!”

Sarah Harrison, Yellowfin Direct Marketing’s Senior Art Director, lent her considerable talents to this cause, adding a colorful, compelling look-and-feel to my direct mail package that it would not have had otherwise.

In addition to mail, I’m planning to send the same message by email to many of my industry colleagues, people who are accustomed to hearing from me online and would be predisposed to making a charitable contribution that way. Featuring this four-part series in my blog, A Fine Kettle of Fish, is another method of engendering interest in – if not contributions to – my campaign.

Having just launched this campaign, I’m hoping any donations I’ve received so far are just the first surge in a groundswell of support. When all is said and done, I hope to have reached about 150 people with my appeal, so if past response rates are any indication, I should be able to raise about $3,000 for Children’s Hospital Boston.

This is why nonprofit organizations are more than delighted to be included in such personal, pledge-based fundraising initiatives. After all, acquiring new donors is ordinarily no easy task – they’d be doing a good job if just two or three out of 100 prospects responded favorably. Yet here we’re talking about up to 25 times that many who will likely agree to lend their financial assistance. Why such a high response rate for such a relatively simple fundraising endeavor? I can think of at least three reasons:

1. It’s carried out on a low budget, so the perceived need is greater. There’s nothing slick or complicated about such shoestring appeals. Mine follow a homespun, reality-based formula, which almost always strikes a chord with a genuinely altruistic audience.
2. It’s associated with a significant, special event, so it commands immediate attention. Tell people you’re running the Boston Marathon and suddenly they’re all ears. If they’re not running it themselves, it’s a vicarious pleasure for them to support someone else who’s going the distance.
3. It’s mailed to extremely warm prospects, so support is relatively easy to rally. My audience is comprised of people who already know and – hopefully – trust me, so the credibility factor is high. They know what I’m putting myself through to help the less fortunate among us. They can’t help but want to lend their financial assistance to such a good cause.

None of this would be possible, of course, if it weren’t for the Boston Athletic Association’s Boston Marathon Charity Program. Without it, I probably would never have been able to run Boston officially – never mind the fact that no one really wants to, or even should, run it as a “bandit” – nor have the opportunity to get so close to such extraordinary nonprofit organizations as the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, The Home for Little Wanderers and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Yes, thanks to the Boston Athletic Association, and to the generosity of many kind donors, this is one personal fundraising initiative that I couldn’t be happier to have undertaken four times – and counting – in my life so far.

Note: Written by Yellowfin Direct Marketing’s Bob Cargill, this is part four of a four-part series on running the Boston Marathon for charity. Parts one, two and three appeared on January 18, January 24 and January 31, 2005, respectively, in A Fine Kettle of Fish. To sponsor Bob’s marathon run on April 18, 2005, for Children’s Hospital Boston, please click here first, then click on the Sponsor a Runner button. Charitable gifts of any amount – even just a dollar – are greatly appreciated.