DSDN Fundraiser Fuel

[EP #8] April Wrap Up

• DSDN • Season 1 • Episode 8

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April Updates 



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SPEAKER_00

Hello and welcome to our, I guess, end of April fundraising fuel call. It feels just crazy to be saying that we're the end of April already and heading into our final month of fundraising. We almost have exactly 30 days left of fundraising. So we got a lot to do and a little bit of time. If you've been looking at the most recent emails, we're about 70% of our goals. So that is great. We've done just so much hard work this year. We were just chatting about it here on our call a little bit before we started recording about how hard it has been this season. And we are just so grateful for everybody who has tried their hardest this year to do what they can to help support DSDN in such a tough, tough time to do it. So we thank you. If you're just getting started, this is a great month to do it because you've got a month left. And sometimes that kind of helps as the fundraising season can drag on and you feel like you're maybe asking for things a lot throughout the year. So this is a good reason or a good way to just wrap it up for the season and try to reach your prize goals. So tonight we're going to talk about a few things, a heads up, about some things coming up here in May, and just some reminders in case you need any. And we have a few ideas to start out or to um wrap up your fundraising season with. So listen in, see what you need. We'll also be dropping links to all the things that we share about tonight. We'll drop them in the app and a post. And then also we will put them in the links on the podcast so that way people can access all of the information there too. As we're wrapping up April, we have our April challenge still going on. This month, if you got your first donation in April, you will be part of a drawing for a$50 credit to your fundraiser. So if you maybe just started or maybe had signed up as a fundraiser but hadn't gotten your first donation yet, great month to do that. I think at the beginning of the month, there were 90 something people who would be eligible for that prize. So 90 fundraisers who had signed up to fundraise it but hadn't quite uh received a donation yet. So if you're a part of that, you still have a few days here to get into that uh challenge prize. Uh the other one is if you raise$50 this month, you get to be in the prize. So technically, if you could, if you hadn't raised any funds yet this month and your first monies that donations you raised got you over$50, you could be in both drawings. So and just as a reminder, we get this question a lot too, is if you win one of the challenges, those monies don't get added to your NFG page on the side where you can see it. They get added on our back side just so we can track it. So um I think what I might actually do is create a file where people could just review where they're at, or you can always email and ask, and we can tell you what your total is for the month or to date. Usually we run numbers about once a week. So that way we're getting everything added in that's come in through checks or PayPal and NFG. So all the different ways that we get monies to add to your account. So uh please always ask if you want to know where you are at next month before we issue prizes and do all of that as well. We'll let you know where you're at because sometimes it makes sense if you'd like to get to the next prize level, is to maybe do a donation for the other part. Um, for example, if you are trying to get to your first prize level, which is$500 to get to the retreat, and maybe you end up your fundraising at$475, then you yourself could donate$25 and reach your first prize level. So might be worth it to you rather than paying outright for a full registration, is just to finish up your fundraising that way. So uh we will let everybody know where they are at. Like I said, at the end of next month before we do all the prize level things, um, just so you are aware of where you're at. Um, oh, another prize level question that has been coming up is if you are fundraising with your spouse or partner and they um you might be sharing prizes with them, what we just ask you to do is just do your donations. You can do it on your page, on their page, doesn't matter. And then at the end of the season, we'll add up those two pages together and figure out what's best for prizes. So um we will figure that out with those of you. We know how challenging it can be if both of you are five fundraising to go, for example, to the mom and the dad retreat. So we want to help you guys both get to those places. So if that is you, um let me know if we haven't talked about it and if you have questions about it. But I think most partner fundraisers have already um chatted with us about that. So exciting stuff going on there. Uh, I think I'm going to give you guys a sneak peek of our May prizes because May is one of my favorite months for about a thousand different reasons. But it is nice to wrap up our fundraising season and get that all completed. And we have a super fun prize. In May, if you raise$121, you will be in the prize drawing to get bumped to the next level prize. So, what does that mean? That means if I raise$121, either through one donation or many donations, doesn't matter to us, in the month of May, everybody who does that will be entered into the prize drawing. If I end up my fundraising season at, let's put this in into a different number than the 500 category. I've already reached the$500 level. I've got$750. And I would really love to get to that next prize level, which is$1,500. I haven't quite gotten there yet. I've been trying all month, just not getting there. But I did get another$121 added to my account. If I was the winner, I would get bumped up to the$1,500 prize level automatically. So I would get all the prizes, even though I didn't raise my$1,500. That would be my prize level still. So pretty cool deal for the person who wins. It's always fun. It could be somebody who has a zero dollars to start with and gets that$121 this month. So they get to the$500. Or it could be the person who's, oh, Jeanessa's saying in the chat, like that she's a little over$7,500. Yes, that would put you to the 10,000 mark. So you could get to the top prize level with that challenge. So you just gotta see. And like I said, one lucky winner gets that every year. So it's a pretty cool prize to be able to give out at the end of the fundraising season, too. So if you get to$121 in May, that will be the prize challenge. So also if you're a person that you're like, oh, I have a few dollars I need to get in here, maybe wait until May 1st if you really want to be eligible for that prize. Does not matter to us on our side. Those monies are still coming to your NFT page, but has to be in May to get that count. Can come through as a check, as a donation on PayPal or NFG, however that works. Um, the other prize challenge that we'll have for May is about sharing our spring raffle. And I'm going to put some of this into the app also and into the email follow-up after our call here tonight, just so everybody understands. Because a lot of our prizes this season, you haven't had to submit any proof for. It's just we can see it on our side that you've reached that goal. So check and you get added to the list. This was a little bit different one, but if you share about our spring raffle, then you will get entered into a prize for a$50 credit to a fundraiser. So what we'll have you do is either email that proof to us or you could send it on the app too. We'll have a thread there that you could just upload a picture of how you shared that with family, friends, your social media followers, whatever that looks like. So it could be a copy of a text, of an email, of a picture, of a share, whatever you think that that would look like. We're good to go. So those are our two primary May challenges coming up. So a big month to go. Uh, another question that has come up a lot, especially as we reach our end of year fundraising. We have so many people that have gotten company donations this year. I, in fact, should go through and just calculate to let you all know how many dollars have come through company matching, because it was a really big year for that. It is a great way to double your funds or get extra added to your fundraiser. The only thing that's probably frustrating about it is that it doesn't happen very quickly most of the time. And so oftentimes you're waiting maybe for a quarterly report or a monthly report to come through, depending on your company and how they do it. Um, we have that notice of funds form, which we'll make sure to put in this link in comments to today for you. So you are 100% seeing it. But if you put those monies coming in to you on the notice of funds form, that lets us know that that money is coming in. And even if it comes in after May 31st within those first few weeks of June, we will absolutely count it towards your fundraising this season. So it um could just take a little while sometimes. Most of you can see evidence of that coming through either on the company side or on your side. So um just let us know if that's coming in so we can be tracking it and make sure it gets added to your account. The other option that you have is if those monies don't come through before May 31st, you can always choose to wait and have it added to next season fundraiser. Our fundraising pages for 2027, which feels like so far from away from right now. But those pages will actually start June 1st. So anybody who wants to do it can start theirs right away, or you can give yourself a much-needed break if you'd like to give yourself some time off. But it's really up to you how you'd like to manage that. We are fine either way doing it. So um, whatever's most helpful for you for reaching prize levels. If you have questions or questions, comments, or concerns about that, let us know. Let your coaches know, ask in the app, email, whatever way is best for you to reach out to somebody about those questions. So that's our April challenges and our May challenge. Uh, we haven't talked yet about the spring raffle. That is live as of today. I think we have 40 something prizes. It's in the high 30s to 40 prizes. We have, I think, 29 fundraisers that participated this time and donating prizes. So we already today have uh over, I think,$1,500 in sales. So those are monies that will, I think this time we have only fundraisers actually participated in donating things. So those monies will all be distributed amongst the fundraisers, depending on their ticket sales and what other um extra funds come in that we can divvy out between everybody. So sharing about the spring raffle, super helpful for all of us and for your fellow fundraisers too. So remember that's our May challenge, one of them. So that will be coming up real quickly here, too. Very cool. A few other May things that we're going to talk about. This is very May focused tonight. I think we've already said that this would be some ideas for ways to reach your goals in May. We have DSDN Day coming up on May 1st. Um, I have a few pieces of information that I'll send out in this follow-up email of the call tonight here. Um, but DSDN Day this year is gonna look a little differently than last year. We started, launched it last year. It was cool. We did a like basically not 24-7, but it was a very long day of video streaming and Zoom calls, and we were online basically all day from I think 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. or something. It was awesome. Our marketing team and Rafia did just amazing, amazing work, and it was a long day. We learned a lot that day. This year we're switching it up a little bit and doing some different online meetups and connections that way. But our whole goal for this year is connections. And so we have a challenge fundraiser going on, starting for DSDN Day. That is a$5 connection, helping us make connections$5 at a time. So I have um some handouts and uh verbiage that you could use, some text that you could post or send out to family or friends. But if you want to try using that alongside your fundraising, that is a great way to do it. To be connected in with DSDN Day, use that day as a just a launching point, maybe to help talk about what we do as an organization. Um, you know, we've been doing this for gosh, how many years now is it? We officially launched DSDN in 2014. So this will be 12 years of connections that we've been making with parents, and actually a little bit longer than that because we started the first groups officially in 2013, but it took us a little while to get into the nonprofit world. So that's why 2014 is our launch date. So 12 years of connections for families, thousands of families around the world. So we are really highlighting that this season. So look for those um graphics coming out. There's ones that you can customize or ones that you can just use and put up to your followers or send in an email or text to family or friends that way. So that's coming up. And we also have, I think, Christine, if you're able to come on and chat, I know we have everybody's dealing with life tonight, too. So oh, I can see you again now. So I see that your smile's there. Uh, Christine's gonna talk about doing the calendar challenge, which I know I've seen several people doing it, and I know we always have lots of questions about it too. Uh, and people make some really cute graphics. I am not a cute graphic girl so much anymore. I just cannot get my brain into that stuff. But Christine has done this a few times. So do you want to chat about a couple maybe different ways you've done it or what you might recommend? And then we will have some graphics and templates to share too.

SPEAKER_02

Sure. Um, I mean, I think the first thing I want to do is just encourage, especially anybody who's just new to the fundraising, especially if their goal is that they're hoping to get their registration covered, that that can be done in a month. And the two kinds of calendar um challenges that I've done have both they they both work really well. You just pick one and go with it. The first one is a donate the day. So with that, you have a calendar, the numbers one through 31, because May has 31 days. And um you just basically uh ask for people to volunteer to donate a day. Sometimes they'll do more than one day, especially if they take some of the lower numbers like one or three or you know, some of those lower ones. Um, but the really, really cool part is if you were to add up all the days in May, you would reach$496, which is only$4 shy of the$500 fundraise month. So that is one simple way without having to do a bunch of math to just go, if I can fill up this calendar, I've got my registration pretty much in the bank. Um, I've done another version of it, and on uh the year that I used it, I just said 321 a day in May, because I only needed a little bit more to hit my fundraising goal. And I just asked people to donate uh each day that month that amount. The cool thing about that one is if you know you're I don't know,$200 away from whatever your goal is, or you know,$150 or whatever the number is, you can take that, divide it into the number of days in the month, and you can ask for that per day, whatever it is$2 a day,$7 a day, and see if you can reach the next goal level that you have with that. So it's just it's uh it's a cool way to just kind of have that peace of mind. If I do this, I can make it.

SPEAKER_00

And Christine, how did you typically collect the funds? Did you just have them do it directly to your NFT page? Were people like I know some people are collecting money through Venvo, Venmo, Venmo or PayPal or some other way, and then they put it into the account themselves. What did you find worked best for you?

SPEAKER_02

Well, since I am not in the US and since some of the people that were were donating were gonna be doing it in Canadian funds, I uh allowed them to do what we have in Canada. It's called an e-transfer, or they could give me cash and then I would do a lump sum donation at some point onto the fundraising page. And for others, I would just put the link and they could just say that they're gonna go there and and donate directly there. Um, or they could PayPal me. So it leaves options. They if they want to do it directly, they can do that for the tax receipt. And if if that doesn't matter to them, they could donate in other ways than I do the legwork.

SPEAKER_00

Great. And I know like we've only been talking about this for two minutes. My brain power has diminished rapidly here this evening as it gets later in the night. Did you talk about how you would cross them off or anything like that? Did you have a cute way of you monitoring? Okay.

SPEAKER_02

Um, I used a graphic that another rockin' mom had put together and it was through Canva. And so I had like the file there, and when somebody would come along and do it. Um, for me, it was too crazy to try and put names onto the spaces. So I just took the um blue star symbol and I would put it on the day saying it's already been claimed, somebody's already done it.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. And then that's what I've done in the past too, is I just use some little graphic or sticker just to put on whatever date that somebody had claimed below.

SPEAKER_02

I also did not put names because that was too much for my and one of the other cool things about the calendar is when you have somebody donate the day. Um, as with anything, the more exposure you have, the more likely you have likely you'll have other people donating. So if my mom donated, I'd be like a big thanks to. And if she's on Facebook, take her thanks to Betty for her donation to DSCN, and then people keep seeing it. And it because some people look at something and they're like, oh yeah, I should go back and I should do that, and probably forget. So it really helps for the exposure um to make sure that as many people as possible have the opportunity. Yeah. And the people who donate also feel valued for what they're doing, which is important.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, very much. Jess, have you done this before too?

SPEAKER_01

Do you have any other thoughts on so I have not done the donate the day, but I'm gonna try it this year. Um, I've got uh more than 500 to my goal, but it that will give me the push to you know keep working it. Um, but one thing I like definitely always tag the people in a thank you. Um, what I have found now that Teddy is talking so much more is I will have him help me do a video thank you to people. And that seems to really garner more uh donations because people want their own personal Teddy thank you. So we'll sit on the couch or in his bed at the end of the day and say, hey, we need to thank Jen, Miss Jen Jacob for her donation. Say thank you, Jen, and he'll say thank you, and then he'll tell a little story or talk about school or who will who knows what the kid wants to talk about that day. Um, but people really eat in, eat that. So um, so that's kind of planned for May. Well, that sometimes gets around the algorithm issues too.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think that algorithm piece is just so important for us all to remember because it just there's such a lag between, I don't know how I'm assuming everybody else is the same that it's like I see posts and it says, Oh, this was three days ago, but I'm just seeing it for the first time because of just the following. And I'm not on social media as regularly anymore. So I know that's partially, you know, it's all to um, it's all in there. So yes, whether you're posting it on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, wherever you're posting it, you can my space, just kidding. I don't think anybody's posting on that.

SPEAKER_02

I've also considered doing messaging, text, or email where I'm still including what I'm doing and giving people the opportunity because again, as as we've said, uh it's exposure that helps people have the opportunity at least to consider donating.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. It's all those reminders too. I think that's a really good point because just, I mean, we all get so busy and everything just gets forgotten. Like that's just how it is. So we get it. Um, you said something else that just reminded me about texting people. Um, I think you said it right at the beginning, too, is really May is an important time to think about what your big goal is for the end of the year and either splitting it up so you know what you're looking for, or just telling people like I am trying to hit$500 by the end of this month. And so that makes it a little bit more manageable too. And you can do a countdown, which then it's continually getting bumped up to whether it's on the same post or a new post, however, you choose to do that is a a good way to really not give a sense of urgency, but give a sense of urgency so they know that the time is running out on this and you know, giving yourself a sense of what that looks like as things are coming in here at the end of the month. So it's a good news, bad news at the end of the month. Like we're getting there, but it also gives you a prime opportunity to really kind of make your last call. To get this all done.

SPEAKER_02

Another cool thing about May is because you are hopefully approaching a goal of some sort, it gives you the opportunity to also be filling people in on how much further you have to go. Because sometimes that's the push people need as well. They're like, oh, they're only this much away. Well, I should just give them five dollars, twenty dollars, a hundred dollars, whatever it is that they're able to give. But I've found in the past that the more, the closer I get to my goal, the more people are like, oh, I should just help her get there.

SPEAKER_00

Agree. Agree. I think that is a nice helpful way. And they see that you have been successful and other people have been donating to this cause too, which I think just helps people know, like, yes, this is legit. We, you know, this is important work that we're doing. It's well funded monies too. I know some people, I know you both have been around the block a few times with us doing this and you know, just sharing about how many dollars you've really raised over the years. I mean, you are both in a category that you've raised lots of dollars for DSDN and just letting people know what a big part of that it is. We are, you know, a nonprofit, a really small nonprofit in the scheme of what nonprofit work looks like, but we also can function at that level and that, you know, is our working budget. We don't need bajillions of dollars every year. That would be great, I guess, if we had it. But you know, that's not what our goal is, is to sustain the work that we're doing and continue to pay it forward for the new families. So it's there just like it was for all of us. So a good way to kind of just remind people of that because I do think that is sometimes hard and a challenge for people that you know they don't know if it's a legit organization, even sometimes. And even though we're talking about how awesome it is, they don't have first hand real you know experience with it like we do. So a cool way to do it. Um anything else that you guys could think about that we should maybe uh talk about here in this last final push.

SPEAKER_02

I think we'll probably do one more Zoom call at the middle of the month just to see what other questions people have, but maybe just to update uh that whether people still have their registration held, whether we're getting close to that mark. They may want to know that.

SPEAKER_00

That is a great question. I need to actually see what date. I think we had moved it, so I need to see. I know there is plenty of space at both events still, so we are not in a category we have to worry about wait listing and things like that. So um I would say definitely if you are getting close to your registration or not getting quite close yet and thinking about paying for your registration, just wait, hold off until May at the end of the season. I think even at this point, I'll double check with um the retreat team to make sure that that is still the case. But um I forgot to ask that question when I we had a call today about some of this stuff. So um I will find out, but I know we are not in a situation where anybody should just pay for their retreat yet. You can just wait. And like we were saying too, like if you're doing a fundraising account and you ended up raising$200 this year, that's awesome.$200. So then you would just have to pay an additional$300. So you're actually saving money on your retreat registration to get to your first level. So, you know, there's um things that we'll talk about here at the end of the month, depending on where you land with fundraising and see where you're at. So very good question. And Janesse and Christine are two of our coaches. They are around and are reaching out to their team. I know there's lots of questions coming through on those sides of emails and things too. So uh if you're listening in tonight and have a question, you're not sure who to reach out to, your coaches, you can email them anytime, ask in the app anytime, email, text, phone call, whatever works, you know, we're all here. However, you can reach us, please reach out. Um, and we'll continue to reach out to you guys too. We know it is a busy, busy time. Uh the raffle, like I said, is rolling that closes on May 10th. So we've got about two weeks here of that going on to see if we can um get some additional funds for some of these fundraisers and for DSDN and we'll see where we end up that way. Uh, there's also a 50-50 raffle prize on the um raffle, I guess is the word. And so if you uh are last at during the fall raffle, I think the payout prize was like$600 something dollars. So, you know, if you're looking to uh get a uh registration and you don't want to pay for it, you could even try just getting a raffle prize and seeing uh a raffle ticket for the 50-50 raffle, and that could be a way to get yourself to a retreat too this season. So all sorts of things. I don't think I have anything else left to share about. I don't think we have any other questions that have come in from any of the other attendees here tonight. So I think we'll uh wrap up for this podcast slash zoom call episode. Let us know whatever questions that you have. We are here to help you. We are going to get so much closer to our goal. Remember, 390,000 is our goal. I think we're at, let me see, I can give you a very exact number. Well, almost exact. It's probably a little bit higher as 273. We're at today. So that is 70% of our goal, getting close to 71%. So we're getting there, we're getting there. It takes a while to do all of this, but because of all of us working together, we can do this for DSDN every year. So thank you, thank you for being a part of this, participating. Let us know how we can help you and let's finish out May very strong. Have a good rest of your week and let us know what we can do.