It's All In the Packaging

Fundraising is an interesting profession. I am responsible for bringing in about $1 million dollars a year. That is a lot of pints of blood.

I find that I look at everything from the perspective of fundraising.

"Great to meet you!" (I wonder if you will give me money?).

"Of course I'll buy some Girl Scout cookies!"(If I had 20,000 children selling stuff, I'd make a killing!)

"A spelling bee. What a cool idea for a fundraiser!" (Damn it! I wish I'd thought of that!)

We had a cool fundraiser last month. Eat Local Week showcased local food and raised money for our Urban Roots program. Local restaurants featured local dishes and gave a portion of their sales from that week to us. There were also several events and a raffle.

For the raffle, we had one really cool prize (dinner for 10 from a local chef at a home in Westlake). We wanted to have a second prize so we started looking for donations. We ended up getting a gift certificate to a place called "Moonshine" and a free night at the Hyatt.

I wanted to call the package "Drinks and a Hotel room" and see if we could get Trojan to sponsor it. My staff pointed out that 1) we have a program that addresses underage drinking, 2) we have a program that addresses teen pregnancy, 3) Moonshine is actually a very nice restaurant, and 4) no, just no.

We called it "A Romantic Evening for Two."

That'll work, too.