The Tribune

By D’Arcy Rahming

I do not watch much TV, but if something catches my interest I will watch a bit of it from time to time. The other night I was watching a show about trading up. The gist of the show was that these guys buy seemingly useless articles for a little money, then continuously trade them for more than they bought them. And, I mean, they trade everything and anything, from stuffed owls to artificial lawns. This show has really helped to change my mind about fundraising for small groups.

I am sure you would have seen groups of children selling stuff on the side of the street to raise money to go away to some function or tournament. One of the problems these groups inevitably run into is how do they get enough money to even host a steak out? So they often rely on businesses and parents to donate. Of course, some of these groups get assistance from the Government, but it is rarely enough to fund the entire trip. And funding is rarely available at a developmental level.

Here’s how this trading up works. Let’s say you start with 100 members in your band and receive dues of $3 each, so you have $300 in total. You buy some cookies and have the group sell them, and now you have $600. You borrow a large screen TV, rent a hall and sell tickets to a movie among your members. If you sell the tickets at $10 a pop, and your 100 members sell three tickets each, you now have $3,000. If the hall and equipment cost you $600, you now have $2,400.

And this is where it gets tricky. You hire a PR firm and a fundraising group with a strong track record. The firm creates some promotional pieces for your group, including news releases and a demo video, letter and high quality brochure. The firm puts this together along with some pledge cards. They interview members of your group to see where parents work and get contacts for employers. They present them with letters and raise $10,000. Now we’re beginning to get some where.

The truth is that most groups will not take this exponential step and get professional help. They will stay at the ‘selling cookies on the street level’, not realising that at some stage you must engage persons who know more than you to further your cause. I hope this article will encourage some persons to treat fundraising as a discipline.

• NB: D’Arcy Rahming holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. A lecturer at the College of the Bahamas, Mr Rahming has clients in general insurance, retail, the health and medical fields, sports federations and financial services. He is also treasurer of the Bahamas Olympic Committee. To receive his marketing newsletter FREE go to http://darcyrahming.com