Hey! Great news!
Our local family friendly bar & restaurant has graciously nominated our nonprofit organization to host a Dine to Donate event on a random Tuesday in the middle of the summer from 4:27 pm to 5:11 pm!
That’s right! You can come help us raise money for our charity by simply coming to eat food and drink drinks!
Wait, how much money did you say we were going to be able to raise??
It’s UNLIMITED POTENTIAL!
We could raise DOZENS and DOZENS of dollars!
So much so, that it MIGHT pay for a single hourly wage of our intern who spent at least 12 hours on promoting this event on our social media!
It MIGHT pay for 17 copies of the poster we printed at Kinkos and hung up on the corkboard at the back of the local coffee shop along side several business cards of Phil’s Phastastic Pholiage Services.
What? You can’t believe that a business would be so generous to give us 15% of everything you order on the slowest night on the slowest week on the slowest month on said restaurant’s calendar?
Oh yeah. They sure did. And we sure said “YES!”
We’ve spent at least 3 meetings on what sort of swag we want to give away to the 6 people that show up for this event! AND, we made sure to spend 9 times what we will make on a very fancy tablecloth that has our logo on it that we will sit behind to passively wait for folks who are just coming in to escape their chaotic family dynamics for a drink and appetizer before they begrudgingly have to go home!
Sure, most of the guests will NOT be counted as individuals who came to the Dine to Donate, because of the very small print that requires each person to announce loudly to the servers that they are attending on behalf of our nonprofit. AND clearly the underpaid and overworked staff have not been alerted to any and all of the fundraising situation since this is the third shift they have worked today, and their manager forgot to mention anything.
But don’t despair! We spent 3 hours recording and editing a TikTok about this event that over 28 people watched yesterday. Get ready for BOOMING BUSINESS!
Is it becoming prohibitively expensive for a family of 5 to dine out randomly during the week? Sure is! But that’s ok! This will be the perfect excuse for a potential high capacity donor to give to our nonprofit at this amazing fundraiser so that when we go back later this year for a sponsorship at our gala they have an excuse to say they already supported us at this super cool and not-at-all waste of time event!
Get ready to have our bank accounts OVERFLOWING with money at the end of the night!
Are you concerned that we won’t take a photo with the assistant afternoon manager 7 weeks later for a tiny check presentation? No worries!
We’ll make sure we spend a LOT of time aggressively following up with random folks who answer the phone at the restaurant every day for the next month asking what the total amount was so we can announce it on Facebook. Janet, one of our board members keeps asking because she’s the one who got us this incredible opportunity by convincing her nephew who sometimes works there to get us this fundraiser and she needs to “LIKE” it immediately and then brag about it at the next board meeting during the fundraising update.
Will this increase the amount of people in the community who know who we are?
No. But we can definitely cross it off our list of “marketing ideas” in 2024 we can include in our Annual Report!
So make sure you come on down to Shenanigans Bar & Grill & Meat Market & Off Sale next week and help us raise critical funds for those we serve…
…15% of $9 at a time!
See you there!
Listen, you’re already on the phone and trying to get your contacts to pick up and answer, right? Well there are much better ways to interact with your donors.
Ok Patrick, so what then SHOULD you be using your time doing to raise money instead of sit at an empty restaurant and wait for folks to make eye contact with you and take a hastily printed “one sheeter” on what your nonprofit does?
Here’s 3
1. Instead of calling and begging your supporters to give you a small percentage of a dinner bill, try checking in and talking about how much their gift has made a difference in the lives of those you have served. Talk to them about what they would like to see accomplished for your organization in the next year or so, and find a nugget or two of information about them to help build a deeper relationship to prep for a larger ask down the road! Play the long game and play it often.
2. Try asking for a specific donation to a program they already know about or have proved they love supporting. The better you know a donor, the more intimate the conversation you can have about the type of support you need, they could potentially give, and what that means for your nonprofit. These are incredibly fun chats where you invest their passion to help navigate the size of their gift!
3. Invite them for coffee and talk about other businesses or individuals who, like them would love to support your organization. It is a great opportunity to invite your biggest cheerleaders to introduce you to some of their connections without them asking anyone for money. All you want to do is meet like minded people who want to join you and your donor to make the world a better place
You might be tempted to start an event, or a random online fundraiser on Facebook to generate money. But the best way to raise consistent and increased donations is to treat your donors less like ATM’s and more like business partners with huge hearts
There. Now you can go out to dinner without the stress of peer pressuring in random humans to order that extra entrée or drink do your nonprofit can make an additional $1.35.
You got this!
-Patrick
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