Fundraising Strategies

Over the past few weeks my fundraising team and I have attempted both online and in-person strategies to raise money for AIDS Walk Atlanta. I was able to send out a mass email to all of the contacts in my address book using the AIDS Walk Atlanta website and I received responses from a couple of friends and family members. For in-person fundraising strategies my team and I attempted to solicit donations from football fans at the Georgia Tech Parents Weekend football game and we are working to set up a bake sale in the Student Center in the coming weeks.

Of the courses I am taking this semester, this course has definitely required the most out-of-class participation. My team meets about one or two times per week in order to work on fundraising for AIDS Walk Atlanta or to discuss helping the Georgia Tech Pride Alliance with their Monthly Awareness Campaigns (MACs) in addition to the time that we each put into these projects individually. At times it is difficult to set aside time for fundraising because fundraising takes a fair amount of planning and it is not something that can be done in fifteen minute sessions throughout the week. Due to the very busy schedule my teammates and I have with other classes and working on the Pride Alliance MACs, we have had to shift our fundraising schedule back a little bit. I do not think that anyone on our team expected such a large work load from this class and other classes, so it seems we underestimated how busy our schedules would be this semester when we made our fundraising schedule. Also, because we had trouble securing a spot in the Student Center to hold a fundraising bake sale, the bake sale has been pushed back a few weeks until the logistics are figured out. Despite these setbacks with our in-person fundraising strategies, my team has continued to raise money through our proposed online strategies.

My original fundraising goal for AIDS Walk Atlanta was $100. I felt this goal was very reachable, but it also provided some leeway if fundraising proved to be more difficult than expected. So far I have been able to raise $80 by utilizing the AIDS Walk Atlanta online fundraising page and sending emails out to my family and friends. I am very impressed with the money I have raised so far as I was not expecting to raise so much in such a short amount of time. Because of my progress thus far, I am considering raising my goal to $200. I feel that this new goal will be more difficult to obtain, but because my team has many more fundraising strategies to implement, it is still possible to reach.