Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

October 28, 2016

Post-Flection

Call to Action day was much different than what I thought it was going to be. I thought that I would at least help hand out food to the people in need, and be able to interact with all the families in need. From the moment my seminar class arrived, I received a weird feeling in my gut that I would not be handing food off to the group of people in need. I immediately got the feeling that my group would be put to work as soon as we stepped off the bus. I was right, as soon as we walked into the food bank the leader split our class into groups and put us to work right away. The leader of the food bank made the men carry around heavy food and stack them on shelves, and made the ladies stack a quantity of small foods on shelves. The entire class worked all day sorting out different foods and finding shelves for the mass quantities of packaged food to be stocked on. The class had no interaction with the community that day. The leader barely even talked to us, she just put us to work, on whatever she needed to have done. The community work day was boring and felt useless to me. I felt that only a couple of people were actually working hard, while others were off slacking and playing on their phones. I did not learn much about the community that I was supposedly helping out. The only thing I learned is how to organize mass amounts of cheap and packaged foods on shelves, while not even getting paid to do all that hard work.

Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

October 17, 2016

Pre-Flection on Call To Action

On Call to Action day, I expect to be hands on helping the community. I plan to be giving food and supplies to people and families in need. I want to see the beautiful smiles these families will have when I am handing them a box of food and supplies. I expect to talk with the employees at the food bank and hear about their previous experiences with handing out food to big groups of families and people. I expect to talk to some of the families to see how this experience is helping their lives become easier and better. I hope to learn how I can help my community in need back home, by observing and learning what the people at the food bank do. I want to learn how a non-profit is able to round up enough workers on a day to day basis and be able to function at such an efficient rate. I want to learn how this non-profit business gets its money. Does the non-profit food bank do fundraising, does it do charity events, etc.… these are all things I would love to find out. Community workday is connected to the schools Hallmarks because the whole school is committing itself to helping the community members in need, and honoring the dignity and sacredness of each person. 

Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

October 5, 2016

Auctions & Peet’s Article

Auctions seem to be the best way to fund a non profit. Almost anything can be auctioned off including merchandise, services and even dates. To have an auction all you need is products that you can auction and them have people place bids to try and acquire the item. Date auctions are a brilliant way for potential couples to interact while raising money. There are very few things needed to have an action. The main items needed for an auction are volunteers to keep the event running, a ticket desk, bidding paddles, and a event space. Before holding a big event like an auction people need to have advertise their event widely through different media platforms. Having fliers posted in the neighborhood community centers, cafes, and local shops will help get the word out. Also using social media and emailing people will help publicize the event. It is also very important that the guest know before hand what the rules of the event are. Lisa Peet shows an example of a huge event that she attends called “The annual Party on Post which nets $85,000–$100,000 and includes both silent and live auctions, plus a reverse auction “Call for Cash.” 

Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

November 9, 2016

Comment 8

There are many other ingenious fundraising ideas. Crowd-source funding is one of the practices of funding a project or venture by raising many small amounts of money from a large number of people, typically via the Internet. Another way to fundraise is to enter contests. Raising money for a nonprofit is a paramount engagement since the organization needs to run, and effective functioning can only be achieved with the availability of funds to finance the operations and cater for the expenses incurred. Raising funds can be hectic but with determination and precision on the side of the organization, you can read bounty result. Fundraisers are not that difficult to have, they just take a lot of time and effort in order to be really successful. 

Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

October 8, 2016

Comment 7

Planned giving is the process of donating planned gifts. A planned gift is a contribution that is arranged in the present and allocated at a future date. Commonly donated through a will or trust, planned gifts are most often granted once the donor has passed away. Planned Giving is a long-term solution to lowering taxes. David Schemeling said, “the key to a successful planned giving is the complete integration of planned giving into the overall development program”. (Integrating Planned Giving). Dan Recer also said that “planned giving has many tax benefits and can be customized more effectively than any other form of giving”. (Let Get Planned Giving Out of the Fog). Planned Giving is a very effective and can be very successful with the good development of the program. Leonard Clough said that “planned giving lets donors accomplish they have long wanted to do, but thought they could not afford”. (Why Planned Giving). Planned Giving all starts with the board of a company. The board is the one factor that determines the success or failure of a company's planned giving program. Debra Ashton says that “no business owner should just assume even the most sophisticated board members know about planned giving. Most people - regardless of the of the level of success in their own careers - don't really understand what planned giving is”. (Planned Giving Success Starts With Your Board).

Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

November 16, 2016

Comment 5

A special event is a function that aims to generate money for the community group or not-for-profit which stages it. There are many different types of special events, each with their own different level of complexity and suitability for different groups. Some of the more common types of special events are: Functions (raffles, auctions, etc.), Dinners (formal raffles and auctions), Awards nights, Fetes/fairs, Grand openings/launches (raise awareness and attract publicity), General fundraising events or drives (walkathon, readathon, rideathon, or any other type of -thon). Shialek says “a great way to improve a special event is to give people chances to mingle. Provide them with name tags that display their names, titles, and affiliations clearly. Include ice-breaking activities to make it easier for people to get to know each other and exchange information”. (Improve Your Special Skills).  Devney says that “evaluating and critiquing the event after it has happened is very important, because you need to make sure you reached your goals, you need to know how the event went, you need to know if any new strategies worked, and you need to know if the event had a higher or lower attendance rate than the last event”. (The Secret of Special Events: Evaluation).  A special event is a great way for the community to generate money and is also a great way to get the community closer with the social aspects of the events.

Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

October 17, 2016

Comment 4

Ljiljana Najev Čačija said “fundraising is one of the major activities of a nonprofit organization”. Raising funds for nonprofit can be effectively achieved by the use of direct marketing. Proper utilization of direct marketing will go a long way in ensuring that someone is able to raise the required funds. Not only will direct marketing achieve the fundraising objective, it will also help someone market their products. Four methods of direct marketing that can be used to reach donors who are intellectuals and have the ability to read are direct mail, telemarketing platforms, paid advertisings, and public service advertisements. Another direct marketing method that really good is door-to-door marketing, because someone can simply organize a group to walk in the homesteads of potential customers, existing customers, and even old customers. Three of the different ways that direct marketing donations can be done are on a one-on-one basis, a planned giving, or a small group meeting. The best strategies to achieve increased contributions are by giving out rewards to help boost the amount of money someone spends, and by doing appropriate and aggressive advertising. Mark J. Arnold and Shelley R. Tapp give evidence that proves “non-profit services can improve customer identification with the organization by concentrating on more “focused” communication strategies with their members - strategies that can be executed particularly well with direct and interactive marketing techniques”. 

Alex Ellifritz

Professor Martin

Freshman Seminar

November 16, 2016

Comment 3

Charities will often organize raffles or auctions to raise money. A report came out recently showing that charity events raised over $240 million in the US in every year since 2003. Onderstal Schram is the first to perform an experimental investigation where the prize to be won is characterized by independent private values where there is incomplete information about others’ values. Their study compares winner-pay (first-price) auctions, lotteries and all-pay (first-price) auctions. Their main result provides support for the theoretical predictions: all-pay auctions are the preferred mechanism to raise money for charities. The results show that compared to all-pay auctions, winner-pay auctions are expected to reduce revenues by more than 100 and lotteries by almost 50. For example, on June 24, 1999, Eric Clapton's legendary 1956 Fender Stratocaster ‘Brownie’ guitar raised $497,500 for the ‘Crossroads Centre’ in a winner pay auction. In Schram’s estimates, he indicates that the proceeds of this one guitar could have been at least $100,000 higher, had an all-pay format been used. This shows why the all-pay format auction is the best choice for a charity trying to raise the most amount of money possible.