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Saturday, February 21, 2015

Searching for Ideas



These girls are happy. They live together at the Barathi Girls Hostel (ages 13+ years) and the KGBV Primary School (ages 8 - 12 years). They are part of the the girls education strategy delivered by ODAM, the Organisation for Development, Aid and Maintenance, in Tamil Nadu  India. They are happy to be at school and love being taught. Many of the girls would not have had the opportunity to do this without the help of ODAM.

This is the charity I support. I see these girls as my girls. I am so very proud to see them growing up, moving through primary school to secondary school and some of them go on to vocational training. Check this out to hear their stories....



In Australia I am part of a group of ODAM Supporters. We undertake to raise money for the school and hostel each year. This year we're looking for some new ideas for fund raising.... We traditionally hold a very successful trivia night and have held fun and fruitful movie nights. We'll do these again I'm sure. However, we'd like to consider new ideas.... have you got any? I would love to hear your thoughts....

2 comments:

  1. It depends on how large your group is and the support overall as to what other ideas might work. For example, one of the best fundraisers I attend here is called "Empty Bowls." The Potters Guild donates bowls and each person pays $25. They come for lunch and get to choose a bowl to take home. Restaurants donate soup and bread for their lunch. It's pretty hard to organize, though.

    On a smaller scale, you might ask a local restaurant that on a certain night or week they donate ten percent of their proceeds to the group. Then you really promote that hard to get people there.

    Another is to host an art or craft event -- people pay so much for their table and after expenses (space if you can't get it donated and/or renting tables) the rest goes to the charity. They do that here a lot to raise funds for schools. I've seen the same thing done with community yard sales, bike and running races.

    If you have something specific (like getting a certain thing for the school -- a roof or desks, etc.)you could try a kickstarter fund online. I've never done one of those but know there are several successful sites for it.

    The other thing to consider is connecting with non-profit groups that meet regularly and ask to do a program and would they consider sponsoring a student or something. You could present your video and photos, explain what the benefits of donating... I don't know the kinds of organizations you have there, but something like Kiwanis or Rotary International might be amenable. If nothing else, just presenting a program might get support...

    There's always ordering something at cost and selling it at a profit with proceeds going to the group. For example, maybe some cooking spices could be purchased in bulk with bottles, then labeled and sold at events. That would tie into the region, people would have something to 'take home' to remind them of it and you would have a profit. Our theatre group is thinking of doing that with stadium cushions for our new outdoor theatre space.

    Well, probably way more ideas than our practical and not knowing your region well doesn't help but you get the idea!

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  2. Great idea's Jeanie. I'm playing with your idea of the bowl funraiser. I have a couple a supportive organisations that love to help out with annual projects - last year we built a new fence... They are great cos they just ask me to give annual updates and presentations.

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