What are your fundraising success stories?

4 replies [Last post]
Tue, 07/14/2009 - 12:32
Patti MacRae
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Joined: 04/14/2009

Now that the flurry of responding to all those federal grants has died down, I thought it might be interesting to start a thread here that gives everyone a chance to tell their sustainability success stories (or failures, and how you overcame them!). While obtaining a federal grant is one very important way to get ongoing funding for your program, there are many other creative ways to get support from local communities, state agencies, individuals and businesses, or even entrepreneurial activities such as product sales.

In these times of increasing worry about where the next dollar is coming from, sharing your successes, no matter how small, might be encouraging for everyone who is struggling to keep mentoring alive in their community. We at the MRC would certainly appreciate hearing about them!

__________________

Patti MacRae
National Mentoring Center

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Mon, 08/03/2009 - 11:50
#1
LisaFS
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Joined: 06/22/2009
Re: What are your fundraising success stories?

Hello all,
I would just like to share about a program that we created that mimicked our Department of Education grant but added a new component. This allowed us to request funding as an enhanced project but kept the elements we felt beneficial.

With our new granted funds, we are able to take mentor matches out on supervised field trips in the areas of community service, cultural events and vocational/career exploration. The new component added is a quarterly eduation session with the parents of the mentee along side the mentor with topics covered by local experts such as bullying, adolescent behavior patterns and technical education and PSAT preparation.

An element important to this grantee is to share the success of this new program with others who are designing programs that work well. It is in this vain that I pass the information along.

If you would like more details, feel free to contact me directly at lisa.schulz@lsssd.org. We are a school-based mentor program serving over 1500 mentors in 29 schools (all in the same school district). We are located in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, which has a school population of 21,000 and population of 150,000.

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Mon, 08/03/2009 - 12:39
#2
Patti MacRae
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Joined: 04/14/2009
Re: What are your fundraising success stories?

I love this model! It combines mentor and mentee training with involving and training parents, as well as providing a new way for relationships to deepen between mentor and mentee. I hope you are going to be able to get some participant feedback about these sessions so you can see how the program has impacted everyone involved, what they liked and disliked, etc.

One question I have is how the mentees feel about having both their mentor and their parent with them in these sessions?

I'd also be interested to know if you received a local grant for this work or whether it was part of a broader initiative. We here at the MRC are always glad to hear when programs are successful in obtaining grants to enhance their programs, so if you are willing to share your story that would be great!

Thanks for sharing this...

__________________

Patti MacRae
National Mentoring Center

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Tue, 08/04/2009 - 18:34
#3
LisaFS
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Joined: 06/22/2009
Re: What are your fundraising success stories?

Patti et al,

Our mentees seem very excited to have their parents and mentors in the same room at the same time especially since we are a school-based program and it happens so rarely. Most kids are welcoming to both and like that the conversation flows among all.

The grant we received is from a regional religious organization and is specifically for this enhanced project.

We definitely are gathering data on likes, dislikes, etc. and organizing future sessions accordingly. It is so great to hear the kids reflect on the community service projects. They feel so empowered to be helping others. One of our favorites is helping pack lunches for the working poor. One of the boys in the group was just overwhelmed that spending an hour and a half of his own time contributed to someone getting a nutritous meal while they worked a 12 hour shift. It was priceless!

Lisa Schulz, Director

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Mon, 10/05/2009 - 17:57
#4
michalw
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Joined: 09/27/2009
Re: What are your fundraising success stories?

I recently heard about a mentoring program who raffled a flexi day through their organisation. Cost the organisation a days pay but was a successful fundraiser apparently. Who wouldnt buy a ticket to win a day off! :)

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