How to start a fundraiser?

flyingeagle1994
Sat, 05 Jun 2010 23:16:10 +0000

I’m interested in starting a fundraiser for Parkinson’s Disease. The money raised would be donated to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation.

http://www.pdf.org/en/pdf_champion

If you click the link you can find out more about it. Basically if I give them all my information, my fundraiser becomes supported by them and they can give me information, etc.

As of now, I’m thinking it would be some sort of formal (auction?) banquet, and as I live in a generally affluent area, I can try to attract some of the more wealthy residents to come. Not quite sure how yet. But I’m sure I can come up with a marketing ploy, contact the local paper, the local news, etc.

Location: There is a local not-for-profit banquet hall that I could contact to hold the event at. I’m not sure how much this would cost, but their largest room holds 450 people. Food would be available to be ordered from the venue.

Auction?: In order to get people in the door, I figure I need some sort of gimmick. There are plenty of local retailers that I could ask to donate auction items.

Volunteers: I can easily recruit high school volunteers from my friends/students at my school.

Entertainment: I could definetely get a few EC musical groups from my school to come perform. If my crowd is going to be more adult then I won’t be able to use any student bands but I should be able to contact a pretty decent cover band and see if they can perform for free?

Sponsors: I don’t have the kind of money to fund this thing so I would have to contact one or more sponsors about funding the event.

MY QUESTIONS: Who do I contact first? The sponsors? The venue? PDF?
What kind of adult involvement is required? I don’t know if I’d be able to have someone supervise. Do I need to find someone?
How would the specifics of an auction go down? Do I need any official forms if they buy something?

:)