O/T Fundraising

baymom
Fri, 29 Apr 2005 16:44:28 +0000

I’m a development director by profession and have also been chair of our high school Fine Arts Booster Club for the past seven years so fundraising is a huge part of what I do. There are really two types of ways to raise funds for theatre programs: through development techniques and through sales fundraisers/events such as the great ideas described above. The former involves direct asks of those who love theater for donations, either unrestricted to the program or for specific projects. For example, we have approached donors to underwrite parts of shows such as costumes or for general support of a particular production. Sometimes, donors will pay for items such as new wireless mics. Another donor just paid to have the stage floor replaced. The best donors are parents, alumni parents, alumni of the theater program and grandparents. The best asks, of course, are one on one but we’ve also done direct mail and phonathons. A new thing we’re trying is asking alumni who performed or worked on shows to send in donations and be listed in the playbill as “The Cast from the Past.” Fund development is the best way to raise money as it takes minimal investment of volunteer help and the return is almost 100%. Of course, if you are in a private school, your administration is probably already engaged in development and will need to be approached about any effort you may want to undertake.

The fundraisers are great too and build community. We did a dance marathon to raise $20,000 for a new grand piano - very fun and the perfect fundraiser for MT kids (even though it’s an all-night 20 hour affair). We do a fall dinner theater. We sell all different lobby items during shows - show t-shirts, flowers, balloon, bouquets, dramagrams, concessions, refrigerator magnets, etc. It’s a virtual retail store. After Christmas we do “Many Happy Returns” on Ebay where we have people who got Christmas gifts that they don’t want and can’t or don’t want to return, donate them and then we sell them on Ebay. And I run the box office and do ticket printing at an additional charge for all of our theater rentals. This generates a couple thousand dollars a year for our program.