East Coast Trip 2011 - Helping your family raise funds for this once-in-a-lifetime experience

In my last e-mail, I suggested you seek out ways to get online donations to help pay for your child's trip. Well, I followed my own advice and after careful research I am pleased to announce that I am partnering with Donor Town Square to provide your friends and family members an opportunity to make secure online donations toward your child’s trip. Donor Town Square specializes in online fundraising for non-profit groups. Best of all, they do this with no up-front cost or monthly fee. They simply charge a percentage (6% for Visa/MC/Discover, 7% for AmEx) on each donation for their service.

In the traditional method of asking for donations for a trip like this, families often mail out a form letter along with a pre-addressed, stamped return envelope to the child’s aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, family friends, etc. Doing it this way, there is the cost for the letter, the envelopes, the stamp to send it out and the stamp for the return, the drive to the post office, and the drive to the bank every time you need to deposit your checks. If you send out 50 letters (for example), at a total cost of $50, and that brings in $500 in total donations, your net return is 90%, and I think those numbers are optimistic.

Now, imagine you sent out an e-mail (which you could also customize to each family member and friend more easily than a letter) asking for a donation online. It costs you nothing up front, you didn't use any paper (go green!), and your net return is now 93-94%. Plus, you didn’t have to fold any letters, lick any envelopes, or do any driving at all. Instead, you spent one evening helping your child craft a thoughtful, sincere e-mail and you clicked “Send.”

I know the economy has had an impact on many families (including my own), and the question I get at every information meeting is, “Will you offer any kind of fundraisers?” I’ve been reluctant in the past because I simply feel like selling cookie dough, or frozen pizzas, or wrapping paper, or candy bars ultimately means a lot of work and time for not a lot of return. I have finally found a fundraiser that I can get excited about and whole-heartedly endorse.

Participation in the online donation program is optional, and again there is no cost at all for families to sign up. I’ll talk more about this--and about all the amazing things we will see and do in our nation’s most treasured places--at our Parent/Student Information Meeting, Monday, May 17, at 7:00 p.m., in the Rio Norte MPR. I look forward to seeing you in nine days!