A Night of Sunshine
The Rotary Club of Mantua
The past 12 months have been difficult for organizations that depend on fundraising to finance their community service. When the Crestwood Middle School Sunshine Fund approached the Rotary Club of Mantua to help make up for their inability to do their in-person events we sympathized, but said we too had to cancel our own fundraisers. Instead of leaving it at that, we decided to try a virtual reverse raffle. Having been approached by Bob Oborn to support theirs, we reached out to him for guidance about how best to run a successful virtual event. He was extremely helpful, and we decided to proceed.
Knowing that Rotary and the Sunshine Fund could not do it alone we reached out to the Downtown Mantua Revitalization Corporation (DMRC)and businesses in the Village for their support. We were hopeful, but not confident that we could sell 150 at $100 each. We did have on things going for us. A good cause that the community would likely support – the Crestwood Middle School Sunshine Fund that provides financial help to students and families experiencing financial difficulty. As we look back it is clear that being able to clearly identify who would receive most of the net proceeds helped generate support.
For publicity we utilized our personal and the school’s social media, articles in The Weekly Villager and The Portager, broadcasting through organizational email lists, and enlisting five Mantua businesses to place posters in their windows or on their counters and to sell tickets. Two of the businesses, JAKEs Eats and Restoration 44 Coffee shop, have many local patrons and they placed table tents on their tables.
It did not hurt to have attractive prizes. The top prize was $2,000 with $1,000, $500, $250, and $100 being the second through fifth prize. In addition, the first ticket pulled and then every tenth one beginning with the tenth received a $50 gift certificate to one of 12 Mantua businesses. The net revenue was more than $10,000 and two of the cash winners gave all or some of their winnings to The Rotary Foundation or the Sunshine Fund. Half of the net revenue went to the Sunshine Fund and the other half was split between DMRC and Mantua Rotary.
During the event on March 13th, a Middle School student’s video presentation of the Pledge of Allegiance, a video of the Middle School choir singing The Bohemian Rhapsody, and presentations by the 6th and 8th grade bands provided entertainment. And to raise the public image and to promote an understanding of the three cooperating organizations, the Rotary Club of Mantua, Crestwood Middle School Sunshine Fund and the Downtown Mantua Revitalization Corporation had an opportunity to talk about their history, their mission and their recent service projects.
This was a wonderful event to raise the public image of The Rotary Club of Mantua, to generate a list of potential members and to raise funds for future service projects as we netted over $2,500.