It’s Not Over Yet…

By Sophie Collins, our awesome Special Events Assistant

Stairclimb might be done, but you still have 18 days to fundraise!! The fundraising deadline closes on March 23^rd and there are plenty of amazing incentive prizes to be had:

• If you raise $250, you can choose between a $25 gift card from Sport Chek or Best Buy and you also get entered into a trip for two to Paris to climb the Eiffel Tower! (For every $100 you raise over $250, your name gets entered again!)
• If you raise $500, you can choose between a $50 gift card from Sport Chek or Best Buy
• If you raise $750, you can choose between a $75 gift card from Sport Chek or Best Buy
• If you raise over $1000, you get a pair of Adidas running shoes of your choice from Rackets and Runners

Here are a few more ideas to help bump up your fundraising totals!!

• Host a garage sale and add all the proceeds to your fundraising efforts!
• Hold a bake sale at work – you’ll raise money AND your co-workers’ spirits! (Who doesn’t love cupcakes??)
  
• Host a car wash with your kids on the weekend. Not only are you raising money, you are teaching your children the value of fundraising for a good cause! What a great way to spend a Sunday morning!
• Throw a party! You throw them anyway – why not use them as an opportunity to fundraise? Instead of a hostess gift, ask for small donations towards your goal for the climb. Here are some party ideas for you: wine tasting, cocktail party, clothing swap and cheese tasting.

Good luck with your fundraising. If you get stuck, feel free to get in touch with me at collins@bc.lung.ca or 6047315864 – I’m here to help!

Help us reach our goal of $250,000!

Thank You from the Lung Association Team!

We want to thank everyone who came out to the Sin Bin to make our Pub Night fundraiser not only an amazingly fun night out, but a HUGE success! We raised over $2,000 and had such a great time that we can’t wait to do it again!

Congratulations to all our prize winners, particularly William Madden, our grand prize winner, who took home a ’Weekend Retreat’ (value $650): One night’s stay at the Vancouver Grand Westin Hotel + Dinner for two at Lupo Restaurant & Vinoteca + A Massage for two at Phresh Spa!

We’d particularly like to thank the Sin Bin staff for accommodating such a big crowd of people and making it such a wonderful place to hang out! You guys rock!

How to Raise $50 (or More) Every Day for a Week!

By Sophie Collins, our awesome Special Events Assistant

1.  Sponsor yourself for $25

If you tell someone you’ve done this, they will be more inclined to contribute as well! Get your spouse, BFF, parents – and anyone else you can think of – to match or increase this donation to help support you!

2. Send email to all family members to sponsor you for about $25 

You will most likely get at least 2 responses – and it only takes a few minutes!

3. Ask your two best friends to donate $25

If you have to, remind them how much you spend on their wedding/birthday/graduation/Christmas presents!

4. Get to know your neighbours

Ask 5 of them to donate $10 – everyone has a tenner kicking around – and who knows, you might even make some new friends!

5. Ask your gym or physical activity center to donate $50

They might be excited to support your physical training and the cause!

6. Ask your company/business to match what you raise overall

Particularly if you have put together a work team – but even if you’re doing it alone, many employers will jump at the chance to support the health and community engagement of their staff!

7. Ask 5 of your favourite stores/coffee shops/restaurants to donate $20 each

You spend money there all the time, maybe they’d like to show how much they value your loyalty!

HAPPY FUNDRAISING!

Burger, Beer, Easy Fundraising….What Could Be Better?

You’re busy people. So you might not have time to arrange a pub night from scratch, no matter how much you’d love to. Well, that’s okay, because we’ve done it for you! Not only is it a great opportunity to boost those fundraising numbers, but also to mingle with fellow Stairclimbers and meet some of the BC Lung Association team you’ve been talking to and emailing!

When: Friday, February 17^th at 7PM

Where: The Sin Bin (West 2^nd)

What: With a purchase of a $20 ticket, you will receive a burger and beer from Granville Island Brewery, and $10 will go to fundraising for the stairclimb.

When you sell a $20 ticket, $10 will go towards your fundraising. It’s that easy!

We only have 90 tickets left so email collins@bc.lung.ca ASAP to reserve yours!

Fundraising ABCs – L-Z

By guest blogger Cecilia Huang

Here it is! The grand finale of your Fundraising ABCs:

L	Lunch buffet
M	Movie night
N	Needles night – get a few friends together to sew some goodies to auction off
O	Oscar Pool – make predictions on Oscar results. Charge a fee for entering the pool.  Half of the pool goes to the winner and the other half gets donated.
P	Pub night – lots of local pubs are supportive of these fundraisers. Poker fundraisers; Pizza party (P is an awesome leter!)
Q	Quiz Showdown
R	Raffle draw
S	Scavenger hunts
T	Take the Stairs Day – find out more at www.stairclimb.ca
U	U can make a donation yourself!
V	Vacation Day – reward the co-worker who raised the most with a vacation day!
W	Wii tournament!; Who’s that baby?! (everyone brings a baby photo and you charge people for chances to guess who is who – for a small prize)
X	Ex-gift sale (kinda like re-gifting – but for donations!)
Y	Yogathon; Afternoon yoga retreat
Z	Zoolander-themed party

Hopefully you’re now inspired to go out and try some of these – as well as getting creative with your own ideas! And don’t forget to share them with us in the comments below….

Fundraising ABCs – A to K

By guest blogger Cecilia Huang

Over the weekend a good friend of mine challenged me to brainstorm at least one fundraising idea for every letter of the alphabet.  Anyone who knows me knows I’m always up for a challenge, so I accepted immediately! In the hopes that my results might inspire some of you, I decided to share them.

A	Auction! Auction off your (or your friend’s) services and sponsored prizing
B	Bowling tournament; Bake Sale
C	Cake Walk; Canucks tickets for auctioning!!!!!!!!
D	Disco Dance Party; DYI craft sale
E	Employers match donation; Egg-your-coworker (maybe your very cool boss!) by donation
F	Fairs for kids
G	Garage Sale
H	Hairstyling & haircuts; Hugs for donations
I	International potluck day
J	Jazz Coffee Night
K	Karaoke Contest
L	… You didn’t expect me to give them ALL up that easily, did you??

Now it’s your turn – consider yourself challenged! Share the ideas you came up with for one or two (or all!) of the letters in the comments section below, and stay tuned – my next post will reveal letters L through Z!

Share What You Love!

By guest blogger Cecilia Huang

A few years ago, I took part in a meeting about fundraising tactics. At the meeting were three girls who couldn’t have been more than 11 o r 12 years old.  I assumed they had come with their parents. Little did I know, they were already fundraising experts themselves!

You can imagine my surprise when they walked to the front of the room and held out their wrists. On them were the most exquisite friendship bracelets I have ever seen.  One of their mothers explained the girls made these bracelets to sell at school and had already collected a few hundred dollars in donations!  Better yet, they had done it all by themselves!

The girls weren’t thinking about how much money they would make; they simply wanted to share something they loved with the rest of the world. I too was obsessed with friendship bracelets when I was young. I can remember trading them with my best friends and refusing to take them off even when they got threadbare and faded.

This is what fundraising should be about – sharing your passion with the people around you and enjoying yourself along the way!

Have You Organized a “Take the Stairs Day” Yet?

Are you worrying about hitting your fundraising goal? Never fear, we’re here to help! We’ve come up with a new concept called Take the Stairs Day, and it’s exactly what it sounds like.

The idea is to choose a day or portion of a day (after clearing it with your boss or school first, of course!) during which you ask your colleagues to take the stairs instead of the elevator. For those who take the elevator, a donation is required. Either way you win – you get people stairclimbing or you raise funds through charging for elevator rides!

To make it super easy on you, we’ve created all the print materials you’ll need to get it going: poster to publicize the event, email template to send to your co-workers, label for your donation jar, instructional infographic and even elevator passes! For all the info on the event and to download the print materials, click here. And, as always, feel free to contact us if you have any questions – we’re here to help!