MUSC Hollings Cancer Center’s Jerry Zucker Ride for Hope 2018 Fundraising Toolkit

The Fundraising Toolkit is a handy tool to help jumpstart your efforts. Get ideas and inspiration, learn about Hollings, find out where donations go, and more!  

Download the Toolkit

Ready to start fundraising?
Dig in and let’s RIDE: Ready, Invite, Double Back, and Express Thanks.

Ready

You’ve made the commitment, now it’s time to get strategic. Everyone you know is a potential donor to your efforts. Take a moment to think about everyone you could possibly contact and the best way to contact them. Some ideas include:

• Family and friends
• Neighbors
• Former or current colleagues or classmates
• Friends or followers on social media channels
• Social groups- Religious community, hobby group, intermural sports league, fellow volunteers, play group

The best way to succeed is to reach out to anyone you can think of. Because cancer affects everyone, now is the perfect time to reach out to people in any city, state or country. We all have a story to share, and we can all join together in this fight!

Once your list is ready, put your inner wordsmith to work and start practicing your story. We recommend having a short message ready at any time (your elevator pitch) to raise support, whether you’re talking to a new acquaintance, giving a family member a call, killing time between innings or chatting with someone on Facebook. The more personal, the better.

Your personalized fundraising page will be your key to maximum success, so make sure to include your story and photos so the page is ready to share when you kick off! 

As you craft your message, you might find it helpful to answer these questions:

• How has cancer affected me?
• Why am I personally participating in this ride?
• Why do I think supporting cancer research is important?
• If someone tells me their gift is too small to make an impact, what would I say? (Remember, every dollar truly does make a difference!)

Invite

The two most important things to do to crush your fundraising goal are to ask everyone, and make it personal.

To have the maximum impact it’s important that you start right away reaching out to the people you previously identified. Invite them to join you in this journey of making a difference in cancer research, so more lives are saved and more cancer battles are won.

As you’re beginning to reach out, you may want to speak with your employer to boost your efforts. In the past, some fundraisers have received matching gifts, which is a great way to motivate people to donate more since their gift goes further. Others have held events at work to support their goal, like a past participant who organized a day where employees wore jeans to work after donating a small amount. Those small gifts added up quickly to help her exceed her goal in just one day!

Now is the time to get creative with raising support and spreading your story. Sending a letter and/or email is a great way to make the initial contact. You can also share small blurbs on social media, and don’t forget to add pictures to help tell your story! Have a blog? Get those fingers typing to mobilize your readers!

The most successful letters or emails include your story, instructions for making a gift, and information about the Jerry Zucker Ride for Hope and Hollings Cancer Center, which you can find on the FAQ pages. Remember to include that 100 percent goes to support cancer research!

A post on social media should be shorter, but don’t forget to include a link to your fundraising page. One fun social media trick is to take advantage of #tbt and share pictures of the reason you ride. Be sure to follow us on Facebook for easy to share posts, too. When you share them, don’t forget to include your customized link!

Remember, the best messages are personalized ones. We know getting started can be a challenge, though, so our toolkit contains sample letters for introducing your goal and following up with folks plus helpful information about Hollings Cancer Center.

Once you hit send on your first email and stamp the letters, your fundraising has begun!

 

Double back

There are bound to be well-meaning people who want to support you and fight against cancer but simply forget to donate after your first ask. This is why it is very important to send kind reminders and updates, especially to people who’ve committed to supporting you but have not yet made their gift.

Your personal donation page will be open until Dec. 5 to make sure you have maximum time to meet your goal. After the event don’t forget to update everyone about your ride and send them a reminder about their donation. They’ll enjoy seeing what you’ve accomplished and will hopefully also be motivated by the approaching deadline.

Team Captains- don’t forget to also check-in with your teammates to encourage them and help your team reach its collective goal!

Express Thanks

Congratulations- you’ve started fundraising and shared your message, and gifts have begun arriving! Now it’s time for a fun but essential step: thanking your donors!

A simple thank you can go a long way in helping donors feel engaged in your efforts and making them excited to support you again. A card is always appreciated, but you can also get creative in making your own postcard, sending out a video, making a card out of your child’s artwork or more.

Team captains- please remember that gifts can be made to individuals or to your whole team. If you see a gift that’s been made for the team, please take the lead and thank these kind donors!

The most important thing is to connect these generous donors with your mission and remind them of how important they are in the battle against cancer. Just like we couldn’t make progress without your help, you couldn’t meet your goals without theirs!