When you’re standing out in front of the supermarket or strolling down the busy street trying to sell greeting cards, the people you encounter don’t have time to know what you want, don’t have the inclination to help you unless they can instantly understand what you want and how you’re going to use their hard-earned money, and most of all, the people you meet are BUSY, far too busy to listen to your sales pitch. The point is, on the street, there is no time for a sales pitch, none whatever. You have at best 1/30th of a second to make your sale. That’s why, in spite of the fact that we have tens of thousands of fine art graphics available to us, we settle on the kid’s art for first conact, period.
That’s also why we make our cards at, by and for, the Children’s Craft Village.
It’s easily understandable, is a great project anyway, and people think they understand without having to be explained to, which is their greatest fear, because they are terrified of being influenced, while being continually influenced by commercial bombardment every minute of every day through every medium they’ve come to trust, such as cell phone and ipad.
FEAR is the Great Enemy on the street. People are just plain bone-ass terrified. Terrified of me, of you, of themselves, of everyone and everything they know, have ever known, or will ever possibly encounter. The HBM (Human Biological Machine) is a fear-driven machine made of muscle & blood, with a salt-water computer tucked away in its cranium.
The brain is, technically, a muscle.
You can’t expect much higher aesthetic out of a muscle. The Human is a very simple device, slightly higher than, but on the same order as, an ant. Bump, turn. Bump, turn. Bump food, eat. Bump Other, fight or have sex or both. Bump Stranger, fight, kill, bring meat home. Rest. Poop. Pee. Burp.
Gosh, have I left out any important functions? I hope not, but I probably have. Well, do your best here.
Okay, so fundraising secrets…
1. You have to be instantly readable, understandable, without explanation.
2. Your project purposes must be instantly understandable without explanation.
3. You must convey instantly that this is a charitable fundraiser without explanation.
4. The transaction must be about fundraising, not about the item exchanged.
5. All talk must be kept to an absolute minimum. Concentrate on fundraising, not recruitment — that comes later.
Speaking of recruiting… here it is, “later”. Not much later, but arguably “later”.
Recruiting is what you’re really doing Out There on The Street, right? So first of all, why recruit?
Simple. Recruiting is the only way to actually get the word out there about this teaching.
Recruiting will become urgent when you realize that you can’t possibly cover the entire territory for your fundraising project. You’ll have to trust some folks to help you to get your fundraising project ‘way over the top. (I know, it’s now way over, not ‘way over, but originally the ‘ stood for the “a” in “away over the top”.
Gosh, that’s a lot of exposition for a tiny apostrophe and a permanently missing “a”.
You mustn’t be led astray, into thinking about variation, who gets to have their painting on the card, all the great art you could be representing, and so on.
What really counts are the five points I enumerated above.
Nothing else works, at least, not for fundraising. Art sales are a different kettle of fish, and are accordingly fried, baked, roasted, frittered or fricasseed in their own special way.
We’re talking strictly fundraising here, not ego time at the OK corral.
Best ever would be the kids’ artwork, kid’s photos of their pets, primarily cats, and photos of the kids having fun at the Children’s Craft Village, but that’s just too complicated for folks to take in within the first 1/30th of a second, which is the average attention-time for the average bypasser to spend on yet another roadside attraction, such as yourself.
The bottom line?
The ever-popular KISS principle… (Keep It Simple, Stupid.)
Can you raise money for projects that require explanation at the donation table? Yes, you can, but not as effectively, efficiently and as new-friend-making as the way I suggest — make the name of your project explain your project, and keep it elegantly simple, easily memorable and sounding like something safe, fun and community-productive.
Must it be Children’s Craft Village?
Silly. Of course it doesn’t must be CCV. It can be any worthy cause you care to name…but it’s always easier if people are already familiar with the name or think they are…such as the all-too-familiar “Girl Scot Cookies”, sold to benefit young ladies from Scotland, and “Fund for the Widow of the Unknown Soldier”.
Fact is, if you raise money for a project, the money has to be actually spent on that project, period. Don’t fundraise if you ain’t gonna do the thing.
Another thing — fundraising is NOT selling. Never forget that. It’s not about the product — think of the card as a “thank you”, nothing more than a glorified business card, and you’ll get the idea. The object is not the object, if you get my meaning.
I have several types of greeting cards available for fundraising, and you can select and order single-image card groups if you like.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby