How to Fundrise

A Fund Rising Plan for You

As we have said the only sure way of getting to Bandung is if you raise the money yourselves. Try to make a plan of how to raise effective and in time this money!

1. Make Your Plan. Make a Contact chart or web. First list all the people you, your parents, extended family, friends, schoolteachers and others know who could help you. Put them at the heart of the web. Talk to them and ask them who they know – people in businesses, government, service groups, religious leaders. Remember: people generally give money to people not causes so a personal approach is far more likely to be successful than a letter to someone you have never met. Use the chart to list all the people you have approached along with the date you sent the letter, made the call, had the meeting and the day they replied, or the date when they said to call back. The following is a list of some areas you should explore:

2. Your National Airline. Contact your national airline. Ask to speak to the Head of Public Relations or Corporate Affairs. Show them the letter from the Forum organisers and explain that if they help you, they will get a credit at the Forum. See which is the nearest place they can fly you to through their network. (Many National Airlines do not fly to Jakarta – however if they fly to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur or any Southeast Asia Capital, that’s a great start). If they are not prepared to give you a ticket, ask for the biggest discount they can give you.

3. Your Family. the closest source of money. Involve grandparents, uncles, cousins in your chart and your plan.

4. Local Corporations. Many corporations have community funds to support young people. Talk to the Head of Community/Corporate Affairs and explain what you are doing.

5. Embassies and UN Agencies. In developing countries, many embassies and UN agencies have discretionary funds that they can spend on your participation in events like these. The Ford foundation is also worth approaching.

6. Government Ministries. Try to approach the Ministry of Environment/ Youth Ministry or see if there are any Government scholarship programmes. All Governments were sent letters inviting them to support this event.

7. Individual wealthy people. If you or your family don’t know any – see if you can do some research and find out which people support local charity events. Look at concert programmes, or other charitable events and see who are the local donors. Find out what their interests are, what they support, where they are from and write a careful, enthusiastic letter saying what you want to do.

8. Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples: Talk to them and see if they can get involved in some way. Sometimes they will let you make an appeal to the community.

9. School, college, scout troops. See if they can help. Arrange a car wash, bake sale, sponsored walk or bike ride. Arrange a party or event and charge people. Ask for support from local discos at the university, college professors, holds a university rally. Be inventive!

10. The public campaign: See if you can get to your local newspaper and ask them to do an article about yourself in the local newspaper. This will help, because if you are doing a sponsored walk or whatever, it will get more publicity for you and more people might sponsor you.

11. Working Together. In many cases, you will not be the only participant from your country. Find out who the others are and work together. You will have more success and be able to reach more people. (To find out who else is coming from your country, check out the delegates profiles.)

How are you going to promote yourself?

You should work out a really good letter. Don’t be too stiff and formal – make it really personal, so that people get a sense of who you are, what you have done, what your interests are and why you feel it is important to attend this Forum. Ask a friend to look through the letter and give their honest opinion. Be prepared to write many letters!

Think about your presentation: If someone wants to meet with you to discuss this, plan what you are going to say and how you will come across. Draw on your past achievements – put together a folder of photographs of what you have done.

Fund Raising can be hard and depressing. It’s hard being rejected – but don’t give up!

source: www.scotland2005.com