Fundraiser Ideas and Events » Working From Home and Fundraising

Your Work At Home Experience Can Boost Your Child’s Fundraiser

FundraisingIP.com — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 19:35:22 +0000

From the outside, fundraisers seem fairly simple and straightforward; but there is an awful lot of work involved in running even the simplest fundraisers. No doubt your child’s fundraiser could use the sorts of skills you practice in your work as a work at home parent everyday.

How Can You Help Your Child’s Fundraiser?

There’s no telling how you can help your child’s fundraiser to bigger and better success. Quite likely, the things that you do everyday in your work at home job or work at home business – without even realizing that you do them – are skills that your child’s fundraising leaders are desperate for. What you take for granted as routine is a highly valuable skill that is in high-demand for volunteer-poor fundraising campaigns.

To give you a taste of how your skills and expertise as a work at home parent might help, look at just a sampling of the work entailed in running a successful and profitable fundraiser:

• Bookkeeping
• Computer work (ranging from brochure and document design to marketing materials to programming and website design and much more)
• Accounting
• Communications (phone calls, emails, public speaking)
• Public relations
• Recruitment
• Physical labor, both light and heavy work
• Child care, overseeing and leading children’s groups
• Sales
• Marketing
• Arts & Crafts
• Community outreach
• Vendor and service management and organization
• Organizational leadership and service (so many positions need to be filled)
• Writing (letter writing, copywriting, marketing…)
• Networking
• Legal filings
• Permitting and zoning
• Catering, cooking, serving, wait staff
• Grant writing

Your skills can help your child's fundraiser!

Depending on the fundraiser, all of these services and many more could be required. Even the most basic fundraiser will require people to manage organizational jobs and basic accounting and marketing. You truly cannot tell from the outside looking in what assistance your child’s fundraising group might need that you could easily offer. Moreover, there’s no telling what promising fundraisers your child’s group might be yearning to try if only they could access skills and expertise like those you posses.

How Will They Know You Can Help?

There is probably only one way that your child’s fundraising group will know how you can help – if you offer your time and services. Talk to the group, a representative, or attend a fundraising meeting and offer what you can. Keep in mind that these groups are not always looking for a professional per se, and that the skills you’ve gained in any of these areas will more than suffice; so even though you may not be a professional bookkeeper, your familiarity with bookkeeping as a WAHM or WAHD is sure to be useful. Rest assured your child’s fundraising group will be more than happy to utilize whatever skills you can offer and will be appreciative of your willingness to volunteer. Put yourself out there and see what you can do today to boost your child’s fundraiser with the skills use everyday in your work from home.

The Advantages Of Being A Fundraising Volunteer When You Work From Home

FundraisingIP.com — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:36:21 +0000

Working as a fundraising volunteer can be professionally beneficial in many ways to work at home parents. By offering your services you can gain confidence and visibility, drawing attention to your services and skills. But you can also benefit personally in a number of ways by being a fundraising volunteer. Serving as a fundraising volunteer for your child’s school or group may be just the thing you were looking for to fulfill you.

Working From Home Is Harder Than It Looks!

Working from home is a great thing; there are many benefits that come along with managing your own schedule and being readily available to your kids. No doubt you’re familiar with these and those benefits play a very large role in why you work from home or run your business from home. Just as you know the many advantages of working from home, you are also probably familiar with the downsides as well. Working from home can be tough; it means

• You might not interact with a lot of other people outside the home on a regular basis
• You risk not being visible and your business suffering
• You lack the support and camaraderie of friends and coworkers
• Your exposure to the outside world gets narrower and narrower unless you do something to expand it
• Your personal outlet for enjoyment and creativity can be stifled
• You are on your own when work and personal life conflict

All of these factors can seriously detract from your work and productivity if not addressed in some way. It all goes back to taking care of business by taking care of you first. You might be surprised to find out that fundraising is a great way to do just that.

So How Will Being A Fundraising Volunteer Benefit Me?

If you really think about it you’ll see that volunteering to help with your child’s next fundraiser can easily solve many of the troubles that plague you as a work at home parent. As a fundraising volunteer you can alleviate some of the loneliness and alienation while supporting a needy and worthwhile cause. Being a fundraising volunteer can help you as a work at home parent by

• Acting as a social outlet
• Getting you out of the house
• Meeting new people
• Increasing your support network (finding other WAHM’s and WAHD’s who can help you in a pinch)
• Increasing networking opportunities
• Providing an outlet for interest and creativity
• Exposing you to the larger world around you, refreshing your perspective
• Gaining a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment
• Relieving the guilt that comes when you feel you’ve neglected your kids’ interests

Sure it takes time to serve as a fundraising volunteer, but to be the best you you need to make that time and see to your own needs. As a fundraising volunteer, everyone stands to gain – yours and others’ children gain by getting what they need, your community gains, your work gains through outreach and networking and increased productivity, and most importantly you gain personally so that you have the inspiration and energy to support all the people and projects that rely on you.