HCC Fundraising 2005-2006

[Aidan Siobhan Madigan-Curtis]

Hi Fundraising Team and HCC Board! :)

So, in order to be as organized and efficient as possible this year, I would
like us to enter the school year already knowing what fundraisers that we are
going to tackle throughout the entire year!

I'd like us to have the concept and date set for at least 90% of our fundraising
this year, before we move back into our dorms. This will not be difficult,
because most of it will be : a) repeated successful fundraisers from last year,
that we will do bigger and better this year because we are now much more
prepared, and b) smaller, new and creative projects that we will brainstorm
over the next week and plan out early in the year, so that when the time for
the fundraiser rolls around, we will be prepared well in advance.

So - here are our already-established fundraisers and dates (these are both
things we did last year, and new ideas that I've had that I think we should go
for:)

1) Alumni Mailer (September): Most of the work has been done for this, but there
still needs to be some elbow grease insofar as stuffing envelopes and
strong-arming the Development office into giving us enough alumni names and
addresses.

2) Obtaining donations for the China Care Conference (late September-Oct 14):
for those of you who don't know, Harvard CC and the China Care Foundation are
holding another joint conference in October, on the weekend of the 14-16. We
will need all the help we can get in obtaining food donations and other
donations (free movie tickets, free room and board places, other items yet to
be determined) for the 100+ students in attendence. We will also need a lot of
help that weekend, moving things like food around and giving little tours of
Harvard yard and boston at night! :)

3) Halloween, October 31st: Trick-or-treating for a child from Sai Qi's surgery
(there are COUNTLESS to choose from). This was great last year, and with proper
planning and a larger effort, we can definitely earn 10X as much this year!
(that would be $15,000!!!)

4) Presents for Sai Qi (November/December): It would be great if we could
solicit donations for 30 little presents to send to the Sai Qi children, who
probably get nothing for Christmas even though they must celebrate it because
they are at a catholic orphanage.

5) Chinese New Year Party! (Early Feb): We will, of course, take a break for
Reading & exam period, but meanwhile we should be planning the
music/location/invitations to this HUGE PARTY that we will charge admission to.
If we have a good bar and a good enough hype, we could really get things going
and use the party with a small admission cost to raise money for the children!

6) The MARATHON!!! (April): Believe me, we will need ALL of the time between
February and April to plan the marathon! We need to start early this year (in
the fall) recruiting people to run for China Care, and we need to really work
our runner's connections well by sending out letters, emails and other
propaganda to their family and friends in order to solicit a minimum of $5,000
per runner. If you are interested in being the head of the marathon committee,
which should actually begin planning things in the fall, please contact me
(mad...@fas.harvard.edu)

7) General Grant Writing (all year): I would like each member of HCC fundraising
committee to locate a national grant that we can apply to in order to seek
funding for our projects. Then each member will be responsible for writing up
the proposal for the grant, with as much help from me and other HCC board
members as you need! (This is only ONE small proposal per year - really not
much! Promise!!! :)

Any other ideas? We could definitely use a few small fillers! Last year we made
valentine's day cards for china care and could definitely do other similar arts
& crafts and bake sales, etc - the only problem with these are that they are
time consuming and generally don't bring in that much $$ - but they are fun and
team building! :)

It is also my goal to have many socials this year where we can all drink, be
merry and celebrate the fact that we are saving lives together! :)

Alright - please email me back with questions, queries, comments and
suggestions!

We will have a fundraising meeting within the first week of school, so please
stay tuned for an update on when/where! :)

~Aidan