Need sperm? A list of approved sperm banks

Raffle Donation Packages

to have a successful raffle it is important to have really good prizes.  The first time contacting anyone can be some what of a challenge.  They call it a cold call and you never know what the answer is going to be.  But the 1st time is the hardest and it only gets easier.  Always start with the people you know, it makes good practice and you will most likely get a yes.

i started with friends who worked for or owned various big and little businesses.  Early i learned that i needed some kind of a request letter on letter head.  I went to my favorite source of all that is creative, Pinterest, and searched.  There i found a letter that i liked, tweaked it, then let it evolve depending on who i was asking for a request from.

here's what my first letter looked like:

i later added a paragraph about how we will affect the community.

Here are some learnings:

Require Email:

Dave's Market- only really like to help food related organizations: food banks 

Foxwood's Casino- kasia Radicioni- Kradicioni@foxwoods.com

LaSalle Bakery- lasalledonations@gmail.org

URI- 

PC-

Requires letter in person:

Shaw's- super helpful

99 restaurant- super nice

Mulligan's Island- prefer sports related

Macy's- 

Dave & Busters- follow-up, follow-up, follow-up

Petsmart- 

Snail Mail:

Pawsox- very friendly

Mail to: Grace Eng

Po box 2365

Pawtucket, RI 02861

Fax: 

Benny's

Attn: Donation requests

Require: when need by, letter on letterhead, tax exempt ID #, Flyer

Not helpful:

Liquor warehouse- better to hit up early in the year

Petco- Must be pet related

Job lot- not very nice

So just FYI this is a couple weeks worth of work.  I hope it saves you a lot of time.  I know it will be easier for me next time.

Oh, yea!  Little tip:  i made a generic letter and a million copies of my tax exempt letter to randomly stop by places.

Thanks for listening!

Spread the love ❤️ 

-tai

Meet the Neighbors

Im so excited to say that i found the research i have been looking for.  For the past year i have been looking for information on LGBTQ in RI.  I just stumbled across it.  Meet the Neighbors is such an easy read and enjoyable.

http://www.rifoundation.org/Portals/0/Uploads/Documents/Working-Together/For-Nonprofits/Meet_the_Neighbors_01-22-04.pdf

Some great take aways:

-LGBTQ in RI are more likely to have a bachelors or better

81.1% of LGBTQ vs. 25.6% non-LGBTQ

-40% of RI LGBTQ living with a parter and only 5% with children vs. 48% US non-LGBTQ living with a partner and 31% with children

-1 in 4 wish to have children

44% not sure how

26% want to adopt

17% alternative insemination 

This leads me to believe more people want children but either don't know how or cant afford to.  

                             this article affirms the need for Babies for Us.  In that there 

                                is a need for the community impacts which we address. 

Impact on LGBTQ couples:

- expanding access to welcoming health care

- Supporting families

- building support systems

Impact on Community:

- Supporting families

- Building Community cohesiveness

- addressing diversity with in the community

- Increasing awareness and visibility of the LGBTQ community

- Creating a community/ Resource center

- Creating more community-wide events and celebrations including social, cultural. And recreational activities

- Combatting homophobia and transphobia in the non-LGBTQ community

I find that i am a person who has trouble putting things into words.  This article has done so for Babies for Us and has been a little boost to push us.

Spread the love ❤️ 

-tai

Ted.ed.com

This was so easy.. and the directions are already out there.. here are the ones i used:

How to make your own ted.ed

And here's my ted.ed.. please enjoy, interact and let me know what you think....

Babies for Us ted ed

Spread the love

-tai

Effectiveness & Budget

Wednesday night I went to a RI foundation meeting discussion budgets.  Which I learned a lot from.  

Some of the big take aways were...

- a budget (Income statement) should be set annually so that you have a goal for the year.  You shouldn't change it as the year goes by or you'll never know how you did.  But you should look at it (balance sheet) at least quarterly to make sure you are staying close enough to the bottom line....that the budget is working....

- Be realistic... this isn't the time to be a superstar and under goal yourself.  If anything you should exaggerate your expected costs then if you come in under, good for you.  Its always better to come in under than to go way over...

- look at your incomes separately from your expenses, then merge the two statements  

- Make sure you are getting credit for your inkind/ private support/ donations in your budget... 

Things to google later...

* Receipt bank- an app for your phone
* non-profit activities
* Lady Project
* Fiddle and Folk Festival
* RISCA

Inkind...

Inkind is all of the stuff that is donated to you including, space, volunteer hours, goods and cash money.  This made me realize that i should keep track of everything as I go rather than try to remember everything.... because I have an awful memory.

So.... i took 2 lessons learned from RI foundation and blended them into a easy to use packet.  The last workshop at RI foundation was about assessing impact.  In that, we created a logic model.  Basically, a business model for a nonprofit.  This is the verbiage behind the numbers. And the budget holds some of the metrics behind the logic model. 

This is what the original grid from the logic model looked like...

Then this is what it looks like after we filled it in, in the workshop....

Your main objective for your nonprofit is your Impact.  This is your big picture/ 5 year goal.  This is build around an awareness event.  The activities are what you are going to do during your event.  Resources and inputs are what you are using and who is helping your to have a successful event.  The outputs are what physical/ nominal things you achieved from your event.  The outcomes are what you do with your outputs.  Which all brings you back to the impact.  Boom!

It kinda hurts my brain to think about things that way.  So i made it a worksheet to use for every event that looks like this....

You can see ive been filling it out as I've been working along.  But it also helps me make sure i have everything covered.

The next thing i learned from the assessing effectiveness workshop was data collection.  Very similar with what i did... so im just going to show you bang bang through pics...

First..

Then...

My worksheet...

Boom!!!!... Sheet 2 of my packet

Finally... budgets, budgets, budgets.....and the whole reason i started this particular blog entry.... inkind

Because these are my first couple of events im kinda working backwards.  Im supposed to know exactly how much its going to cost to throw an event and exactly the best methods for everything.  But... i only know basically what the deal is.  So i found this basic budget sheet on excel when i searched "event budget"....

But i figure its a good start.  You can see Ive been scribbling all over it and tweaking it to fit our needs.  The thing i forgot to add, which is a big deal is the inkind.  Grantees want to see how much things really cost and you want to know what it will cost you next time.  And also, what if someone is having a bad day and not feeling so nice as to help you out next time.  Thats the big thing i need to add into my  budget.... foe example how much would the space cost if they weren't donating it, whats the full cost of the bad and how much would it cost me to buy the raffle prizes...

With this packet all of my data is collected and i can use it to submit budgets for grants....

Spread the love ❤️ 

-tai

Awareness Events!!!!

Im so excited to say we are having 2 events awareness events right off the bat.  We have scheduled an event November 26th @ The Village in Providence, RI and on December 16th @ Indigo in Coventry.

It has taken 8 months for our 501(c)3 (nonprofit status) to go through.  Now we can rock and roll.  Literally

Awareness Event?

 So, in the nonprofit world, fundraisers are somewhat looked down on.  They are considered a lot of work and effort for not a lot of money raised.  However, if you call the same event an awareness event and say you are doing it to find supporters and spread the word on your cause, then you look like a super star.  But its true.... For all of the work done and use of resources the return is not huge.  Im a little strange though because i love putting on an event and getting a bunch of people together to have fun and supporting a good cause :)

I feel like im doing double work in 1/2 the time because im getting 2 events taken care of at once... really i wish i was working on a third at the same time.  I would really like to find a 300ish venue somewhere in the Warwick/ West Warwick area that I could have both bands play plus a little bit... still working on it....

Keeping it local for my homies

Everything i have read and all the advice i have been given is to start close and work out when looking for supporters.  Start with your board and have them all find 20 or so people and their people find people, ect ect ect... working your way from inside out.  

The other thing we keep in mind is our demographic.  RI and local lesbians.  Now RI is so small there are only 4 degrees of separation and everyone knows everyone.  Its all in who you know.

Anywho... ive always wanted our first awareness event to be at the Village.  We went there a couple of years ago after pride and it was so much fun.  I was so nervous to call but the owner Stacy was so nice.  The Village is usually closed on Mondays and Tuesdays but she said she would open just for us.  And speaking of everyone knowing everyone... best friend Anita plays softball for the owner of Indigo.  I called her right up and she was cool.  Just because i work backwards, we actually booked our 2nd event before our first.  

The idea is to also support local and spread the love.  We are using local business for venues and have local performers.  Go RI!!!

Rock & Trivia

You've probably figured out at this point that my family is really into music.  So what better event to throw than a concert.  I know a few people in local bands that i knew would throw me a bone and do a gig for free.  So i sent out a few messages and thought about how the two spaces are little different and found two different bands for the two different events.  Plus... i didnt want to burn out my favors.

Anywho.... my friend Sarah's band, Invincible We, is going to play @ the Village

And... my dad's band, Pearl, is going to play at Indigo

  

Emcee.... Host... Not Me!?!?!?

  So... i have no desire to be an emcee of an event.  Ill get up there and say my thank yous... but I truly believe this is not about me.  I have a couple of friends that do drag and emcee a lot of events but i just didnt feel like a drag queen for a lesbian event was a good fit.  I really thought hard about this and solicited a lot of ideas and thoughts.  Then for whatever reason (probably because i was watching Ellen), i had an aha moment.  We needed a local lesbian comedian.  Boom!  

So, life lesson here... i kept googling on my ipad and not really finding anything.  I mean for at least a solid week i would google random search terms and nothing.  Then for whatever reason, i picked up my phone and googled.  All of these comedians names started raining form the heavens.  Poppy Champlin kept popping up.  Shes kinda a big to do.  But i thought why not try.  So, i emailed her and she got right back to me.  She is so nice.  I am so super excited that we found her.  She is such a huge score and such a relief to have.

Posters, Fb Events, Eventbrite

I started putting together my poster but didn't want to start advertising it until i meet with the owner of the Village, Stacy, thursday to finalize the details.

I think it came out pretty good if you ask me.

Posters are a little old school but I'm a little old and i like being artsy.  The posters will give me a chance to do a little old school promoting and hang some posters in local bars, colleges and im sure I'll think of somewhere else and run out.

The best way to advertise anything around here is through fb events.  I think mainly because RI is such a small world.  I figure ill tag 10 of my favorite friends from different social groups and should reach quite a few people.  Plus i can put the event up on a few social groups pages, like our softball league, and reach even more people.  

Eventbrite is a super good ticket selling tool.  Its kinda like ticketmaster for the poor man.  The nice thing about this is that i can easily get data about how many tickets are sold and demographics.  Eventbrite will do a lot of the work i need for soliciting grants later on.

Raffles

THe next thing i am working on is raffle items... i think i can get quite a bit donated and that will all be gravy... more on that later

Have a good day and spread the love ❤️ 

-tai

 

Sent from my iPad