Taking Advantage of a Hospital Stay

As you know, Sam is in the hospital and will probably be in for the next week or so (read about her stay here). My question for the CF community is: Do we do a big fundraising campaign to take advantage of the situation? Cystic Fibrosis is on the minds of all of our friends, family, coworkers...everyone...because of his hospitalization. We've had a few dry years as far as fundraising goes and Alicia brought this up as a possibility.

I'd love your thoughts on this as it's something I'm very willing to do. We've had a hard time really connecting to the CF community in Chicago/Milwaukee, but it doesn't excuse our responsibility to work hard for a cure.

The biggest disadvantage I can think of off the top of my head is that it seems a little underhanded to ask everyone for money when all everyone is trying to do right now is just support us as lovingly as possible. I don't want to take advantage of people, just the situation that we're in at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin.

So, what do you think? Should we make a big push?

The Second-Chance Charity

My wife and I give money to our church. While I understand that not everyone who reads this blog is a Christian or even a church-goer, I think we probably all have people in our lives who go to church and give to church work. Alicia and I believe whole-heartedly in missions, particularly overseas, but at home also. Because we believe this way, we give this way.

But we also believe in finding a cure for cystic fibrosis. We don't honestly give nearly as much to cystic fibrosis research as we do missions/church work. I don't feel that this is a contradiction or an ethical blunder. It's reality for us. God blessed our first and second fundraising expeditions despite the fact that most of our charitable giving went to church instead of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

And we give to other groups too. I have supported open source software (no different than buying Windows or Office in my opinion) and we have supported family members in their charity work as well. Again, I don't feel remorseful about this.

The reason I mention all of this is because a lot of money right now is going to Haiti, and rightfully so. It's not wrong for people to support the rebuilding effort. But it doesn't mean that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has to lose out. In fact, I continued to raise money for my half marathon despite the other issues going on.

So I don't get upset when people tell me that they already have a charity that they give to. No problem at all actually. In fact, I understand their position because I also already give to another charity. My only question to these folks is: Can you spare a few dollars for this charity as well? You see, I am the second-chance charity. As so many of our CFers are given a second chance at life through lung transplants, so do I believe in getting a second chance to raise money to find a cure.

So don't feel down or bad if someone is already supporting a charity. We are the disease of second chances, and we can raise funds the same way.

Fundraising Blogs

Some of you may remember a post a while back about fundraising blogs. In that post (get it here!), I wrote about one blog I follow in particular. Thankfully, another fundraising blog has done some great work for me. I haven't been able to get through all of these blogs yet, but the writer gives a list of great blogs to go to for fundraising help.

Here is the list.

It's about time to start fundraising everyone! I wish you all the best of luck as we start another year to whip cystic fibrosis!

Fundraising in December: Stair Climb Event!

Team Sam participated, by way of members of the USS Antietam 1st Class Association, in the 2009 Stair Climb in San Diego. I was very happy to be joined by three members of our 1st Class Association, Tony, Steve, and Greg. We didn't raise much money as this was mostly a show of support and we use Great Strides as our primary fundraising vehicle. Still, we had a great time and Greg even walked away with 3rd Place in number of climbs!

Here are the four of us, Steve, Tony, myself, and Greg (l-r).

This is how a big man stretches!

 

Here's Greg getting ready for his 3rd Place finish!

Stacy Motenko at the San Diego CFF sent out an email that said the event raised over $30,000 for CF research. I'm so glad that it worked out well!

By the way, photos are courtesy of Nancy, who is Tony's wife. Thanks Nancy!

Asking repeat givers

As you know, my family is involved in Great Strides each year. We have had a good amount of success for small-timers. However, I've reached a delima. As I prepare for the Carlsbad Half Marathon, I find myself wondering about asking people who donated to this year's Great Strides to donate to the upcoming half marathon.

Now, I've only had this happen in one case. I'm doing my best to keep that from happening on a grand scale. I'm trying my best to ask people who didn't, or probably won't, give to the Great Strides campaign. But is that a good attitude? Are people on your donor lists generally willing to give more than once a year to your campaigns? Or do you keep the different projects separate?

I'd love to hear your comments. Thank you for the help!

US Navy Flag Donation

At the Well-Healed Gala this year, a flag was given away at auction and raised several thousand dollars. I was intrigued by that, and since I had a flag from deployment, we donated it to the local Cystic Fibrosis Foundation chapter here in San Diego for use in an upcoming event. Alicia and I purchased a fairly simple, but stylish display case (Pictured above) and delivered the flag and case to the CFF San Diego office.

Here is the caption I wrote for the flag:

A flag can represent a lot of things, good and bad. What it mostly does, however, is identify a cause, unit, or country. The United States flag presented here represents the country, yes, but also a cause. It is the cause that Americans can defeat any foe we face.

The foe, in this case, is cystic fibrosis. Your donation has and will help us fight back against a disease that affects over 30,000 people in the United States and countless others as family members. We will win, and you have helped. Thank you!

I am so grateful that the flag was auctioned off for $2000.00! I can't believe it raised that much money! Want to know something even better than that? The winner of the auction donated the flag back to the CFF San Diego for future use! That will hopefully allow it to continue to raise money year after year! I'm so happy to have been part of the event, even though I was actually underway at the time. I'm grateful that it raised so much money and that it will continue to generate funds at future events for the local chapter of the CFF.

What is your Passion Level?

Most Great Strides campaigns have long-since wrapped up for the greater Cystic Fibrosis community and with that, a lot of passion is being re-funneled back into the daily cycle of actually dealing with this disease. Once all of the fun is over, it's back to chest PT, countless enzymes, medicines, flu vaccinations, and the like. Kind of takes the fun out of the process, if you ask me!

My passion level for fundraising drops considerably around this time of year. I have, in the past, spent this time kind of dreaming about next year when passion is high, and ignoring the issue almost altogether when it wanes. It's a reality for me that I'm not always proud of.

It's almost impossible to keep passion at 100% at all times. I can't even do it for Christ, who I cannot see, much less raising money for the fight against cystic fibrosis, something I can see (at least through news reports). Still, I hope to raise the base level of my passion over time to where it doesn't spike so high during Great Strides and ebb so low the rest of the year.

One way I'm doing that is by running the Carlsbad Half Marathon. Another way to overcome it is to be involved in the overall process. Our regional CFF, for example, doesn't get the chance to let their passion levels drain. Once Great Strides is over, they move immediately to the annual gala, and then to the Golf tournament, and then to the Stair climb. It's an amazing process that takes a team of people to manage. My part in the process isn't big at all. We donated a flag that flew from my ship during a recent deployment to the foundation that will be auctioned off in a little over a week. I'll discuss that more soon.

The simple fact is that I want to keep moving forward with the fight against cystic fibrosis. It's what Team Sam is…it's what we do...it defines the team as a unit, although our faith defines us as individuals (certainly in the case of Alicia and myself).

So it is with little surprise that you learn that one of the things we are doing in this off season is developing Team Sam a little more. We'll be making many improvements over the next several weeks to allow us to move quicker, make better decisions, and make a bigger impact…all the while working on that overall passion level at the same time.

So stay tuned and spread the word!

Best Fundraising Blogs

I've been looking high and low. I've searched Google blogs and I've googled the term "fundraising advice". And most blogs and websites either want to sell me something or they give advice only at the foundational level. So my very simple request for you all is to help me build a blogroll of the best blogs to go to for fundraising. 

What I'd really like to see are blogs that help the individual fundraisers like myself. So if you subscribe to any such blogs, or know about them, please let me know in the comments section!

I will go first by pointing out a blog that I've learned about over the last few weeks which gives advice that I believe we individual fundraisers can use. It is A Small Change and is edited by Jason Dick. I was most impressed a few days ago when I left a simple comment on the blog, hoping to get some advice on an issue of fundraising. Not only did I get one, but I got several! Clearly, not only does Jason have good posts, but he has good readers as well. Head on over and check it out!

But before you go, let us know who you read for ideas and advice!

Cystic Fibrosis Gala--San Diego

Alicia and I were graciously invited to attend the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation's Well-Healed Breath of Life Gala in La Jolla, California on Saturday. Though I started the process nervous and anxious enough to ask for help from our readers, I came away with a profound sense of awe and gratitude toward the organization and those who support us.

The most humbling thing wasn't the amount of money being spent at the gala in the form of gifts and auctioned items (it was a lot!), rather it was the fact that this support was given to those of us affected by CF from those who have no connection to the disease. What would make some of these folks help us so much? Because they can? I don't know, but it left me grateful. I wish I could say more about that to make it more striking, but it's difficult to put the thought into words.

I did wear my uniform, as a friend suggested (after discussing it with the director of CFF San Diego). Alicia wore a gorgeous dress and got so many nice compliments from both the director and many others. Here we are before leaving for the event:

Alicia had to work pretty hard to get me to smile for this picture. I'm notorious for how bad my pictures look before events. Even our wedding pictures look bad before the ceremony was over. I couldn't smile then, or now, to save my life! I don't know if this is the one that Alicia tickled me on to get me to smile, but something funny must have just happened, else it would have looked like this:

The event was simply amazing. We sat at a table with the CEO of A-MED Health Care as well as the Territory Manager. Also at our table was a doctor and the owner/partner of BJ's Restaurants. I was a little taken aback by it all, but once we settled in things went very well. Again, I'm just grateful that we were able to go.

I did receive some thank-you's for my service, which I'm also grateful for. The attitudes displayed by those who are (worldly-speaking) much better off than I am helped me to feel like I belonged there. And I did. The upper-right picture on this banner proves it:

It was so fun to look up there every now and again and see Samantha's picture. I pointed her out to everyone at our table and everyone was happy to hear our story.

Alicia and I came away feeling fired up to raise money for a cure. The last thing I told her before we walked into the house to relieve our care-provider was, "This gave me hope that we can make a difference too." I know we can. We have loving friends and family who support our Great Strides team (Team Sam), we have wonderful friends who lend advice and support through this blog, and we have a great team of leaders at the San Diego CFF.

As long as God wills it, we're going to whip this thing called cystic fibrosis. What a wonderful day that will be!

Need help Preparing for the Gala!

As many of you know, I am a little nervous about the upcoming CFF San Diego's Well Healed Gala. It's the first time I've ever been to something of this magnitude, and honestly I'm just anxious.

Instead of worrying about it, or dreading it, I want to have the right attitude, but I need your help. This is, after all, the first time I've ever shown up at something and been on an official guest list, where someone tells me if I can come into the event or not. I'm so out of my league!

So please help me. Tell me what I need to expect. What do I do? What are some tips about talking with the folks who are going to be there? What types of things should I say? What will they say to me?

Your help is greatly appreciated. I will take any advice you feel like giving me!

Great Strides Survey

A couple days ago I received a request from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to take part in a survey regarding my Great Strides experience. The unfortunate thing is that I didn't really have a Great Strides experience! We never really got to do much as a team on the ship while we were on deployment, so Alicia will have to fill out the survey.

But the email does serve as a nice reminder. If you haven't had a chance to fill out the survey, please do! It will help with future Great Strides events!

2009 Great Strides Wrap-up Party

Tonight was the 2009 Great Strides Wrap-up Party and, because we are a busy family with many committments, Alicia and I had to split tasks to make it. We've gotten pretty good at it, if I may say so myself. Unfortunately, it usually means that one of us doesn't get to go to something. So Alicia whisked Timothy off to karate practice while I took Samantha to the Great Strides Wrap-up Party.
During the party, Maria Olson, the Director for the San Diego chapter of Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, spoke about how great a job we all did. She's always so nice about how much we volunteers do, taking particular time to mention those who volunteered with the actual event. I was also impressed with how readily she introduced and praised her staff.

Pictured here is Marilee Pacelli, the Great Strides coordinator. She spearheaded both the Great Strides in San Diego and also took care of setting things up for the wrap-up party. She also very kindly announced that I had just returned from a six month deployment. I was very grateful.

I can say that, truthfully, I was humbled beyond explanation when I heard some of the numbers read off for the highest-performing teams. Team Sam did fantastic this year. I don't want to take anything away from our team. We raised an incredible amount, especially considering our circumstances. Yet it paled...PALED...in comparison to what I was hearing. At first, because of who I am, I was frustrated and quickly became embarrassed at even being there in the first place. These other teams were raising a lot of money.

Then I realized why I was there...to support Samantha and the hope for a cure. This isn't to make me look good. Indeed, I can't look good in a place where every team that got an award beat our team by at least $1000 in total raised (that's an estimate, by the way). But the fact is, not only was I humbled by the party, but I was grateful to be reminded of why I was there. Every year, with every dollar raised, we get a little bit closer. And I'm grateful to be part of the process.

here's to next year San Diego!

Hawaii Great Strides

I had hoped, at one point, to hold a sort of "mini-Great Strides" for the part of Team Sam that was on my deployment with me since we couldn't be in San Diego for the Great Strides there. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite get it put together, which is something I need to learn more about. Fortunately, I got to meet Russ and Sherry, and their wonderful little girl Rachel, who has cystic fibrosis on a recent stop on Oahu.

Sherry essentially ran the Hawaii Great Strides, which technically falls under the same local foundation that Alicia and I do in San Diego. She and her husband Russ more or less spearhead the local group of parents.

Hawaii was the first Great Strides walk of the year, taking place on the 28th of February. Sherry took over late last year and got it together for a great event. The picture above (Sherry and Rachel are on the bottom left) is of the volunteers from that day. Russ was on deployment at this time.

In Russ and Sherry, I got two great blessings: First, I met someone as dedicated to ending this disease as I hope to be. Secondly, as a military family, they understand what I go through because they go through it.

It was such an awesome time. I was so blessed to be with them and I hope that my travels take me across thier path again!

The Role My Faith Plays

When Alicia and I first started raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF), I was more than a little confused. Not at the process, for that is so easy! CFF has made everything very easy to get to, get involved with, and to be a part of. No, that wasn't the problem. The problem was that there was no Christian version of the CFF.

Because Alicia and I support Christian missionaries and our local church, pretty much all of our money given to charity is given to spiritual things. So, how was I now to ask people to give to a non-spiritual thing? Not only was there no Christian version of the CFF, but there was no reason to start one! What could be done with money raised by a Christian CFF except to give it to the secular one! The one doing all of the research!

I was perplexed, until I spoke with my chaplain about it. He made a few things clear:

1. I was called to be a father before I was called to be anything else. My primary duty is to take care of my family.
2. Taking care of my family meant showing my daughter Samantha that I would go to the ends of the earth, if possible, to save her life. This would prayerfully lead to her understanding more about how much the heavenly father cares about her.
3. Saving her life will only come about by prayer and through the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

This isn't an attempt to explain away my support of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. I believe wholeheartedly in what they do, and I believe that God can use them to save my daughter, if he wills it.

And I believe, most importantly, that he can use fundraising for a cure to let me show my daughter the love of a father...just as my heavenly Father has shown me his love. Above all, I want Sam to understand this. Raising money on her behalf for better treatments and hopefully a cure is maybe the most powerful step of action I can take to show her the same action God took to cure the problem of sin for us when he sent his Son.

So we'll continue giving to our local church, and we'll continue giving to the CFF. I will happily continue raising money for the fight against cystic fibrosis because I'm a dad...it's my job and my joy.

Post Success Question

For all of you Great Striders out there, I hope your events are going well. San Diego's DeAnza Cove event, which Alicia and friends participated in, is now over and while it was a resounding success for Team Sam, I wonder if it's time to move on.

So, having had a great year this year, what do you think we should do now? How long before we start working on next year? My concern is that we have a great team this year, and I want to keep everyone possible involved. Does anyone have any ideas on how to keep everyone involved while we proceed toward next year?

And for those who haven't walked yet...best wishes!

Great Strides DeAnza Cove, San Diego

As today is the day that our parent Great Strides is taking place, we on the ship wanted to wish our main Team Sam well on thier walk! So, from some of the sailors and officers who comprise Team Sam DE (Deployed Edition):


Sam and Team,
Have a great walk this weekend! I had an outstanding time last year and only wish that we could be home to participate this year. I'm very impressed with all that we were able to raise and I know that it will result in a cure sometime in the near future. Enjoy each others company while you celebrate together. We'll be home soon! I'm glad I was able to help out again this year. Take care and God Bless!!
-Melissa Morgan

Alicia, sure wish I could be there to do the Great Strides walk with you and Shellie. Next year we'll be there for sure. God Bless!
-Greg Hansen


And finally, from me:

I want to wish all of you a great effort on Saturday. I wish that I could be there, for so many more reasons than just the Great Strides walk, but this blog post will have to do! I miss you.
-Dan Smith


To all Great Striders out there, we wish you the best as you conduct your Great Strides walk this year wherever you are. You are all in our thoughts out here on the Pacific!

Changing Goals

I value the wisdom of my fellow Great Strides fundraisers, and want your thoughts about changing the goal of your team after you've started. We conservatively estimated that we could raise $4500 this year due to my deployment and the economic situation in the states. Even though this is an increase over our total last year, we kept it low for the sake of not killing ourselves. But we've got a great team, and recently Alicia and I decided to raise it first to $5000, and then to $5500 when we passed the 2nd Goal quickly.

Our reasons for raising the goal was because we were "on a roll" so to speak with our fundraising, with people on my ship raising a lot of money in addition to some large donations already received. We didn't want someone to think we wouldn't have valued their contribution because we had already met our goal. The simple way to fix this was raise the it!

So how to you handle this? Since we didn't have any idea that we'd pass our original goal, we have found ourselves without a real idea of how to realistically set our goal for next year. What have you experienced in the past with your own goal-setting? Have you ever raised it? If so, how did you decide to do it and why? Love to have your thoughts!

Almost There

Just a quick update about our fundraising efforts at the moment. Despite being deployed, with me on WestPac (what we call our deployments) and Alicia being sole provider for the two little ones, we've managed to get within $355 of our $4,500 goal!

I am grateful and amazed that we've come so close, and that we still have a little time left. I've had a great team of fundraisers on the ship, with three different sailors/officers raising over $100. We've also had some great donations from friends and family "back home".

God is good to us. Despite the economy, my deployment, and everything else that could go wrong, we're close. I believe we can make it.

Go with what you Know

Hello everyone! It's been a long, long time. So it goes on deployment! I'm glad to get back to the computer to write, and I hope that I will be able to do it more regularly now.

My title today might be better if it read: Go with WHO you know. I speak of raising corporate donations when fundraising. In a trying economy like our current one, I think this is even more true. Just like I'd buy a Pepsi over a brand of cola I didn't know, I'm much more likely to talk to a company I'm comfortable with than one I don't know.

There are several reasons for this, but one primary reason above the others. Namely, I have a higher chance for success if I contact a company that I know or have some sort of personal tie to than if I contact a company that I don't.

For example, during our first year of raising money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, I asked my hometown bank, GNB, to make a donation. I also asked a few other companies around our home in San Diego. And you guessed it...the hometown bank made the donation!

This year, I asked my dad's parent company, via my uncle, to make a donation. AZZ Corporation came through with a $1000 donation to our CFF Great Strides venture!

We are so thankful for the donations of those organizations that know us best, or are best known by us. And our greatest recommendation is to start with who you know, and go on from there!

So how have you gone about your corporate donations? Do you have any advice for the rest of us? Please leave your thoughts!

New discussion on Newsletters

A little over a month ago I wrote about using newsletters to keep your donors informed. You can read that here if you didn't get it back in January. I have been reading up on blogging, fundraising, etc and came across a great post from The Fundraising Coach that discusses how powerful emailing is when done in short takes, vice using longer newsletters.

I tend to agree with the fact that emails work better than lengthy newsletters, and shorter the email the better. Even when organizing my team for this year's Great Strides for Antietam, I'm finding out fast that people, busy or not, respond better to short emails with just the information they need.

So what are your thoughts? Does The Fundraising Coach change your ideas about newsletters?