Ok so months ago I called both the sites and FirstGiving was really rude and didn't have a good option for people who want to donate with checks. From doing TNT I think the checks are really important because most people still aren't too comfortable doing things online yet, so the majority of our donations came from checks in the mail. Compassion was really nice and helpful and thought the AT idea was awesome. There's just an "other" option that you click. I know you were thinking of going with the other, so please let me know if you don't want to go through Team Compassion for any reason! I can always change it :)
So, next step! I went ahead and tried to make a page today (finally!). There were two options: start a team or register as an individual. Since, obviously, there are two of us I chose the team option, but now looking at it, I was wondering if you would prefer just registering as an individual. My problem with the whole "team" idea is that each participant gets their own page and separate fundraising goal so people choose who they donate to and only one person gets credited. Since it doesn't matter for us who gets the funds as long as we just get them, I thought it would be weird, especially since we'll be talking to a lot of the same people with church and everything, that people have to decide who they donate to. I'd rather be in it with you than compete against you lol. I haven't added any personal info just so you could check out how it comes up when it's a team - My Page.
I also didn't want you to feel any pressure of fundraising with school and everything. I just want this to be fun and do what we can!
I was trying to come up with sort of a general letter to ask for corporate sponsors and whatnot, and I was doing some research on getting a sponsor...and well, now I'm more confused than ever. I'm trying not to be overly optimistic (which I'm sure I will be anyways haha) because I thought we could just ask people like a donation. But everything I've read says you have to have something to give them in return, otherwise why would they just give you their money? ...which makes sense...I just don't know what to give them. Usually people put names in programs or have their product at their event or something, but ours doesn't work like that. And I can't be like, hey yeah I'll put your names in the book I want to write that probably won't ever be published...
Haha so right now I'm trying to figure out how to approach businesses and maybe what we could offer? Wondering if you had any thoughts.
I sort of liked the idea of having people "bet" on us. A lot of people don't want to donate, but it'd be like they're playing a game/raffle/lottery type scenario. Ok brace yourself for my stupidity...I hate sharing my ideas haha, but here it goes: I've seen rolls of tickets you can buy at like Wilson's or someplace similar and we could sell tickets to literally anybody we see/door to door/walking around/etc. where they can pay $1 for a ticket and write down their info for us to keep along with the number of miles they think we can make it before we quit. The winner can split some monetary prize, we can come up with, with all the other winners who guessed the correct mileage - just like the lottery. We can have a business card/sticky note/whatever to give them with our website info so they can keep up with us if they want and see the mileage for themselves.
That sounds awful, but I think most strangers seeing us wouldn't think we'd make it and would pay just a buck to bet on it like a game. I don't know...what do you think? That and asking businesses to an agreement to donate $1/whatever per mile hiked is the only stuff I can come up with besides asking for donations outright. Well...and I thought we could have a concert with Lost and Found haha, but that seems like it would be difficult to make happen.
I just keep thinking about it and if I was a store and I saw me, there's no way I'd donate hiking equipment to me...haha I'm not sure how to make us convincing! I wish we could both be in Greenville this summer just to go to outdoor gear places and try it out.
Sorry about the unbelievably long post. No rush on the response - I know you're busy! I just want to end with a few questions you might can ask your friend who hiked the AT:
1. How much clothing did he bring? How often did he wear the same thing?
2. Which parts of the trail were the most difficult? I know not everything is "trail-like" and sometimes there are rivers to cross and rocks to climb. How did he handle that?
3. What are his horror stories? Any bears?
4. I know we need passes to hike through some park areas. Do we need to get those in advance? Or you can get those upon arrival?
5. How much money did he bring with him? How often did he stop in towns? Did he use a bounce box?
6. How easy is it to find/get water? What method of purification did he use?
7. How heavy was his pack? What does he think he could have done without?
8. Did he carry first aid?
9. What did he eat?
10. How long did it take him to hike it? What was his average mileage per day?
Love you! Kick those finals' butts!!!
