Power Shopping – PureCharity.com Launches Adoption Fundraising Platform

May 17, 2013 by 1 Comment

PureCharityAdoptionFundraisingAbout a year ago via a few blogs and Twitter, I began to hear about PureCharity.com.

Pure Charity gives “power shopping” new meaning. By creating a Pure Charity account and installing a simple browser plug-in, you can earn “Rewards” each time you shop at a Pure Charity partner. Partners include companies like Walmart, Old Navy, Target, Apple, Expedia…the list goes on and on.

It’s fun to see my little Pure Charity icon pop up when I’m shopping. A quick click and I’m earning money to go into my own Rewards Network. Then I can browse the hundreds of projects registered with Pure Charity and choose where that money goes.

Some of my favorite charities like Mercy House Kenya & Help One Now have used Pure Charity to raise funds for projects.

Last fall at Together for Adoption I asked one of the Pure Charity staff, “What about adoptions?” I knew there was huge potential!

I was ecstatic when I heard from Mike Rusch, COO of Pure Charity, that they were indeed rolling out a platform for adoption fundraisers. I even got a sneak peak before they launched it at CAFO Summit 9 :-)

Their first adoptive family (their beta testers) has already met their $8,000 funding goal!!

I walked through the process myself, setting up a fundraiser for my brother’s family. It was super simple and only took me about 15-20 minutes. Pure Charity has tons of videos to walk you through the process but the instructions are pretty clear. You can upload pictures, videos – whatever helps you tell your story.

When you’re done, embed their widget on your blog and use their social media sharing tools to spread the word. Invite ALL your friends to join Pure Charity. They make it super simple with Facebook integration and a personalized link. When someone joins your “Advocate Network” you also earn rewards off their purchases. This goes 10 levels down. So ask your friends to invite their friends, etc. It all adds up!

Your friends and family can also make straight tax-deductible donations into your fund!

Couple things you should know:

  • Money from your Pure Charity fundraiser gets paid directly to your agency so set your fundraiser goal for your agency expenses only. (Not travel, etc.)
  • Pure Charity charges a 5% fee on fundraisers to cover the cost of credit card fees and administration. They recommend adding that percentage to your overall fundraising goal.

Of course when your adoption is complete, you’ll still be earning Pure Charity rewards you can give generously to one of the 600+ projects on the site.

JOIN PURE CHARITY

Also, Pure Charity’s Mike Rusch and successful Adoption Fundraiser, Jenny Marrs are conducting a webinar to share tips on how to best use the Pure Charity platform to make your fundraiser successful!

Date: June 4th, 2013
Time: 12:00-1:00 CST

Reserve your Webinar seat now at: 
https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/296800303

PureCharityScreenshot

 

 

 

Filed Under: Affording Adoption, Family Matters, Fundraising

“Freezer Pleaser” Adoption Fundraiser

May 13, 2013 by 1 Comment

Freezer Pleaser Adoption FundraiserWhenever I speak on fundraising I love to leave some time at the end of the session to answer it up to questions. But I always ask those in attendance to share any unique ideas they’ve done/seen/heard. I LOVE the stuff that comes out of this!

At the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit 9 I did a breakout titled “Creative Fundraising for Your Adoption & Ministry.” During the Q & A time Victoria from New Beginnings shared about their “Freezer Pleaser” fundraiser. They did it as a fundraiser for their Junior Auxiliary but I’m sure it would translate well to a local adoption fundraiser.

First, they had a former member that worked for Sears and arranged to donate a small chest freezer (value of about $125). If you know someone who works for Sears, Best Buy, Home Depot, etc. talk with them and see if they can connect you with a store manager. If they can’t donate, perhaps you could get it at cost?

Next, recruit 30 of your friends to prepare one freezer meal. There are hundreds of blogs devoted solely to freezer cooking, so if they’re not sure what to prepare it’s not hard to find the answer. Make sure they label their meal well and include directions. During the JA fundraiser each member prepared a main dish, bread and dessert as part of their meal.

Then they raffled off the freezer with a month’s worth of meals!

The sold raffle tickets for $5 each or 5 for $20. Most people just chose to buy 5 tickets. Each member of the JA (30 of them) sold tickets face-to-face and collected funds. Living in a small town they also set up a table in front of the football and softball games. The raffle drawing was held during the homecoming football game. (If you have kids, maybe their school would allow you to do the same thing? Or your church?)

They raised $7,000!!!!

Of course your mileage may vary and I think they definitely had an advantage being an organization and living in a small town. But could you raise $4,000? If you sold 200  of the 5 for $20 tickets, you’d make $4,000.

P.S. One tip from Victoria – don’t put the meals IN the freezer. Let the winner pick up the freezer from Sears and then coordinate delivery of the meals. In their case they had a local food factory that let them store all the meals in their commercial freezer and the winner came and picked them up. You don’t want to have to try and move a freezer full of meals :-)

Filed Under: Affording Adoption, Fundraising

Vintage Word Art Adoption Benefit

May 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

LoveCrosses-EthiopiaYesterday we announced our “Love Crosses Oceans” t-shirts to benefit my nieces adoption.

Today, I’m announcing my “Vintage Word Art”. I posted a test case to Facebook a couple weeks ago and had a great response, so we’re rolling them out.

I have some adoption themed and some not. I can also do custom work.

Go HERE to purchase or order custom work.

Have you seen how cute my niece is? My brother and his wife only have about 8 weeks until travel so we’re in high-gear fundraising mode!

ChildOfKing

EveryFamilyStory

Filed Under: Adoption, Fundraising

Necklace fundraiser to bring my niece home

April 29, 2013 by Leave a Comment

7I have a limited number of beautiful Compelled Design necklaces available for sale for Mother’s Day.

$24 with free shipping.

I’ll even gift wrap it for you :-)

100% of the cost goes toward my niece’s adoption.

GO HERE

Filed Under: Fundraising

Why you always mockup your t-shirt design before printing

April 29, 2013 by 8 Comments

So a couple months back I started working on a t-shirt design for my brother’s adoption. Some of you guys even voted on some different design ideas.

We thought we had our design finalized, so I took a moment to mock it up on the actual t-shirt catalog image.

Always a good idea.

In this case it saved us from catastrophe…

Uh-Oh

So, morale of the story – always mockup your design on an actual shirt before you send it to the screen printer :-)

Back to the drawing board.

Filed Under: Fundraising

Window Decals Are Back! – Ethiopia, China, Uganda and more

March 14, 2013 by 4 Comments

I’m rolling back out the window decals to help raise funds for my brother’s adoption of a beautiful new niece from China. Ethiopia is pictured below but just 1 of 11 countries available.

ETHeart2

Olivia will join these two crazy kids – my niece Julia and nephew Rion.

img_0047

One of my greatest joys has been watching my brother get married (he’s the oldest but was the last to get married) and finally become a dad. Rion has only been home since May 2012 and they weren’t really planning on adopting too soon. But when God put 2 year-old Olivia Jade in front of them there was no turning back.

So now it’s fundraising time. (We’ll have t-shirts next week.)

Decals are $6 (free shipping) and available for:

China, Ethiopia, Uganda, DRC, Ghana, Haiti, Guatemala, India, Liberia, South Korea and United States.

Buy here

Filed Under: Family Matters, Fundraising

Vote for your favorite adoption t-shirt design

March 12, 2013 by 5 Comments

My awesome brother and sister-in-law are adopting their THIRD! Their first two adoptions brought Julie and Rion into the family and I can’t imagine life without them. Phil & Trish fully funded those adoptions themselves and had a savings plan in place for #3.

Only “problem” is that God brought #3 along WAY quicker than expected. So this time they’ll be doing some fundraising. Luckily, they know someone who knows a bit about that :-)

I’ve been toying with a t-shirt design and would love your opinion.  Check them out and then vote below.

#1

LoveCrosses-China

#2
LoveCrosses-China2

#3

LoveCrosses-China3

VOTE

Filed Under: Adoption, Fundraising

Why do people give toward adoption?

February 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Many people are hesitant to fundraise for their adoption because they wonder why on earth someone would want to help them? After all, if they made this choice, isn’t it their responsibility to cover the costs?

But, as I mentioned in this post on the pros and cons of fundraising, fundraising allows us to share our story with others. To give them the opportunity to be part of caring for an orphan. To give them the chance to experience the joy of giving.

Adoptive mom Tracie Loux enlisted the help of some of their friends to answer the question “Why I Gave a Boatload of Money to Adoption.” If you haven’t read this series of posts, you need to!

I loved this quote from Brian Beattie, who wrote Part 2.

“On the other hand, a dollar given to a family that is caring for redeemed orphans goes right to work in Kingdom purposes. It is a cup of cool water offered in kindness to allay thirst. It is clothes for the naked. It is a visit of comfort in a prison of unmet need. It is so real. It’s so now. It is 24×7 365.”

P.S. If you have a moment, say a prayer for Tracie’s son Mattie. He’s 2 and a half and was admitted to the hospital for RSV and pneumonia.

Filed Under: Adoption, Affording Adoption, Fundraising

Apron sales – Fundraising through Scarlet Threads

February 25, 2013 by 1 Comment

Apron Fundraiser - Scarlet ThreadsScarlet Threads is a compassionate boutique, specializing in unique products designed and produced by talented seamstresses and artisans in both rural Asia and Uganda.

Founded by Carrie & Jacob McKean family in 2009, Scarlet Threads exists to make their core vision of “Work. Dignity. Beauty.” a reality in the lives of their partner seamstresses.

They now offer a fundraising package for adoptive families who wish to sell their handmade artisan aprons.

Their adoption fundraising kit is offered to you at 50% off the retail price. At the end of six weeks you can return any unsold/unopened aprons for a full refund. Or, if you’re wildly successful, you can always order more. The aprons featured in the fundraising kit are pictured below.

You can check out all the details here. If you try the fundraiser, I’d love to hear how it goes.

aprons

Filed Under: Fundraising

Exciting developments with Adopt Without Debt

February 15, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Since self-publishing the first edition of Adopt Without Debt nearly two years ago I have been THRILLED with the response. Word of mouth advertising has been great, and I’m always tickled when I see the book pinned on Pinterest or featured on someone’s blog.

But about a year ago I began to wonder if I could, in fact, get a traditional publisher to pick up the book. After all, I’ve got Dave Ramsey’s endorsement and some fairly good traction. I knew that a publisher would help get the book into the hands of even more adoptive families. I sent off the manuscript and an initial summary of the book to an acquaintance who is an acquisitions editor for a literary agent.

And I waited…A few months later we talked on the phone and the agent expressed interest in the book and wanted to see an official book proposal – about a 12 page document that she would use to pitch the book to publishers.

Last summer she gave me some notes on the proposal and the book. The major thing was that I needed to lengthen the manuscript – by almost double – in order for a publisher to consider it.

So, last fall I spent two months writing a much expanded version of Adopt Without Debt. It was actually pretty exciting. The previous 18 months of workshops, speaking and blogging gave me lots of great ideas of content that could be added to the book.

With a revised manuscript and revised proposal, I am now officially signed with The Blythe Daniel Agency. I totally believe that God is all over this partnership for many reasons.

So, my manuscript is starting to make the rounds of publishers. Can you do a couple things to help me?

1) Like my author page (https://www.facebook.com/authorjuliegumm)
2) If you’ve read it, leave an HONEST review of AWD on Amazon (Click Create Your Own Review)

As always, I love hearing your fundraising stories as well so feel free to comment or e-mail me!

Filed Under: Adoption, Affording Adoption, Fundraising
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