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Planning the steps. Can you help?

by Eleanor

There’s an interesting competition developing over at James The Infopreneur’s place. He’s got wagers going with a number of his readers. For the record, Give A Brick has joined in. We’re working to raise the final £76,000 needed in donations to see our first project completed before James earns $4000 per month from his online adventures.

(To that end, if you’d like to help and you haven’t already, please donate £1 and then ask your friends to do the same. Paypal is now available so it’s even quicker and easier ;) )

However the thought behind this post was prompted by a comment from Matthew from The Big Red Tomato Company. He’s got a great business mind and his reaction to the wagers challenged me:

“I think these goals or bets are great, I just think you need to make them goals now…when are you going to do them and what’s the first steps?”

He reminded me that in order to succeed in anything, we need to have a plan and then the knowledge of the steps necessary to put that plan into action.

To that end, Give A Brick needs your help. We think we’re the first charity to ask everyone to please just give a brick (i.e. £1 only) and to date, we’ve been using this website to encourage folks to do so.

However, do you think we should behave more like a traditional charity and start encouraging folks to do sponsored events for us? You know the sort of thing I mean: sponsored silence, sponsored, parachute jump, sponsored bath in baked beans … the list is limited only by your imagination ;)

Give A Brick treasurer Dr Egg is doing a sponsored hair shave for Give A Brick. You can read an update on that tomorrow accompanied by photographs. My youngest sister is investigating bungee jumping for charity. There’s even talk of a sponsored cake making event ;)

But I’m wondering if these events are something we need to be encouraging you to initiate. What do you think? Would a sponsored event be an easier way to ask your friends to each Give A Brick?

Along a similar vein, if you wanted to host a dinner party in aid of Give A Brick, there is now a website that makes the planning of this very simple. I’m thinking about having a garden party in the Summer to which I’d like to invite lots of children and their parents. Or how about your own version of ‘Come Dine With Me’? You could do a charity version of the TV show.

The list of offline ideas is limitless but given that we’re all constrained by the properties of time and space, is this something you think Give A Brick should spend time developing?

I’d love to hear what you think :)

{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

TheInfoPreneur
Twitter:
February 20, 2010 at 10:27 pm

Hi Eleanor, this is one I want you to win, this is such a fantastic charity, I have donated so come on people, make sure I lose this bet!
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Eleanor
Twitter:
February 21, 2010 at 8:58 am

Thanks James :) I appreciate your encouragement.
El

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Heather February 21, 2010 at 12:14 am

Hm… It depends on what other objectives you want to achieve really. If you’re only looking to get the money to build the centre then go right ahead using whatever means you can as a charity.

If, however, you’re also looking to raise awareness of what you’re doing and what it’s for (I’m assuming this is the case) you might want to be a little more targeted. Sponsered events are a good idea, but where would you hold them? How do you make it fun for the younger generation? Would the ends justify doing so? How do you get word out about the event?

Just a few questions to consider; it’s not really something I’ve looked into before but I hope that helps.
Heather´s last blog ..Review: The Last Hero (Terry Pratchett, expect Bias) My ComLuv Profile

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Eleanor
Twitter:
February 21, 2010 at 9:02 am

Thanks Heather.
You’re right, it’s about both the offline stuff so Give A Brick can make a difference, with our first project in the first instance and then with our next project and the one after that and the one after that and …

But it’s also about engaging young people. I’m still waiting to hear back from the local high school here. School’s back tomorrow so I can start chasing to meet with some folks. I had a fascinating chat with some year 9 pupils in a different school the week before half term. They were full of great ideas. Assumming that same excitement can be captured from the school in Cross Hands, this could be an exciting few months.

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Heather February 21, 2010 at 11:56 am

Sounds like a lot of fun :) Best of luck there El!
Heather´s last blog ..Review: The Last Hero (Terry Pratchett, expect Bias) My ComLuv Profile

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Matthew Needham
Twitter:
February 22, 2010 at 12:04 am

Hi Eleanor, glad to have inspired you to make the post! That’s fantastic.

Personally I think you can have a whole network of ‘little give a bricks’ with each mini team organising their own event. But why not hold a fundraising event via Youtube or Twitter?
Matthew Needham´s last blog ..What’s going on? My ComLuv Profile

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Eleanor
Twitter:
February 22, 2010 at 1:22 pm

Now that we’ve registered Give A Brick on BMyCharity (the commission free, less well known version of JustGiving) what you talk about is much more of a reality. We’re still so unknown but I’m hoping that as people get to know about Give A Brick fundraising by people unconnected to the charity could become a reality. I’d love us to be the online version of Children In Need. Maybe I should speak to the BBC ;)
Eleanor´s last blog ..Life Without Limbs? Life Without Limits! My ComLuv Profile

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Sire February 22, 2010 at 6:25 am

I reckon the sponsored event would only really take off if you could get some celebrities involved. The idea would be that they would do something special in YouTube once a certain target was reached.
Sire´s last blog ..Where Bloggers Meet, A Forum For Bloggers My ComLuv Profile

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Eleanor
Twitter:
February 22, 2010 at 1:20 pm

Some celebrity support would be very cool. My sister wrote to HRH The Queen to ask her to Give A Brick but she said no :( We had an idea called ‘Sofa4Change’ which utilized YouTube and infamous folks. Another thing to add to the ‘todo’ list :)
Eleanor´s last blog ..Life Without Limbs? Life Without Limits! My ComLuv Profile

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Sire February 22, 2010 at 1:28 pm

The Queen would have been nice but I reckon perhaps you should aim a little lower. ;)
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Eleanor
Twitter:
February 22, 2010 at 3:39 pm

I just thought there was a chance since we were only after £1 ;) She’s the only famous person we’ve asked so far so definitely worth exploring further!

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Sire February 22, 2010 at 9:45 pm

I don’t think she officially got the request anyway, some minion would have denied her the opportunity.
Sire´s last blog ..My First Squidoo Lens & About Bloody Time Too My ComLuv Profile

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Eleanor
Twitter:
February 23, 2010 at 6:11 pm

You’re probably right. I’m going to write and ask if she can shed any light on our claim to be the first charity to ask everyone for just £1. According to the reply my sister had, she gets lots of charity requests so she’s in a great position to know the answer :)

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Heather February 22, 2010 at 3:43 pm

I hear pop stars and young tv people go down well at these things lol.
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