Finding Funds Through Campus and Local Sponsors

One way you might approach financial support is through promoting your program and making direct support requests to various offices, programs and leaders on your campus.

Sample Letters: We created sample letters you can adapt to fit your campus and peer education group as you request support from your campus. These are letters you can send to key campus staff (i.e., Dean of Students, Director of the Health Center) and campus departments and groups (i.e., Parents Association, Student Government) to help you secure funding for your membership with BACCHUS. If you develop a letter that helped you and would like to share it with the Network, please email us and we will work to help share the resource!

Dean of Students/Vice President of Student Affairs:  Even if your peer education group is not housed in Student Affairs, the chief student affairs officer on your campus has an interest in student success and leadership. S/he also appreciates efforts to create a safe and healthy campus environment to support student success.  Set an appointment with the Dean/VP and take along another peer education group officer.  Be prepared to make your case for funding and provide a one-page summary of all the programs your group contributes to and provides to the campus community. Outline the benefits you receive from BACCHUS and why that affiliation is important to your group. Talk about how your group experiences at regional and national conferences, and ideas contained in the various resources, help you throughout the year to design creative and engaging education for the campus.

Student Government Association:  If your peer education group is recognized through student government and the fee is an allowable expense, ask for support to continue to serve the students on campus with education and awareness programs.  Talk about the number of programs, successes, and the students you reach.

Parents Association or Alumni Office:  Parents and Alumni look to support the campus in meaningful ways.  Because your group provides direct support and education to students so they can better achieve academic and personal success, these two groups might be willing to fund your group.  In addition, they might run a story about your efforts in their publications that could lead to additional support. 

Peer Education Group Alumni:  If your peer education group has a long history on campus, there might be a record of alumni peer education group members who would be willing to help.  Start an alumni newsletter to reconnect and ask for donations.

Local Business and Retailers:  Check on your campus policies before approaching any off-campus locations.  Your advisor should know what policies should be followed.  When campus policy allows, some groups have had success seeking financial support from local businesses, restaurants or beverage retailers for program support.  You can make your case with your one-page summary and an appointment with the owner arranged in advance.  Persistent follow-up is needed to make this effort a success.    Let the local businesses and retailers know how their support will be publicized.

Fundraising Ideas

Always check your campus fundraising policies before you begin a campaign. If you are a student-athlete group, be sure to check with your department’s compliance office to assure the activity is permissible.
Be sure to promote your organization mission, programs, and how to get involved with your group, or support future events.  Let people know that you are raising money to support your peer education group.  As always, incorporate health education and new member recruitment into fundraisers.

Kick “Health Risk” Campus Kickball Tournament (EXAMPLES: Kick Impaired Driving, Kick Tobacco, Kick HIV…Kick ________)

One of the success stories of BACCHUS affiliates is that they always find ways to educate and have fun in the process.  Work with your campus intramural or recreation office, if possible, and organize a campuswide Kickball Tournament.  Use the tournament as a platform for one of the health issues you address. 
This game is fun for people of all abilities.  Promote it within student organizations, classes, residence halls, faculty departments, and staff offices.  Charge a team entry fee as the fundraiser.  Encourage costumes, creative names, and provide prizes and recognition for the highest scores, but also for teamwork, creativity, and enthusiasm.  See if your dining services might provide refreshments or a picnic and make this a special event.
Check out some ideas about how to organize a kickball tournament at:
http://www.nirsa.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Sports/IntramuralRules/im_kickball.htm

Rent a Peer Educator for a Day
Our peer educators are good at helping others.  Create a list of chores or tasks that your peer educators are willing to help others with for a rental rate.  Tasks could include:

• Filing
• Cleaning a Room, House
• Laundry
• Yard Work
• Hosting a Mocktail Bar for a Party
• Event Set-Up

Promote your services to the campus community and be sure to include faculty and staff.

A spinoff idea is to offer to do garage clean-ups for faculty and staff.  Find a place to store unwanted items from the clean-ups to hold your own garage sale.  Promote and advertise the event as “From My Garage to Yours” Garage Sale.

You can also do collections of unwanted items at the end of the semester when students may be moving.  You can store and use these items for your own garage sale later.

Healthy Care Packages
Promote healthy choices and raise revenue.  Put together a Healthy Care Package Box that can be sent to anyone on campus.  See if you can market the program to parents.  Deliver the packages before a major holiday or before finals.  If your campus already had a care package program with dining services or another office, see if you could get a percentage of proceeds on each box order for marketing the program and pushing sales.  Maybe your group can help with deliveries and receive a portion of the proceeds.

The No Bake Cake Raffle
Everyone needs a cake for a special occasion or event such as a birthday, anniversary, holiday, or party.  Many people can afford a $1 ticket and would probably like to support your group’s prevention efforts.  Ask local grocery stores and bakeries to donate several gift certificates for cakes to your cause. With a gift certificate, raffle winners can claim their cake within a predetermined time period.  Hopefully, you can get a nice selection on cake certificates donated.  Sell the $1 tickets to faculty, staff, and students (especially residence halls, sororities, fraternities, and clubs who have social events).  Advertise the donors on your publicity.  Draw the winners at a visible event or location.

Sales of Healthy Food Snacks, Flowers, Singing Messages
Make someone’s day a little healthier and happier.  Instead of a traditional bake sale, sell granola bars, fruit or veggie items.  See if local grocers will donate the items for your fundraiser. 

You might also consider selling flowers or balloons to be delivered with messages. You could also deliver singing messages to people.  Come up with four or five songs people can purchase for a friend, a student group, a faculty member or a class.  Be sure to collect information on a specific delivery time and location that the purchaser will coordinate.  Make the occasion more fun with costumes and a card.

Silent Auction
Have members of your campus community donate items for a silent auction.  These can be material goods or services such as dinner for two prepared by a favorite faculty or staff member, a leadership program presentation, use of a reserved parking space, a weekend getaway, after hours pool party, or a lunch with a campus VIP.  Advertise your big ticket items in advance to draw a crowd.  Make the auction an event with music, food and refreshments and let the bidding begin.

Ransom A Student Leader, Faculty Member or Advisor
Ask for help from your local campus celebrities.  Get your student government president, campus organization leaders, dean of students, director of dining services, and favorite faculty members to volunteer to help you raise money.  Get buy in from a good list of popular individuals on campus who represent various segments of the campus community.  They should also support your group and the prevention activities you provide to the campus.  Due to their popularity and social reach, they become the means from which you can gather donations. 

Plan a specific date, time and public location for the event.  Have celebrities create a call/text/email contact list of people likely to assist them (free them) by making a donation to your group.  Several days before the event ask them to contact their list about the event, its purpose, and the need to make a donation. In addition to campus celebrities making personal appeals to their contact list, your organization should publicize the event to the entire campus community to broaden your donation collections.

The concept is that your celebrities will be taken captive in some way (confining them to a chair in the student union or dining area) and they must raise a certain amount of money before they can be freed.  Respect your celebrities and treat them well, making sure they are comfortable.

Some campuses reverse the process and secure a list of celebrities and ask others to make donations toward a particular individual.  Those raising the most cash, will then be participants in a fun public event like a pie or jello throwing contest, or kissing a pig at halftime of an athletic event. Those raising the least amount might have to perform another task.

Dine Out at a Local Restaurant Chain
Many restaurant chains support local service organizations by donating a portion of a night’s sales back to the student group.  What you are responsible for is getting everyone on campus and in the local community to the dine out at the restaurant on the night of the event.  The more people who buy dinner at the establishment, the more funds you raise.  Some restaurants who participate in these events are:  Noodles and Company, Subway, Chipotle, Jimmy Johns, and Pita Pit.

Penny Wars
This is a very simple fundraising idea.  In this game there are multiple teams. Teams will place coins that receive positive points in their own containers, while placing coins and paper money that count for negative points in the containers of competing teams.

Teams: A few things should be considered when selecting teams for a penny war. First, the teams should be uniform in size. Second, the teams must be competitive against each other.

Containers: Each team will need their own container to collect their change. Have each group clearly label and decorate their container.

Goal: Set a goal of how much money you would like to raise from the event. Also, be sure to set and advertise the start and end date of your campaign.

Score: This can be done in two ways. One way is to have all coins count for positive point values and any dollar bills placed in the container represent negative point values. Another way is to have pennies count for positive points, and all silver coins and dollar bills count for negative points.

Winners: The team that wins the penny war should receive some kind of a reward. The awards can be a pizza party, extra credit, gift card, etc. Having a prize for the winning group will help add motivation throughout the competition.

Proceeds: All money collected in containers goes to your peer education group.