Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Latest and Greatest

Well friends, we are exactly one month from the Project Smile Date Auction! All this work and we are hitting the home stretch now. I can't believe it is getting so close- I love it and it is also nerve wracking. Ticket sale anxiety is already setting it, but I need to keep it in check. It takes a while to get ticket sales going- I need to keep reminding myself of that. We are doing all the same marketing as last year and we're auctioning off the same number of bachelors/ettes, so there is every reason to believe that we will be on track for ticket sales.

Yesterday, I was working on contacting police departments and homeless shelters to make follow-up donations. I called one department that we hadn't donated to recently- the woman that I spoke with was so enthusiastic about Project Smile, it was great. She was talking about how they have children coming into the station all the time for a number of reasons and it was wonderful to have something to give them- what a difference it made for children. She said they were definitely in need of more items. I'll be in there on Thursday to make another donation. It was great to hear her feedback.

Here is a great story about the importance of following up. In early spring, I reached out to a sponsor who has been supportive of PS and our Anniversary Celebration over the years. I didn't get any response about sponsoring our anniversary event, so in July, I called the person who handles getting the sponsorship info to their committee. She said that if they had chosen to sponsor, I would have heard back and that they can't always sponsor every year, etc. I was disappointed and asked if I could send her the info again and see if the committee could reconsider. She said I could. I waited a couple of weeks- partly because I got wrapped up with other things. I emailed the sponsorship info again and today I received a check for a platinum sponsorship! Now, I don't know if perhaps they had waited to review the info until it was closer to the event, but I am so glad that I asked if I could resubmit it. The funny thing is that I don't usually say that when sponsors turn things down. Maybe I need to start doing that more often!

Well, that's the latest for tonight. Tomorrow, I'm hopefully I'm doing our last calendar photos. Then I need to finish a grant that I've been working on. I need to work on date auction promotion, anniversary event auction items and following up with other departments. Until tomorrow friends...

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