Fueling Change

Category: Raising Funds to End Charcoal | Date: Sep 08 2008 | By: endingcharcoal

Meet Tarynn and Cody of Denver, Colorado who are expecting their first child in November. They attended the Denver fundraiser that Emmanuel and I hosted in March this year and decided that they wanted to join the fight to save Virunga’s last mountain gorillas. At first, they weren’t sure how to help, but then they came up with the idea of holding a baby shower, but instead of asking for gifts for their newborn, they would ask their friends to make donations to help the Congo’s mountain gorillas. At a lake near Denver, Colorado yesterday, they hosted what I think was the world’s first Mountain Gorilla Shower.

A mindful couple working to bring their child into a better world

I drove down and shared what I know about the situation facing the gorillas, and talked about how we are introducing non-woody biomass briquettes to N. Kivu as an alternative to charcoal. I also did an interactive briquette making demonstration so everyone could see firsthand how their donations would be used. Their friends were great, stepping right in, getting dirty, and making some briquettes. There were about 50 people in attendance and we had lots of great questions and discussion.

“Thank you!” to Tarynn, Cody, and all their friends who made donations to help us save Virunga’s last mountain gorillas. This is such a great example of how everyday citizens can make an impact!

Generous donations
Thank you very much to all the caring people who donated recently to help us bring briquettes to the people living near Virunga National Park: Pamela R - $150, Edward S. - $50, Amy B - $25, Lalena W - $20, and Lisa R - $15.

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Category: Raising Funds to End Charcoal | Date: Mar 16 2008 | By: admin

Having only held two fundraisers, this is really more of a guide written by an idiot for an audience of non-idiots. What follows are the lessons that I learned putting together the Boulder and Denver events.

1. Get help ASAP. These events take a lot of work and you will stack the odds against yourself if you try to go it alone. For example, in Boulder, I had help from Douglas Scheffer of the Highland City Club. He invited me to several lunches to speak to members about the mountain gorillas and the alternative fuels project. He also convinced the owner to put up the $260.00 for the venue, the Boulder Public Library auditorium. They also paid for the Boulder poster printing. My good friend Lisa Busch, an amazing graphic designer, designed the poster (which you can use for your fundraisers). Another friend, John Turkle, a production guy, helped me put the presentation together (also available). Another friend, Pippa, had worked with the Boulder Camera and knew a reporter that was interested in environmental issues. She gave me the person’s name, I contacted her, and the next thing I knew, I was doing a phone interview (I’m available for this, if you would rather not) — and that Sunday, we made the front page. Another friend is a photographer for the Denver Post. She gave me a name, I called and got an interview, and we were in the online edition the next day. During the event itself, my community of friends helped with the setup, charging for tickets, selling t-shirts, etc. So, as you can see, it “takes a village”.

2. Make sure your volunteers are committed. People won’t want to disappoint you, so you need to make sure that they understand what they are committing to. In Denver, a seemingly committed person took on much of the responsibility of promoting the event, such as putting up posters, speaking with professors at the University of Denver, creating a public service announcement for radio stations, and networking via email. Two days before the event, this person told me that they “just didn’t get to it”. By that time, it was too late for me to remedy the situation. As a result, we had only 19 people in attendance. Luckily, they were a very generous group. The lesson here is not only that you need to be sure of a person’s commitment, but you also have to put some kind of feedback mechanism in place so you can monitor their progress and effectiveness. I was naive to just assume that it was all getting done.

3. Choose your venue wisely. It’s tempting to want to pick the most glamorous venue, but only do so if it is affordable (donated or given at a reduced rate). You don’t want to have a big nut to crack when trying to break even with the take at the door. Remember, people know that they aren’t coming to the Academy Awards. Having said that, though, I wouldn’t hold an event in a school cafeteria. You really want to hit the right balance between cost and quality.

4. Make the price of admission reasonable. In Boulder and Denver, we set the ticket price at $5.00 and we all agreed that this was too low. Given that movies cost at least $10.00 these days, we figure we should have set the price at around $12.00. At anything below $15.00, we felt people would still be willing to make a donation above and beyond the price of admission. And, at only $5.00, it may have implied that it was going to be a bush-league presentation, which it was not.

5. Choose your approach for newspapers, radio, and TV. It’s a good idea to have your message well-crafted before approaching the media. My approach was to pitch the story as a local effort that was having a significant impact on a major international crisis. Aside from talking about the inevitable extinction of the mountain gorilla if something wasn’t (isn’t) done immediately — by ordinary citizens, I also talked about how the alternative fuels project would get at the root cause of the crisis and how it could be THE key to saving the gorillas. Whatever your pitch, you’ll want to be concise and make sure to cover the who, what, why, where, and when. Also, leverage the coverage that WildlifeDirect and the mountain gorillas have already received in the international press: Christian Science Monitor, National Geographic, Newsweek, Smithsonian, US News & World Report, CNN, 60 Minutes… With this kind of coverage and a local angle, the story places well. Be careful not to try placing the story too far in advance. I started working on the media coverage two weeks prior to the event. You can, however, start doing the legwork of finding out the names and numbers of the various editors and features writers well in advance of that. In addition, craft a public service announcement. Newspapers and radio stations will often place these for free. These are bare bones blurbs that give just enough information about the event. Lastly, don’t be afraid to follow-up on your contacts. If they don’t call you back, call them back.

6. No need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to print materials. I have all the digital files for the poster and donation letter. These can be customized for any fundraiser. And, when it comes to printing, go to Fedex-Kinkos and ask for their “non-profit” 25% discount.

7. Check up on your poster placements regularly. Don’t put up your posters and forget about them. Check every few days to make sure they are still up

8. Work email promotion. This may be the best way to get people to your event. Try to get each of your friends to bring five of their friends. Also, follow up with reminder emails as the event draws near.

I hope this helps. I’ll think about this some more, and add to it as ideas come up. Feel free to raise more questions and remember, I’m still learning, too!

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Category: Raising Funds to End Charcoal | Date: Mar 14 2008 | By: admin

Thank you all for your interest in holding fundraisers. This is how it all happens!! When Emmanuel was here last week, we chose the September ‘08 cities by their fundraising potential — and by where I had friends that would let us sleep on the floor. That list included: Berkeley, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Colorado Springs, Santa Fe, New York City, and Boston. We have a two week window and are willing to add more shows, so if you are serious about taking on an event, please let us know. Also, if you have contacts in any of those cities that would be interested in helping, please bring them on board. From your comments on the blog, it sounds as though we have the possibility of adding events in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Tucson, Washington, DC, and possibly in Florida. If you want to get your feet wet — or are ready to just dive in, let me know and we can start seriously exploring the possibility of holding a fundraiser in your area. As I said to Nancy, I think the best strategy for filling these events is the grassroots approach whereby you contact your friends and see if you can convince them to bring five of their friends, and they do the same with their friends. I we do this, in addition to a media blitz, we should be able to fill our venues.

Our goal is to secure three years of funding for the Ending Charcoal project. We are going to be investing in a number of different stove technologies and that will require some significant funds. Luckily, the people attending the Boulder and Denver fundraisers shared our vision and donated generously, which has given us the funds needed to begin bringing new stove technologies to Goma. Our first step, though, is a thorough cost/benefit analysis on the various stove technologies.

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Category: Raising Funds to End Charcoal | Date: Mar 10 2008 | By: admin

Dearest Coloradans,
Thank you for showing up for the mountain gorillas! It is very heartening to know how much you care and are willing to sacrifice to help these Great Apes.

Donations
A special “THANK YOU!!” goes out to Joan H. and John N. who each donated $5000.00 as well as to Linda N. who donated $1000.00, Summer K.
and Laura and Jerry G. who donated $500, my wife Michelle who donated $300, Boulder artist Mike Brouse who donated a beautiful painting for auction, Siva S. who donated $150, Nick and Sara R., Alison K. and Jenny K. who donated $100 and Helen R. who donated $75. Thanks also go out to the many people that donated lesser amounts. You all are a part of the solution to this terrible problem.

I have yet to get a report on the web donations, so stay tuned…

If you are interested on holding your own fundraiser, this poster art is available to you!

Local Press and Radio Coverage
We managed to get some nice press for these events, thanks the old 6 degrees of separation truism — and often with only one or two degrees. On March 2nd we landed on the front page of the Boulder Daily Camera and on March 4th, made it into the Denver Post. Emmanuel and I also managed to get a quick interview in at Boulder’s public radio station, KGNU. Poor Emmanuel hadn’t even been off the plane for an hour before he was wisked into the KGNU studios. I’ll be posting that interview later.

As all good efforts go, it “took a village”. If it weren’t for the efforts of our volunteers, we never would have been as successful. In the fall, Emmanuel and I will be going back on the road to do two weeks of back-to-back fundraisers in cities across the United States. If you would like to be involved, please let us know. We would love to have you on our team!

Next Post: How these funds will go to work to save the last mountain gorillas

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Category: Raising Funds to End Charcoal | Date: Feb 08 2008 | By: admin

The 2-5 year goal of this project is to eventually reach 100,000 households in the Goma area, which is the primary demand center for illegal charcoal coming out of Virunga NP. As such, one of the main parts of this initiative is fundraising to support the scope of this project. As Pam suggested, it will be vital to tap into the microfinance arena. Even beyond this, we are looking for ways to catch the attention of organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. If you know of anyone with connections or expertise related to working with microfinance entities or the bigger institutions, please look into those. I always come back my 6 degrees of separation philosophy…

With respect to raising funds on the Charcoal blog, Ephrem and I will be using the information garnered in his research to decide on the best donation categories for the blog. At this time, general donations will be earmarked for helping indigent families purchase plant oil and preheating fuel. We also need to start raising funds for when we get past our initial 100 stoves that BSH has generously offered to donate — to assist families that cannot afford the stoves outright. It is unlikely that we will be giving many stoves away for free because it is important for people to feel as though they have a stake in the project. In speaking with people that have done this kind of thing, the recurrent theme is that people are more likely to follow through if they have some of their own money invested.

The Jatropha/Vanilla Synergy
Paula, it would be a great help if you could dig up your study on Jatropha oil. Jatropha has the third highest yield per hectare of all the oils that the stoves can burn, producing on average, 1728 liters of oil per hectare per year. In contrast, soybeans produce just 408 liters of oil per hectare per year. Jatropha’s high yield and synergy with vanilla make it a top candidate.

Networking with Other Blogs
In the next several weeks I will be working on tying into other blogs, and most certainly, will look into the food blog networks. This is one of the best ways for us to expand our reach.

Have a great weekend!

-Robert

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