[Citrus Dad]

Until this year, we've always been on the edge for getting our finances together in the fall. We started this year much better prepared and have been much more successful. We now stand at 75% of our budget goal. At the core is two different changes that we made:

1) Focusing on returning sponsors and involving the whole team: we took our existing sponsors and assigned senior team members to send emails and make phone calls. Our business & media subteam prepares scripts for them. We then had them deliver our thank you gifts last spring and then again this spring asking if they would like to support us again this year. Five of our six biggest sponsors said yes, and several even increased their donations, and the sixth pushed the decision to their HQ. We've had similar success further down our sponsor list as well.

2) While our parents have been supportive, their rate of participation and average giving has been falling. So this year we invited all parents to a BBQ and shop tour on a Saturday afternoon, and then gave them our pitch. Our participation rate has already reached 60%, whereas it had fallen well under 50% before, and the average donation has increased two-thirds.