House Corporation Fundraising for New House

StargazerLily · #1 04-30-2009, 11:17 PM

Has anybody on here had any experience with building up a substantial amount of money from nothing, in a short period of time?

Long story short - smaller size campus, small greek life....campus is expanding, so is greek life....campus is supportive of greeks, so much in fact they are building campus owned greek housing...

We will pay Parlor Fees to the school, and will have to furnish the common areas. Bedrooms will be furnished by the schools, leases will be per student through the school housing....

We have to come up with $3K before July. Which isnt much, but it is when you're a newer organization, with itty bitty savings...

Better yet, we really need a way to come up with $25K in the next 18 months....for the $3K deposit, 1st years Parlor Fees, and enough money to furnish...

Quick brainstorming, we've thought of doing concession stands at sport events, 50/50 raffles, a yard sale....

Any ideas are greatly appreciated....

Kevin · #2 04-30-2009, 11:59 PM

How much of an alumnae network do you have? I'd hit them up ASAP. If you don't have much of one for your chapter, get a list from your HQ of all of the local alumnae from all chapters.

How are your taxes set up? You might want to talk to an alumna who is an attorney/CPA about setting up a foundation. There are some creative ways to use that to fund something like this (but I sure as hell am not going to give out tax/legal advice here, so like I said, track down an alumna).

If you have enough members, you could always assess a one-time fee. I know that I almost always preferred to pay money rather than do fundraising stuff. This works particularly well when most members' parents are footing the bill.

Finally, there should be folks at your HQ who know about this stuff. Some orgs even have national house corporations which cold loan the money (doubtful here since there's no real property).

StargazerLily · #3 05-02-2009, 02:23 AM

Our chapter alumnae base is very very small...We're thinking about asking our headquarters if we can do a "make State U your home away from home" and try to draw in alumnae who went to schools in a different state. The chapter already invites some of these alumnae out to our events, and the participation is fair, but with the help of the corp board, maybe we can step it up a notch. The alumnae from other schools in our state have recently been hit up by their own chapters for fund raising for housing at those campuses, so we don't want to approach them.

I was mistaken about needing the first years parlor fees up front. The school is actually going to allow those to be tacked on to each member's semester school bill, since it's money that will be owed to the school. The sisters wont even really miss that money, because it will be coming out of their financial aid before they are issued a refund check - they'll just get a slightly smaller refund, that's all.

So the good news in that aspect, is we could probably get away with only $13-$15K now...and we're thinking about hitting up hotel liquidators for deals on furniture, and bargain shop for decorative items.

We're going to look into some info with our Foundation and see what our options are...and look for a lawyer

We're considering giving the chapter members the option to pay a 1 time start up fee, or have them work several fund raising events on behalf of the corporation board to help raise the money. This way, if they have the money and want to pay rather than being available at fund raising events - they can.

33girl · #4 05-02-2009, 03:26 PM

How old is your group as opposed to the other groups? Is there any possibility of the school cutting you guys a little bit of slack because you're so new or don't they care?

I would definitely stay away from specifically targeting alums from other schools, especially in this economic climate. Even if they are from an out of state chapter, they may still be supporting their chapter financially. If you have a private side on your website, try putting something up there and see if anyone bites. You can also maybe see on there if anyone has connections to get your furnishings at a reduced price.

StargazerLily · #5 05-02-2009, 05:53 PM

We're the youngest sorority on campus, and there's one fraternity that is younger than us...well, depending on how you look at it, possibly 2. A local fraternity chartered with a national group 2 years after us, but that local had been on campus for...6 or 7 years before we came. All the other groups have been there 15 years or more.

The school did give us an option to work out a payment plan for our $3K deposit if we need it, but that's the only break they are going to give us - we still have to pay the money. We would really like to be able to pay it on time, but we're going to do whatever we have to do.

One of the other chapters in our state is doing ALOT of renovations, so it's a possibility that we may be able to take some of their used (but still in good condition) furniture and refurbish some of of....

Hindsight is 20/20. I wish we'd started a house corp and started socked away a little money when the chapter installed a few years ago, but....it's too late to change that now... *If you're reading this and you're a new chapter, please start a house corp ASAP so you don't end up in this same situation a few years down the road!*

We're not expecting to get a whole lot of donations, which is why we're wanting to come up with some creative ideas for fundraising. Bake Sales and Car Washes only go so far.... urrrgh.

Kevin · #6 05-02-2009, 06:41 PM

Well, I don't have much that can help you raise $25K in 3 months if you have a small base, but probably the most effective way I've found to raise money from young alums is in small bits.

Your HQ might have a way for you to do this.

Set up some kind of system whereby alums agree to certain small amounts, $100, $200, $300 and do it in payments, e.g., if they want to donate $120, it's $10/month for a year. A lot of alums won't think twice about $15, $20 or $25/month and you can see how it can add up really fast. There are things you can do to make that tax deductible (there are advantages and disadvantages to this). I won't go into detail on those things, but it's something to ask your attorney/CPA about.