Recently my wife Kate and I celebrated the culmination of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) Man of the Year campaign with over 500 people at the Raleigh convention center. I am so proud to declare that fundraising records were broken and lives were changed!
Our very own “Team Stankavage” raised $155,674 from over 550 donations ranging from $25 to $25,000. As I told our team, “no donation amount and no prayer was insignificant! Every prayer, and every dollar counts!” I was moved by the donations from all the different communities in our life, including colleagues from real estate to yoga, from high school to college and from professional friends to distant family members. The response was humbling, and not just with our team, but across the Raleigh Durham community as the total campaign raised over $975,000 in ten weeks, which is a new record by almost 50%. WOW.
It was fun, but it was hard and took great effort by our team. And I think we collectively learned a few lessons the past 2 ½ months, and I would like to share a few of them.
- First and foremost, asking people for money is hard!
- Don’t take NO personally.
- To help stay motivated and not become discouraged - stay connected to the big goal (in this case, a future world without blood cancer) especially after a few straight days of "sorry, I can’t help at this time."
- People are allowed to say “NO” to your ask for a lot of reasons. In fact, the most generous people have to learn to say “NO” often in order to focus on the charities closest to their hearts
- Don’t judge anyone’s participation or lack of participation, we don’t know what else is going on in their lives
- Realize that the surprise big gifts roughly equal the surprise small gifts
- Charitable giving is a learned skill. (Growing up and early in my financial/business career, I had never seen a big giver, or a joyful giver, and so, as I have gotten older, I have tried to be a model of being a “wow” giver, whether to church or to the girl scouts! And I am thankful that we had dozens of WOW givers in this campaign!)
- Asking for a financial contribution to your cause opens up a likely reciprocal “ASK’, because people will now ask you to support their causes! Recognize that is a good thing in the economy of charitable work and non- profit organizations around the world!
- We all learned that a “Facebook post”, although popular, is not an actual “ASK” and a “like” is not an actual donation! Facebook and Twitter are great for awareness, but a personal ASK is what is most often required for a donation.
- The most compelling reason people give to any cause is your WHY… so be able to quickly, succinctly and passionately state your reason for asking… and people are more prone to give and support YOU and your passion.
I hope the lessons from our campaign might help you in your charitable/fundraising efforts in the future. Philanthropy is an important part of God’s kingdom as we seek to take care of each other in life.
Lastly, I need to thank most especially my wife Kate, her mom Liz, my oldest children Sarah, Shelby and Shawn, my junior high coaching colleague John Alloiuse, my former real estate protégé Rich Harris and his wife Tracy, and my former Miami dolphins team mate John Tagliaferri for the incredible gifts of their time and intentionality to set up a webpage and solicit donations for ”Team Stankavage”. Throughout their own personal rolodex, each of them was able to raise over $3000, and it was humbling to see them use their time and talents intentionally each week to personally ask people for donations. Fundraising is not easy. And therefore, words can’t really express my deep gratitude to all who helped the cause.
Lives were changed by the amount of money that was raised for a cure and for the care of those of us with leukemia and lymphoma. At the Gala Celebration there was not a dry eye in the house as two families who have successfully fought against childhood leukemia shared stories of their journey battling blood cancer and how the LSS fundraising directly benefited their situation. In the end, my heart was profoundly touched by the generous response from so many who reached out with words of encouragement, prayer and donation.
A vital part of any successful team is a deep commitment to a worthy cause that is greater than an individual. I am both grateful and proud to proclaim that by this standard, TEAM STANKAVAGE was wildly successful. Thank you and THANK YOU to everyone who donated! We are closer to a world without blood cancers than we were ten weeks ago! And I continue to hold on to my dream and fight with all my spirit to stick around until the day that Doctors announce they have a cure for my leukemia. Thanks to everyone for helping to make my dream move closer to coming true.
Amen and AMEN.