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Have you started your 2019 Red Kettle Campaign planning?
THIS MONTH
- Form an Advisory Board Kettle Committee
- Select a Kettle Kick-Off date and secure venue
- Share Kettle Kick-Off date with Divisional Headquarters
- Contact groups, businesses and clubs to schedule presentations over the course of the summer
Ideas to involve groups, businesses and clubs in your Red Kettle Campaign:
- Ask them to sponsor a kettle monetarily, while it is being physically manned by a paid bellringer. This makes up for the cost of paying the worker.
- Ask them to sponsor a Fundraise for Good Peer-to-Peer Campaign (fundraiseforgood.org).
- Ask them to keep a kettle at the workplace. Set a “deadline” to serve as a concrete “call to action” and create a sense of urgency for employees to give.
- Ask them to write a sizable check and deposit it in a kettle in the community. Depending on the amount, consider partnering with the divisional development team to publicize the donation.
- Ask them to sponsor the corps at a company function during the season.
- Ask them to organize employee volunteers to give their time in pairs or mini groups. Recruitment should take place months prior. Give the company information about The Salvation Army and how volunteerism of this kind can be beneficial to the company.
- Ask them, toward the end of the season, to donate the remaining amount required for your corps to meet its kettle goal.
- Consider challenging two companies to compete against each other on a certain day to see which can raise the most. The involved companies will typically put their own time and effort behind promoting the kettles, in the spirit of winning (for a good cause!).
- Start connecting with store managers months prior to the kettle season, when you will ask to put kettles outside the stores. Managers of stores should be presented with a contract and cell phone numbers of the corps officers or kettle coordinators for urgent needs.
- If businesses don’t want to participate but would choose to donate in other ways, ask them to donate goods or services as incentives for people to volunteer.
Tips for pitching involvement from groups, businesses and clubs:
- Get an insider to share information with you ahead of your pitch and after to get feedback.
- Understand their needs and motivations.
- Arrive early to mingle with the group attendees.
- Keep your pitch 30 minutes or less.
- Have a call to action in your pitch—what do you want this group to do?
- Invite them to act now (download the Register To Ring app; add their names to an interest list; sign-up for a committee; agree to a date to ring the bell, and so on).
- Ask questions to the group during your pitch.
- Come prepared with something to leave behind as a touchpoint.
- Offer to schedule a kettle training for group organizers.
- Plan on following up with attendees.
- Make your pitches all year round—some organizations need a year to plan!
See more in the complete Kettle Handbook (including a template pitch presentation for groups) available on the Red Shield Toolkit.
