Carmon

As I mentioned in the previous article about fundraising events, this follow-up article will delve into special event-style fundraiser packages offered by suppliers.

All of these are covered in my book, Fundraising Success!, so my comments will be short and to the point about these pre-packaged event offerings.

The first article in this series talked about the search for fundraising events that:
Are easy to do
Don't cost a lot
Make a lot of money
Of course, there's no one answer, no "one size fits all" perfect solution, so we'll discuss several supplier offerings for each of these various categories of fundraising events.

Funny Beauty Pageant
Everybody loves fundraising events that are easy to do. One of my favorites, that we touched on in the previous article, is "Queen Almost for a Day".

Dubbed by the supplier as an event-in-a-box, this fun fundraising event comes with everything you need except contestants and an emcee.

Of course, you'll need some type of stage and seating for your paying audience, preferably a school auditorium. But, you can also make do with a large meeting room so long as your contestants have some place to parade.

The contestants dress up in ditzy costumes that they throw together to outdo each other in committing serious fashion faux paux.

The script stays in the hands of the emcee, who introduces each participant with a hilarious background story. The contestants only have to answer one question -- which allows them to focus on milking their portrayal for additional laughs.

Adding to the fun, male contestants strut their stuff to cheers and catcalls. The winner is chosen by audience response and receives several goofy prizes that produce even more hilarity.

All in all, "Queen Almost for a Day" is a winner in the easy to do fundraising events category.

The cost for the script and instructions is $125.

Mondo Yard Sale
A fundraising event that doesn't cost a lot is having a "Mondo Yard Sale," usually coordinated as a group effort and conducted in a high traffic location such as a school or church parking lot.

As with any yard sale, advance publicity is as easy as putting up signs advertising the event.

Have your supporters scavenge their closets, attics, and garages for unwanted items. Don't bother with individually pricing anything. Just place it out for display with other similar items and get what you can for each piece.

A multi-family yard sale like this will draw Saturday morning shoppers in droves, so be ready to start early. Expect your first customers at the proverbial crack of dawn.

Having a good mix of items is helpful as not all your buyers will be searching for the same things. Popular items include furniture, tools, clothing, and toys.

You can increase your donations, volunteers, and net proceeds by offering a percentage split to donors of large ticket items. They get rid of the old lawn mower and when it sellsfor $40, they keep $20.

Don't forget to engage in a little give and take with your customers. Part of the fun of a yard sale is bargain hunting, so make sure all your sellers understand the art of making the deal.

Charity Golf Tournament
In our category of fundraising events that make a lot of money, consider the charity golf tournament.

These fundraising events combine a fun activity with your needy cause in a way that allows you multiple opportunities to raise money.

The first profit area is adding a markup to the standard greens fees. An extra $25 per head can add up quickly in a large tournament.

As a nonprofit organization, you can also obtain a discount on those fees that can be as much as 50% off on the right course if you pick a normally slow day.

Another way that you can make money in golf fundraising events is to have your participants seek sponsorships from family and friends. This can be as simple as asking for a donation of $1 a hole from each of their sponsors.

Or your golf fundraising events can include something a little more complicated like an amount per stroke or a donation when their foursome wins a hole in a best ball format.

You can also seek sponsorships from local businesses in a way that allows them to promote their business. Use approaches such as signage at the tee and green identifying the company who is sponsoring that particular hole.

For larger events, you can work with suppliers who can include hole-in-one prizes, vacation packages for the winners, etc.

These firms specialize in coordinating and conducting these types of fundraising events, so working with one allows your group to focus on increasing participation and pledge activity.

My recommendation for a good firm is Champion Golf Events.

We're out of space in this article. The next installment in our series on fundraising events will provide another batch of fun events. Choose from fundraising events that are low in cost, fun to do, and make a lot of money.

Isn't that what you want your fundraising events to be?

These types of special events require a lot of effort to promote, coordinate, and conduct. Many layers of volunteers are needed to staff all the positions for these two types of fundraisers.

A key aspect to the revenue generating power of special events like auctions and Athlet-a-thons is a strong personal tie-in.

With an auction, people will spend more money than they ordinarily would because there are both bargains and tax deductions involved.

With a school-based Athlet-a-thon, the personal tie-in is a direct sponsorship of a child's achievements.

The personal connection is the strongest motivator for opening the pocketbook to its fullest extent. Always make sure to include that aspect when putting your plan in place.

In the next article in this series, I'll offer some specific advice on suppliers that have pre-packaged offerings for event-style fundraisers.

Kimberly Reynolds writes for national publications about school fundraisers, fundraising-event-ideas and charity fundraising. Find more fundraising event planning tips on her website, FundraiserHelp.com

In recent years, heart disease has become the leading cause of death and disability in the world. This is despite the tremendous advances in diagnosis and treatment. Surgery and drugs are temporary aids and are not adequate to treat all the risk factors that cause heart disease.

Heart ailments are now affecting people in younger age groups. The biggest reason is changing lifestyles, high stress, inadequate nutrition, sedentary habits, increased use of tobacco and alcohol, at a younger age. But this can be prevented and perhaps reversed with proper diet and exercise.

Foods To Avoid:

1. Saturated fats red meat, dairy (butter, full fat milk, cream, cheese), poultry and eggs.

2. Foods that have omega-6 polyunsaturated oils like corn, sunflower and safflower. Trans-fats found in margarine, processed foods and baked flour products.

3. All foods that contain sugar and are rich in calories breads, rolls, muffins, cookies, cakes, chips and soft drinks.

Foods To Include:

1.A plant-based diet boosts the immune system. Include a wide assortment of vegetables broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, greens, pumpkin, sprouts, onion, garlic, and fruits (berries, grapes, plums, citrus, apple, pineapple, banana and papaya).

2.Include food rich in vitamins and minerals almonds, walnuts seafood, and whole grains. These are rich in vitamin E, omega-3 fats and contain selenium as well as dietary fibre.

EXERCISE:

Can include walking, stretching, yoga, and some gentle noncompetitive games. You do not have to walk fast or far, to gain enormous benefits. Moderate exercise for 30 minutes preferable every day or every alternate day, at a comfortable pace will make your immune system stronger and protect against build up of blockages in the arteries. Even a yoga for half an hour could be more useful.

Whatever may be the practices the diet is to be regulated. It is the balanced diet which is helpful to stay away from the heart attack and heart burn.

The author Cher K Markov is not a medical professional and offers this information for educational purposes only. However, one can find more articles on Heartburn Cure and access other Heartburn Cure Treatment at her website.

Planning for skiing, I am sure ski gloves are the last thing you would want to forget. But generally speaking, the winter sports require you to protect your fingers appropriately because that is where you loose your temperature most. Even other sports like snowboarding; snow shoeing, climbing and snowmobiling all demand some kind of outdoor research gloves that matches their activities and prevailing conditions.

Tips To Buy the Top Gloves

1. Zipping downhill or climbing snow mountains, the first parts that suffer are feet and fingers; drop of a fraction of degree in body temperature opens the floodgates and consequently freezing circulation.
2. Gloves must taper towards wrist to prevent heat escape. Velcro wrist grips or strap buckle combination are still essential to hold warmth inside. The warmth remains inside with good mid layer insulation.
3. If you are skiing, go for ski gloves particularly; the grip needed for skiing, you wont get in snowboard gloves. Good pair of gloves provides a synthetic reinforced abrasion resistant palm for added grip.
4. Take a pick at the insulation; at least two layers of Thermacore and fleece liners give the best. Let the gloves be a little loose to give some airspace n between.
5. You may want to wipe your goggles or nose even in the thick of action to fend off mist; a good pair of gloves has nose wipe on thumb and goggle wipe attachment.
6. The gloves must be made in breathable waterproof synthetic or natural leather. Check if you can wear removable pipe glove liner inside.

If you are buying for the first time, take your coach or a senior along. There are several finer points that they dont miss out to check. Shop around across brands like Burton gloves and the north face gloves and different stores. A good pair of ski gloves can make all the difference.

Alevoor Rajagopal, MBA, advises on issues that concern small businesses. Fine tuning common but pesky issues to improve efficiency and ROI is what he specializes and writes at online earning. Find his eBay business coaching at eBay Made Easy.

MLM - Multi Level Marketing. All MLM's have "tools" to help "build" the confidence and character of the membership. Well, that is what they are SUPPOSED to do.

These tools come in various forms. Most often they are the books, tapes and functions promoted by the "big pins" - the Diamonds and Double Diamonds and the like. Originally designed to build people up in confidence, the big-pins promoted them so heavily that they soon realized that value of the tools outweighed the value of the product moved. So, there was a business within a business.

Disproportionately, the big-pins were the ones making the vast majority of the money. Surprise, surprise!

Also, disproportionately, a partnership, and for the sake of convenience we will refer to it as a marriage, also suffered because the one "on the road" - usually the husband - got to listen to all the tapes. Most of them were what I call "rah-rah" tapes. Stuff like "you can do it - don't worry about the negative people" etc etc. Add to that the reinforcement of the books and you can see what starts to happen.

That lead to one side of the marriage growing internally while the other remained the same. Often disdain set in where one partner began to see the other partner as "negative." Oh-oh! Looking around the business congregation little relationships began to form between partners from other marriages.

Before anybody jumps in and says "bulldust" let me say I saw it happen many times and there is a website devoted (oddly enough) to broken marriages caused by the MLM "business." Reading it is like reading a "who's who" of MLM. It's pretty sad stuff actually.

To top it off a very senior Executive Diamond woman directly attributed her marriage breakdown to the business. How do I know that? The ED lady confided it to my own sponsor with the warning: "This style of business will destroy your marriage."

Without identifying people it is a name that many would recognize - a VERY big pin indeed. Now, like so many others, neither partner is still active in the business.

So-called leadership meetings tended to re-inforce this unfortunate by-product too. Partners grew apart with resentment on both sides. "Gee, why isn't my partner more like him/her?"

I could write a dozen pages about this but I won't. But that is just ONE side of relationship breakdowns.

The other side is the losing of friends through being far too pushy with the "business."

Let's face it - SOMEBODY has to buy these products. Friends and relations are prime targets. Part of the business technique is:

1. try to sponsor first
2. if sponsorship fails then turn them into a customer.

However, this does not take into account the people who don't want to do either. They DON'T want to be a distributor and they DON'T want to be a customer. Fair enough. But the glassy-eyed MLMer cannot understand it and keeps pushing the issue. Again - resentment.

Any person who has ever been in MLM will have experienced this. If you haven't been in MLM then chances are that somebody in MLM has probably either tried to sponsor you or tried to push product onto you.

People grow apart in MLM. It is an unfortunate consequence of this style of business.

You will have to weigh up whether that "cost" of alienation outweighs the "gain" in potential income. Bear in mind, of course, that only one third of one percent of people who get involved in MLM actually make enough money to quit their day jobs. For me, an MLM'er with more than 10 years of experience that cost was just far too high. I HAD to quit. Most people do when they are faced with such an option.

For more information on the faults of MLM see "MLM - Why Most People DO NOT and WILL NOT Make More Money Than They Will Spend - Part One" It sets the groundwork for all the following parts.

Brought to you by: Gary Simpson's http://www.MotivationSelfEsteem.com/Zenspiration.html website where you can receive motivating "Zenspirational Thoughts" plus an immediate FREE copy of the highly acclaimed, life-changing e-book "The Power of Choice." Here you will also be able to get your password for the "Wealthy Minds" Newsletter which will give you access to the MEMBERS' ONLY area of the http://www.turn-debt-into-wealth.com website.

Gary Simpson is the author of nine books covering a diverse range of subjects such as motivation, self esteem, affirmations, self defense, wealth creation and much more. His many motivation and success articles appear all over the web.