In a town of about 2,400 people surrounded by other small communities, all more than 85 miles from a major city, it is an amazing accomplishment for Golden LivingCenter – Olivia to be the two-time winner (2013 and 2014) of the Golden Living Walk to End Alzheimer’s traveling trophy competition.
GLC – Olivia raised $160.80 per employee last year, topping their number from 2013 of $104.91 per employee. The closest competitor, Golden LivingCenter – Groton in South Dakota, raised $91.04 per employee.
With these impressive numbers, the Golden Living Public Affairs team set out to find the secret recipe to this LivingCenter’s success.
Experience
Give Stacie Roxberg, GLC – Olivia’s Director of Alzheimer Care a big round of applause for leading the effort. She says that her LivingCenter does would be easy for another GLC to do, too.
However, one aspect to their success is her experience with this fundraiser. Stacie has worked with the Alzheimer’s Association and participated in the Walk for nine years.
Patient Family Support
Because of her dedication for the past nine years, Stacie’s gotten involved in a big way and she’s not shy about letting her patients’ families know all about it. It is part of what she does every day.
“We are a close-knit community, and one way or another, people will find out,” she says. “I began early on sending letters to patients’ families explaining what their donations go to and how this cause is worthy of their support. We care for several employees’ family members and so they also support this cause, in addition to many past patient families who join our fundraising efforts every year.”
Planning and Fundraising
Stacie says that patient family donations make up about half of the LivingCenter’s total for the Walk; the rest comes from hosting two dinners at a local restaurant where her mother works.
The restaurant manager has generously donated the space and food for the event. Then, the LivingCenter organizers a variety of other fundraisers during the summer months. They go “Casual for Cause,” selecting a day when employees can wear jeans to work. They sell water at parades and work in any local fundraising effort.
For Stacie, it is nearly a year-round effort in communication and planning, beginning in April or May. With full LivingCenter support, she does most of the planning and has six go-to employees who assist her with the logistics and event details. With a “can-do” attitude, Stacie says she keeps it simple with every event.
She sits on the planning committee for the Willmar area Walk to End Alzheimer’s as well.
During this event, an honorary family will speak about their journey with the disease. A few years ago, that honorary family was from GLC – Olivia. This was an inspiration to many of their patient’s families to get involved in the Walk to End Alzheimer’s.
Stacie shared some helpful tips to get you started on a successful fundraising drive:
Start small, like having a garage sale or an in-house fundraiser .
- Start with word of mouth and advertise where you can.
- Set small goals early on so your team has a feeling of success and motivation to do more.
- Ask families to support the Alzheimer’s Association through your team.
- Use fundraisers, such as selling “Watkins” to get a share of the profit to go to your team.
- Ask a restaurant to have a GLC or Alzheimer’s night where a portion of the profits can go to the cause.
- Go to the Alzheimer’s Association website and use all of its resources.
- Start posting information (posters/fliers available to print) about the Alzheimer’s Association and your LivingCenter’s Walk efforts around town well before the Walk date.
Stacie’s recipe for a successful Walk to End Alzheimer’s fundraising includes a bit of experience, a dash of early planning, a tablespoon of communication and a cup full of asking families and employees to get involved.
Write your own recipe for success this year and share it with us: goldenlivingcommunication@goldenliving.com.
InnerCircle 