Online only: ASB groups find fundraising surge

By Jennifer Livingstone     2/11/10 6:00pm

With spring break only two weeks away, students involved with the Alternative Spring Break program are pushing their last fundraising projects forward in a final effort to balance their budgets. This year, volunteers are spread out between 11 different trips that address issues such as education, healthcare and the environment. The Community Involvement Center assists in guiding and supporting the students, but the students themselves are primarily responsible for planning and fundraising.

This year's trips cost anywhere from $5,000 to $9,000 per team, a significantly lower price tag than that of the average trip last year, which had some trips ranging between $15,000 and $20,000. This year's trips are cheaper because all are domestic and a large number are at camps, where accommodations and meals are often covered.

Additionally, CIC Assistant Director Sarah Hodgkinson cited the success of solicitation letters in alleviating costs. Each participant was required to send out 10 letters of solicitation to friends, family and companies to request donations toward their trip.

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"The letters, combined with the $250 participation fee, definitely helped in alleviating a large chunk of the costs," Hodgkinson said.

Nevertheless, ASB teams have had to raise several thousand dollars in the span of a few months to cover the remaining gaps. Hodgkinson said many groups applied to the Student Activities Fund and the President's Programming Fund. Some groups received up to $400 in financial assistance from the Student Activities Fund, although groups' applications for the President's Programming Fund were rejected.

Around half of the groups are completely finished with their fundraising and most of the remaining groups are only within a few hundred dollars of reaching their goals. Some groups even have surpluses: The Camp Courageous trip to Iowa raised $2,700 more than its goal of $5,600, and the Wharton and Rice Mentoring group traveling to Boulder Creek, Calif. raised $8,463.32, which is $330.32 more than its goal of $8,133. The group going to Camp Courageous will donate all surplus funds to the camp.

The Habitat for Humanity group received a large amount of funding through its solicitation letters and thus reached its goal with minimal fundraising, and the group plans to donate excess funds to their local charity organization, Hands On New Orleans.

Successful fundraisers tended to cater to an already existing demand on campus or had a highly targeted approach in their ideas and marketing. The Mentorship Project trip to North Carolina made most of its money meeting the needs of students by providing service rides around Houston to such places as Bush Intercontinental Airport or the Galleria.

The Student Engineers Educating Kids trip worked with the Rice American Civil Liberties Union trip to Boston to host a Mardi Gras dinner on Feb. 2 at Sid Richardson College, charging $5 per person. In the one evening alone, the students managed to raise around $800.

Hodgkinson credits the success of this effort to the collaborative efforts of the two groups. Tiffany Kim, site leader of the ACLU trip, also pointed to the demand for Saturday dinner as a factor in the fundraiser's success.

"Everybody needs food on Saturday nights, so the dinner helped to fill a void that was already there," Kim, a Wiess College senior, said.

Other creative fundraisers employed by ASB teams included the Boulder Creek trip's "Hug Sale" that raised $110.22 in just three hours. Also notable for creativity were the Rice American Red Cross trip's Christmas caroling, which raised $377, ACLU trip's "Panty Gram and Candy Sale," the Best Buddies trip's "Nutellafest" and the Habitat for Humanity trip's "Cookie and Coffee Sale" in Fondren Library during finals week last semester.

Most groups spent weekends directing parking at Reliant Stadium to raise anywhere from $400-$1,000.

Despite overall success in fundraising, groups did face serious challenges. Kim said creativity was a must for successful fundraisers.

"You obviously want first and foremost to raise money, but then you also want fresh and compelling ideas, and you want it to be something that your entire group will be excited to promote." Kim said.

Several groups mentioned problems with coordinating activities around not only the busy schedules of group members, but also around campus events and the fundraisers of other ASB trips.

"It was difficult to coordinate around classes, homework, midterms and finals," Camp Campbell site leader Suchitra Badrinarayanan said.

Rice Children's Defense Fund site leader Anirudh Kumar said the competition between ASB teams and other clubs made fundraising efforts much more challenging.

"It is difficult to raise money when there are so many other ASB groups, along with other clubs and organizations, that are competing for student dollars," Kumar, a Jones College senior, said.

Rice American Red Cross site leader Harrison Nguyen said another problem was the fact that Rice students as a whole do not tend to have a lot of money to donate.

"Most students at Rice don't have a lot of money, and so it's hard asking them for money without feeling bad," Nguyen, a Hanszen College junior, said. "It's all about finding a happy medium.

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