Shavee Fundraising Tips: Make It Personal

Follow this shavee’s example to bring in the donations. (Not a shavee℠? Get involved!)

Two days ago, we shared a great email campaign that one shavee is using to help him reach his fundraising goal. But a compelling — and effective — donation ask doesn’t always have to be quirky or amusing.

Laurie Probsdorfer is shaving her head for the second year in a row. Her connection to childhood cancer is personal, and she shares it honestly in this moving letter.

Read Laurie’s open letter (originally posted on Facebook), and then visit our shavee tips page for more ideas for how to blow your fundraising goal out of the water.

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I feel spring in the air. It’s a promising time of renewal and re-birth.

Sadly, for me it brings other memories. Memories tinged with grief and sadness. It’s this time of year that we lost sweet Tuesday and our precious Emmy.

So while I take in the newness and watch the snow melt, I can’t ever forget the days we spent at funerals and by our friends’ sides as we all prepared to move forward in our lives without these two essential parts of our beings.

Is it a coincidence that our St. Baldrick’s event is also at this very same time of year? I honestly don’t know. What I do know is it’s all jumbled for me. Maybe that’s the way life is. There is sadness and happiness and death and renewal all mixed together.

What I have noticed since becoming involved in St. Baldrick’s is there is also hope. Hope that maybe out of this interminable sadness, we can harvest some sort of hope for the kids with cancer who are still suffering. Hope for their families, that they might not have to continue to suffer as so many have. Hope that by giving something — hair, money, time, effort, prayer, whatever we can muster — we might be able to champion some small change.

We have seen changes. In the five years that Team Tuesday has been involved in St. Baldrick’s, we have seen kids live. Live longer. Live better. Live.

We have also seen so many kids suffer and die, which is why we have to keep fighting.

You have been the ones who have helped fund the research that has made a difference for these kids and their families. It is your money that makes these changes.

My son Julian is shaving for the fifth year in a row! This is my second, and the truth is, I loved doing it! I loved being up there as a part of the St. Baldrick’s family. I loved knowing that last year, Team Tuesday raised over $52,000 dollars to fund childhood cancer research. I loved knowing that you, my friends, played such a huge part in that!

And, I LOVED BEING BALD! There. I said it. The truth is out. I loved being bald, even when it was freezing cold, even when I felt goofy and self-conscious about it. I loved it.

But I didn’t love it more than watching my friends, my people come together in such a spectacular way to help these kids.

Along with my pleading and begging comes a lot of thanks, and I hope you all remember how incredibly grateful I am for your love, encouragement, support, humor, and yes, your money. Please give again. If you don’t do it now, I’ll remind you. Once you give, you can completely block me until March 30. I won’t mind.

Get more fundraising tips on our shavee tips page.

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Get more fundraising tips on the St. Baldrick’s blog:

• Fourth-Grade Student Rallies School to Help Kids with Cancer
• Strike a Match and Meet Your Goal with the Matching Gifts Program
• 5 Ways to Use Twitter to Increase Your Fundraising
• 5 Ways to Use Instagram to Increase Your Fundraising