Fundraising for my local library

[Harmonysake]

Hi. I've been floating around here recently and have been inspired by all the money you guys raise for charity. I've started thinking about doing something similar for my local library.

All year, I've been trying to help out my local library by entering essay contests with the chance of winning money to donate, giving them any books that I have in good condition, and volunteering a few hours a week there. However, I've yet to win any of the contests and I only have so many books. I'm a minor and still in school so it's not like I can just hand over tons of money to give to them.

So I was thinking about collecting autographs and then selling them in a series of auctions starting this December. All of the money will go directly to the library.

However, I'm not really sure how to get started. I'm going down to the library today to make sure it's okay with them and I wrote a rough draft of the letter I will be using and I've started a list of the celebrities to write. But other than that, what should I do?

Also, where is the best place to auction them? I was thinking Ebay (my mom will start an account for me) but their fees are pretty high. Also, how do you get good publicity for these? It'd be sort of pointless to do it if no one knew about it..

Any advice would be extremely appreciated!

Thanks,
Harmony

[SelenaandDemiFan]

May I ask... Why The Local Library? Just starting small is good. Why not DO Stuff in TOWN for them like sell Autographs there IN TOWN... then go big. Maybe Sell Autographs for A CURE FOR CANCER or A CURE FOR DIABETICS. I know you wanted to do something for your library.. I was just wondering why. Thats all

[Harmonysake]

Why the local library?

Because it has a pathetic teen collection. Many of the books haven't been checked out since 2005 because they are so old. I review books on the side so any that I get that aren't signed or advance copies, I give directly to them but I only get so many books. They're in pretty desperate need of money to fund new books for the teen and MG sections, as well as for programs that they do with the kids.

It's something that's important to me because I'm there constantly and I thought this would be a good way to generate some funds.

[SelenaandDemiFan]

Well I was just wondering

[Harmonysake]

I know.

Does anyone else have any advice?

[celebrityfan]

Hey, I got your pm and read your thread. It's great what you'd like to do and the locals tend to love people who raise money independently for a local thing. Ebay is good if you want to sell in person autographs and if you only have a couple - because as you say - it is expensive. But the second problem is, is that people who are not local won't want to pay a lot because they'd rather buy something and have the money go towards something they will profit from. (I am being stereotypical, but this is just what I have discovered from experience). This is why I suggest keeping the auction local - I raised money by getting autographs and donating them to the radio station who did an on air auction - so if you have a local radio station maybe suggest to them about running an on air auction perhaps? If you don't have a local station, suggest to the library to have an auction and ask them to put an ad in the paper. This may seem like a lot of difficulty, but people are often very willing to help for good causes! But with this library auction, if an ad is in the paper then people may come forward to donate items. For instance, at the auction I helped at, someone offered free helicopter lessons and a signed 'The Who' display. The display would have gone for about £100 on Ebay - but the locals wanted to raise money and it ended up going for £1000! People are much more willing to part with their money if it means they get the item AND it helps their community in some way.

I hope this has helped or given you some ideas! {thumb2} Good luck!

[Harmonysake]

Thanks for the advice

Do you think there's a way I could somehow open it online AND in the local area? I was actually just thinking about seeing if I could use the school cafe and gym on Friday/Sat. night and do an auction thing in cafe and then a dance in the gym but I'm not sure how many people would show or how hard that would be....

Do you know anyone who has had a successful auction via a place like Livejournal or Blogger where they would make one post per item and then have people bid in the comments? Or does that not work well?

*sigh*

I'm really getting into this idea but I understand what you mean about raising more locally. I just don't know how well that would work, especially given the area I live.

Maybe I should choose some other charity for this especially, especially since it's my first time.

[RYAN J.]

A cool idea I just thought of is to send out some requests and when they get back, Give the signed photos to your library and and have the library put them on display in a glass case, and have your local towns people come in and bid on them. {thumb2} then after a month or so, the persons who have the highest bids on the photos wins them! Kinda like "Guess the jelly Beans in the jar" event.

Just an idea if you want to keep this as a local thing. Then when you get more signed photos, you can put those on display too.

RYAN J.

[SelenaandDemiFan]

If You would like to do ONLINE AND LOCAL then create a freewebs.com website, piczo, or a free site builder. Print out flyers advertising the site and advertise it online and locally. Post things like your scans of autographs