Fund Raising Time

It's getting to be time to do some serious fund raising for OHPAA and the Empress Theatre. we've almost got the budget put together for the rest of the year, and it looks like we need to raise about $400-500,000 to reach the goals we've set. We're not going to do that with the donation box on the concession counter!

Here's the help I need:

Fund raising auction and dinner, or similar fund raising event(s). This will be the Fund Raising Events Team:

• Somebody to organize a 'Support the Empress' auction and dinner event, or the like.
• People to find things we can sell at this auction.
• Someone to develop an entertainment program for the event
• Someone to arrange the location and dinner for the event
• Someone to do the invitations and so forth.

Direct Mail Campaign (Fund Raising Campaign Team)

• Someone to help plan the campaign, set goals and figure out how to reach them
• People to stuff envelopes and lick stamps (Hopefully, we'll have a non-profit permit and won't have any stamps to lick)
• Help with the letter writing and brochure design for the mailing
• Help with generating the mailing lists and identifying prospects

Grant Writing (Grants Team)

• Help finding appropriate grant opportunities
• Someone to write "Letters of Inquiry"
• Help writing grant proposals
• Help putting together the supporting documents for grant proposals.

Donor Tracking and follow-up.

• Someone to enter data on current and past donors in our database
• Some help developing the database and front end software to put the donor data into.
• Some one to generate the thank-you letters and other follow-up correspondence

If any of this sounds fun to you, or if you feel guilty about doing a lot of fun stuff at the Empress, and feel a need to help anyway, send me an email at twimmer@empresstheatre.com. Remember, "It's only work if you'd rather be doing something else!"