[Ohio-talk] Fundraising efforts

[Carol Akers]

Good late night to all.  I know it is late, but I have been doing some thinking and wanted to share.The NFB of Ohio has a Fundraising committee,true, which  comes up with ideas, suggestions and plans for events to raise money whether it is sales of M & M's at convention,  candy sales for holidays, spaghetti suppers, raffles or drawings, and the list goes on and on.  Sometimes it is hard to keep asking the same circle of people,our  family, friends, neighbors, church members to buy, buy, buy to support our cause, especially when it may be things that they wouldn't normally plan to purchase.  The well  of resources may eventually dry up.   I am not sure who all is on the Fundraising committee or if they are all signed up for the Scrip fundraiser that we have as an ongoing fundraiser, but  I  hope and trust that  they are and are all  actively participating in the program.  For anyone who is not familiar with Scrip, it has an unlimited potential for us if people use it.  Who out there ate out this weekend?  Who went shopping or to a movie or picked anything up at a drugstore chain?  Did anyone order something from  I tunes or Amazon?  Each one of those purchases could have earned the NFB of Ohio some money!Has anyone ever bought a gift card or been given one as a gift?  Did you realize that the store who sells that gift card to people makes a profit from each one they sell?  Do you have trouble planning ahead?  We have a solution for that.  Many retailers have what is called Scrip Now, meaning I want or need it now.  Order your e card, pay for it and there it is for use.  AMC theaters, CVS, I Tunes, Amazon, Pandora, Nook, Applebees, Olive Garden, Dominos Pizza, Pizza Hut,  Walmart and Sams club, QVC, Petco, Target, Ihop, Kohls, Macy's, Texas Roadhouse, Starbucks, Panera, - just to name a few-- but all have the Now feature and there are more.   Many cards are re loadable, buy the physical card once and re load it online.  Most retailers are available with the exception of McDonalds and Kroger.  A friend of mine had an urgent need to replace a bedroom TV that died.  We did a bit of searching online and found a great deal at Walmart.com.  Even greater was the fact that we could get a scrip now Walmart card.  Within minutes the TV was ordered, paid for and would  be delivered to the local store for pick up within days.  And the NFB Ohio made money off of the purchase.Currently we have a small base of our members who order with any routine and yet we are making some good money and we are spending money that we would normally spend and asking others to do the same.  You do not have to be a computer whiz to do this, so don't be intimidated by the thought.  There is help to set it up.  If everyone took a few minutes and took note of where they shop, eat or buy gas and then decided to do it though our Scrip fundraiser, we could see the amount double each month.  It would not be hard to do.  I know Eric has posted a challenge  and an incentive to chapters for getting members to sign up and order, Who has taken him up on it?  Who will be brave and do it?  Who will be the next five people to sign up and order gift cards for the purchases you already plan to make anyway?  I have decided to save up for a bigger purchase, so I will be buying gift cards toward the purchase, a few at a time, along with cards to use on Amazon and double dip by going to the Amazon Smiles site that also donates to the NFB a portion of my purchases. Let's share this with our friends and family also. Need info to share with them?  We can get that too.Let's see what we can do with this!Carol