The Story of James Robinson

Hey Good,

Involve an entire industry! For Many years I was involved with a group called Ordinary Miracles. It started as the Bartenders Holiday Fundraiser about 1997. A bunch of us bartenders got together and decided that on One day during the month of December of that year, we would donate 1/2 of our tips for that shift to a fund. The proceeds of that fund would go to several causes. We got free advertising for our event and that first year raised about $26,000 . We continued this for the next few years, eventually adding servers, hairstylists, Coffee shops and other business. In the last few years there were cruises, silent auctions and comedy shows. The last year that I was involved we raised something like $126,000. The project was the brain child of; Nigel Mayer, Mike Phillips with Fernando Lara and Mike Lunsford.

A fundraiser that I started in Long Beach, CA was known as the Bartenders Pub Crawl – It involved Bartenders going from Bar to Bar, Dressed in Thrift Store clothes, begging for Drinks and Tips that would go to a Holiday Charity. It’s later incarnation is the Annual Red Dress Run. The Red Dress Run is now in 35 cities across the USA.

My favorite was a fundraiser in Los Angeles, CA. We were trying to raise funds during the early AIDS crisis. We were able to secure the use of Harold Lloyds old estate in Hollywood. We had received donations of Fine China, Silver serving platters and Chafing dishes from some of Hollywood’s best hotels and caterers. We had volunteer performers and had received many donated items for a silent auction. We had bartenders selling tickets to this event but realized that we had one problem. We weren’t getting donations for food. So we took our own money and went out and bought Hot Dogs, Tortillas, Nacho Cheese, those stupid little cocktail weenies and a ton of other Finger type foods. We snuck booze into the Estate (we weren’t supposed to because we had no booze permit) – and had a GREAT TIME! That first year we raised $38,000. The event was called “An Affair” – it is now the main fundraiser for One, Inc. in Long Beach.

If you want to know of other fundraisers that don’t involve selling things – contact the Old Mission Bay Athletic Club (OMBAC) These are the fine folks that hold the Over The Line tournament in Mission Beach every summer. They have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to non-profits around the San Diego area.

Any fundraiser that you endeavor will only succeed if you are willing to have fun with it! If you don’t have fun, nobody else will.

I have done; Variety Shows, All you can eat buffets, Spaghetti Dinners, Paper Christmas Decorations (Like the Shamrocks that you see during St. Patrick’s Day) and something called the Bobby Bodin Memorial Classic – which was nothing more than a White Elephant Auction. Don’t forget about Charity Softball Games, Fake Ballet (with coaches, principals and awkward males, dressed in a tutu) and backyard carnivals.

Something that I’ve always wanted to try would be a Donate your Vacation Pay. Many people don’t take all of their vacation pay and their employers let them store it up. I wanted to do a “Day for the Dogs” or a “Day for the Kids” as fundraisers for animal shelters or for Children’s causes. It works out well because they person donating the vacation pay would get a receipt for the non-profit.

Whatever you do — Make sure that there is no way that you can profit from the fundraiser! I have seen too many fundraisers that the “Chair” took money for gas, mileage, supplies, or other “Reimbursements” that will doom the “Chair” and cause the fundraiser to flop.

Hope that this helps!

James in San Diego