I always cringed when they passed out the fundraising packets in school. They wanted us to ask people to buy overpriced frozen pizza, cheesy jewelry, or even wrapping paper? It wasn’t just that the products were mostly useless, but also the actual task of asking my friends and family for money that really bothered me. Let’s just say I never won the giant gummy bear that the natural salesmen won.
So, when at a BDS intern meeting I was given the task of trying out my own fundraising campaign for Beautiful Dream Society, I was unsure of the idea. I’ve never been a big fan of appealing to other people for money, and to be honest, I was a bit skeptical of what the outcome would amount to.
It seemed easy enough though, right? All I had to do to was create a profile, start my campaign, and share it with friends on social media. I decided to start with a goal of $300 and about a month to meet it. I named my campaign “Funds for Freedom,” and it went live that night.
It didn’t take long for friends and family to start showing their tangible support for the fight against human trafficking.
Within the first day, they had donated $100. I was amazed. Though I hadn’t met anyone to say that they don’t care about human trafficking victims, I also hadn’t known the extent to which a great amount of my friends hurt for these victims and wished to help. It made me wonder, were they just waiting for one extra push to take action? How many more people out there wanted to make a difference and didn’t know how?
I shared my campaign every few days on Facebook and watched the total dollar amount grow.
BDS sent me notifications about my donors every few days, which gave me the opportunity to send thank you cards to the friends that supported the fight to freedom through my fundraiser. Seeing the names of the donors both surprised and encouraged me, as they were an extremely diverse group of people, but each showed that they desired to fight toward the same goal: seeing lives made beautiful and restored.
I reached $500 within two weeks! It surpassed my original goal by $200 in half of the time that I had allotted for the fundraiser! On top of the amazing support I received online, other friends of mine sent checks directly to BDS, which meant we had crushed that goal even more.
I couldn’t believe it; literally all that I did was create the campaign and post to Facebook maybe 6 times total.
Discovering that an ordinary person like me could rally the support of enough people to raise $500 in just several weeks was inspiring! Can you imagine the tangible help that $500 will bring to those that need it? The simple act of selflessly giving through Funds for Freedom bought real, nutritious meals, personal care items, and supplies for creative therapy and healing for the women in our OKC program.
Through this campaign I realized that asking people for money is okay. It’s okay to ask someone to support a cause that you believe in, and if they do, they are united with many others that wish to support the same cause. By starting a fundraising campaign you can see God be faithful to multiply what is sown, creating a harvest that wouldn’t have been reached if you hadn’t stepped out.
For those of you who gave to my fundraiser, thank you so much. You have truly made a step toward seeing lives being made beautiful. For those who haven’t given but feel the urge to, you can donate to Beautiful Dream Society through a fellow freedom fighter’s fundraising campaign! Check out our BDS Fundraisers Directory here.
If you’re interested in starting your own fundraising campaign, you can start one today! Visit BDS Fundraisers.
– Laura Loftin, Intern for Beautiful Dream Society