YOUR SOUTHWESTERN NORTH DAKOTA CFC IDEA BOOK
TOGETHER...
EveryONE of US can make it happen.
YOUR SOUTHWESTERN NORTH DAKOTA CFC IDEA BOOK |
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TOGETHER... |
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Let this be the year to breathe new life into your campaign! HAVE SOME FUN! |
Increase employee participation in the CFC by using “special events” and other creative, fun activities! |
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Review the guidelines listed here, and be sure to discuss your plan |
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* Source: survey from “The Independent Sector”
DO THIS!! |
DON'T DO THIS!! |
DO ask other campaign coordinators/keyworkers for good ideas that are working in their departments/agencies. |
DON'T surprise your boss with a golf tournament on company time! |
DO check out your ideas with your department/agency head! |
DON'T do “the same old thing.” |
DO something different to bring interest to your campaign. |
DON'T solicit items or services from outside businesses, whether or not they are actual vendors of your department/agency. |
DO solicit services or items from your co-workers. See the next few pages for ideas of what has worked for others. |
DON'T overlook the “tried and true” elements of a successful campaign. |
DO use a special event to focus attention on the campaign - not as the total campaign effort. DO use special events as frosting on the cake - to put you over goal. |
DON'T forget the “cake”: a solid, well-planned employee solicitation campaign. |
DO tie special events to completed pledge cards, and encourage the use of payroll deduction. |
DON'T encourage employees to participate with a small cash donation. Encourage payroll deduction. |
Having “fun” with CFC means that your co-workers will look forward to campaign activities, feel better about the campaign and want to participate.
1. A-Dollar-An-Inch Contest
Agency executives participate in an all-day competition to end the day with the shortest tie. Employees who donate to the campaign cut an inch off their favorite executive's tie. Prizes are awarded for the shortest tie, ugliest tie, etc.
2. Auction Hotline
Ask co-workers to donate items or services to be auctioned off for your campaign. Outline items and prices in a flyer. Set up a broadcast voicemail with weekly messages announcing auction items. Employees call the hotline or your voicemail to record their bids. Update the recorded hotline message daily, announcing the highest bids received to date. Each Friday, announce auction results for the week and introduce next week's items.
3. Baby Picture Match Game
Invite co-workers to try their luck matching baby and/or pet pictures with pictures of management, employees, etc. Charge $2 per ballot. Award the winning entry with a prize or fun incentive.
4. Balloon Pop
Ask co-workers and/or managers to donate prizes. Put names of prizes inside balloons, preferably filled with helium. Charge $5 to buy a balloon and pop it to find out what prize they've won.
5. Book/Video Sale
Ask co-workers to donate old books, videos, CDs and cassette tapes for an employee sale. Sell paperbacks for $2, hardbacks for $4 and cassettes, CDs and videos for up to $5.
6. Carnation Trade
Ask your CFC office to see if they can find a florist who might donate flowers that employees can buy for $2 to send to co-workers. Try the same event with cookies or candy donated by employees.
7. Casual Day
Sell Casual Day tickets to employees for designated dress down days. Designate certain casual days as "Crazy Days" and encourage your co-workers to show their wild side. For instance: Tuesday - Stupid Hat Day; Wednesday - Outrageous Socks Day; Thursday - Sports Team Day.
8. CEO Car Wash
Ask co-workers to donate $5 to have their cars washed by management. Charge extra for special services like cleaning the interior or polishing the rims. Charge for Polaroid pictures of the event.
9. Children's Drawing Contest
Give employees "official photographs" of one or two executives to take home for their children to draw. Limit contest to children who are 12 or under. Charge a $5 entry fee per child. Employees vote for the best drawing by paying $1 per vote. Give prizes to all participants. Display winning portraits as part of the organization's permanent art collection.
10. Chili Cook-Off Contest
Ask co-workers to cook a favorite chili recipe and enter it into a cook-off contest. Invite employees to pay $5 for lunch. Have a panel of nominated chili experts select the official chili champion.
11. Coin War
Have each department find a large empty water bottle. Invite employees to drop in spare quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. For a fun twist, designate quarters as "sabotage" and encourage competing departments to drop quarters into each other's bottles. At the end of the campaign, count coins and subtract quarters. The department with the most $$$ wins and all proceeds go to CFC.
12. Craft and Bake Sale
Invite co-workers to participate by shopping at a craft and bake sale! Ask employees to donate baked goods and other talents. This popular activity gives everyone a chance to share hobbies.
13. Employee Cookbook
Collect employee recipes and helpful household hints into a customized cookbook. Ask children of employees to create illustrations for the cookbook, including the cover. Print or copy and bind books and charge $5 for each copy. This event has been so popular that some organizations have not been able to fill all requests. Plan for an enthusiastic response!
14. Executive Prison
Transform an office into a jail cell. "Arrest" managers and executives and allow them to make phone calls to their staff members to "bail" them out.
15. Grandma's "Heart Attack" Chocolate Cake
Sell your grandma's favorite chocolate cake recipe to interested co-workers. Tempt them first with little bite-sized pieces of samples.
16. Halloween Pumpkin Carving Contest
Plan a Halloween theme and hold a pumpkin-carving contest. Ask employees to enter carved pumpkins either individually or by department. Charge $5 to enter and $1 per vote. Award prizes in various categories: Best Traditional Pumpkin, Most Creative Pumpkin, Best Effort by a Group, Best Effort by an Individual.
17. Hawaiian Luau
Hold a mini luau for an employee-giving meeting. Serve ham, pineapple upside-down cake and other Hawaiian fare. Give prizes to employees wearing the most outrageous Hawaiian attire.
18. International Food Day
Invite employees to team together to create taste treats from around the world. Employees decorate booths and dress in appropriate costumes. Hold the event over the lunch hour, allowing employees to purchase tickets redeemable for food at the booths. Have a panel of “celebrity” judges award prizes.
19. Olympics
Invite employees to compete in crazy “:athletic” events for silly prizes. Participants donate a $5 fee to enter. Observers wager bets on their favorite entrants and/or pay admission to watch.
20. Lunch Auction
Ask different departments to donate lunches to auction every day for one week. Use your organization's intercom system, e-mail or other communication system to auction off the temptations. Employees call in with their bids. A variation could have employees pay $5 for their "boss" to deliver coffee and muffins to them, with all proceeds going to CFC.
21. Miniature Golf
Build a 9-hole course featuring slinkys, ramps, water, and sand traps around the office to test the golf skills of your co-workers. Charge participants an entry fee and ask them to bring a putter the day of the event. Or, find a couple of avid golfers and borrow their putters. Award prizes for the lowest score.
22. Scavenger Hunts
Invite co-workers to participate in a scavenger hunt requiring them to find unusual items from around the neighborhood or office building. For a fun twist, you can "plant" items with selected employees for others to "discover." Organize in teams of four and charge and entrance fee. Award different points for various items. Teams have one hour to accumulate as many points as possible. The entire team must be present at the end of one hour. If a team arrives late, assess a penalty of 2 points per minute (or fraction thereof). Award the team with the most points a special incentive or prize.
23. Tailgate Party
Create a sports theme for your campaign kickoff to coincide with football or baseball season. Back a truck into the employee lounge, lower the tailgate and sell sports fare: hot dogs, soft drinks, chips and peanuts.
Please be sure to clear all of the above activities with your boss before planning. Many of the above activities also make for great stories or photos in your newsletter or bulletin board. Be creative and have fun!
WHO'S HUNGRY? Many agencies like to have kickoff events, such as continental breakfasts, to open their campaigns. This is a great time for the agency head to endorse the CFC and talk about upcoming campaign activities. Your breakfast can include a formal CFC group meeting, with speakers, a film, etc. |
HALLOWEEN NONSENSE Some agencies combined a potluck holiday lunch with CFC. Try a costume contest, pumpkin carving and dunking for apples. If your building includes a childcare center, invite the kids for a costume parade and trick-or-treating with employees. Combine with a CFC solicitation meeting and follow up to collect pledge cards. |
WE ALL SCREAM! Organize your group meeting around an ice cream bar, where folks can build their own sundaes. Provide several types of ice cream, nuts, sprinkles, etc. Then provide an interesting CFC speaker and/or film while they are eating. They'll love you! |
PROGRESSIVE LUNCHEON One creative local Federal agency sponsored an all-hands potluck lunch where the employees received part of their lunch in each of five conference rooms. Participating CFC agencies provided interesting Displays in each room. |
COMPETITION WORKS! Get your best cooks out to show their stuff. Chili, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream-it doesn't matter! Tie in a lunch and contest with a group meeting-and let your folks share their accomplishments. Let people vote for the best in each category and award simple prizes... or create a traveling trophy. |
ALL-HANDS QUARTERLY MEETING Can you make this event a little more fun With CFC? Add food, an interesting presentation by co-workers who have been touched by CFC agencies and a raffle at the end. |
CFC AGENCY FAIR Work with your CFC Office and request CFC charity booths for a limited-time event in your agency. Campaign leaders can staff a CFC information table and collect pledge cards. Publicize the fair heavily to ensure a good turnout of agency employees. Give out door prizes, provide food, schedule entertainment, etc. |
MUSIC MAKERS If your staff is blessed with musicians, invite Them to donate their talents to a CFC rally.
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It's very helpful to get a talented auctioneer to conduct your auction. With his/her help and using pledge cards, you can raise $50 for a pie and $100 for a picnic basket filled with goodies or $500 for getting the boss to do your job for a day! Be sure to solicit bids on a "pay period" basis - your campaign will grow very quickly.
LUNCH BOX AUCTION Employees supply lunches to be auctioned off at the end of a group meeting. Prizes are awarded for the most creative or elegant lunches. Employees use their pledge cards to buy their lunches. Get a lively auctioneer to promote the bidding! |
BALLOON SALES Encourage employees to send one another special messages in helium balloons delivered by Keyworkers. A fun way to raise morale, brighten up the office and make a little extra money for CFC at $1 per balloon. |
EXECUTIVE AUCTION Get the Manager, Postmaster, Director, Supervisor or other staff to donate a half-day to CFC. Then auction each executive off to the highest bidder. The executive must take over the employee's job for half a day. You can have a lot of fun with this idea! |
WHITE ELEPHANT SALE Ask all employees to bring their most interesting - and useless - treasures. Auction off to folks using pledge cards. Got an Elvis-on-black-velvet you could donate? |
DRESS DOWN FOR CFC/CASUAL DAYS Employees who turn in their pledge cards by a certain deadline get to wear casual clothes on a certain day. Each employee who participates receives a CFC pin to wear with his or her most comfortable outfit. |
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FOOD FOR THE MASSES Never under-estimate the power of food, “The way to a donor's heart!”
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MANAGER'S TIE PROGRESS CHART Instead of the tired old thermometer chart in the lobby, ask your manager to wear a tie on which are painted various stages of campaign progress, starting from the bottom. As each dollar level is met, have the campaign Chairperson cut off a new piece of the boss's tie! |
UGLY HAT OR TIE CONTEST Volunteer staff members wear their ugliest tie or hats and solicit votes (pledge cards) from employees. The person with the most pledges at the end of the day wins a prize. |
One way to encourage early turn-in of pledge cards is to provide additional incentives and drawings. The list below is only to get you started with creative ideas. Items may be donated by employees, managers or campaign leaders. You might ask your Employee Association for funding to kick off the campaign.
DO NOT jeopardize your employment as a Federal employee by soliciting prizes or services from vendors or public businesses
