A Fertility Fundraiser

After Chase and I met with our RE about our next steps we discussed having a fertility fundraiser to help us pay for our IVF cycle. Which we ended up not needing the money from. It went to The Hope for Fertility Foundation, the nonprofit we created to help couples struggling to pay for fertility treatments.

So we got a little committee together to help us plan and get things ready.

Before meeting with our committee we set up a Go Fund Me account for those who wanted to donate but who were unable to make it to the event.

At the meeting, we discussed having a:

• Yard sale
• Bake sale
• Silent auction
• Character meet & greet
• Carnival for the Kids: bounce house, balloon artists, face painting
• Food Trucks
• Selling Running with Infertility Shirts at the event
• Hosting a virtual/physical 5k

The things we ended up saying yes to were:

• Yard Sale
• Food Trucks
• Bake Sale
• Silent Auction
• Character Meet & Greet
• Virtual 5k

Any week in May could bring the possibility of rain so we chose June 4. We gave assignments to our committee and we went to work.

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First goal: Get yard sale items

We started asking friends and family for donations. Then our family and friends started asking their family and friends for donations.

Our garage slowly filled to the point we couldn’t park inside anymore. We were blessed by how many people were willing to donate.

**We ended up having WAY too many clothes. Somehow we needed to limit those.

Next goal: Advertise the event

I asked a blogger group I am a part of, and they had some ideas on where to post things locally and how to advertise for free. Which was a tremendous help!

Chase created flyers for the virtual 5k, and I thought it would be good idea to handbill cars at other races.

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I found an image for the yard sale flyer, and then did it my way. It took a few hours to make using my limited knowledge of Photoshop.

I posted it to those few free local sites and to as many Facebook yard sale groups that would let me (asking for permission first).

Doing everything we could to advertise the event without paying anything, was difficult. We went to local businesses to get our flyers up, and our committee put them up in their office area.

We used our nonprofit (a post for another day) to help get silent auction items.

It’s good to have connections to businesses.

A few weeks before the event we got signs donated by a local company, graphik, that we put up in front of our venue which was a well trafficked road.

The week before the event I posted to Craigslist and our local news classifieds. It would’ve been helpful to post a few weeks before and the day before, but I forgot.

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The day of the event:

The morning could have gone a little smoother. Receiving donations the night before was a jumbled mess.

Within an hour or two we had everything out.

The silent auction was up and running as well as the bake sale.

There were a few vendors who also showed up; my friend Kelsey did chair massages for $5, Enso Rings, Utah Infertility Resource Center, and my friend, Nessa, selling her minifigs (Legos).

At around 7:30/8am Ernies Sports Deli Food Truck showed up for breakfast and stayed until 1pm. We also had Bam Bams BBQ Food Truck show up from 11am-3pm. If I had had a decent 2 week confirmation from them we could have marketed more for them. It would have been nice to have them market for us too.

We had character meet & greets with Leo the Lion (Real Salt Lake Soccer Team) from 9-10am.

I contacted Party with the Princesses, and they were able to get 4 characters to come! We had Snow White, Merida, Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. I feel like they brought us more people.

By the end of the day all of the volunteers including Chase and I, were exhausted. We had a really long day of 12+ hours; getting the event set up/taking down.

Including the Yard Sale, Silent Auction and Bake Sale we were able to raise $4,000 for The Hope for Fertility Foundation.

With a lot of work (and connections) you can do great things!

Thoughts for after the event:

• Food trucks had been more committed before the event for advertising
• Having signs everywhere saying that said that it was a fundraiser
• Having signs saying “make me an offer” or “free with donation,” instead of pricing items.

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P.S. Are you needing help paying for IVF? Sign up for my newsletter and get my free printable on “10 ways to pay for IVF.”
P.P.S. Check out this blog post that has other ways to save up and pay for IVF in cash!
P.P.P.S. Check out Hope for Fertility if you’re in need of a grant to help pay for fertility treatments.
P.P.P.P.S. Be sure to check out my Etsy shop!