Crafting the Perfect Fundraising Letter

Each summer, I eagerly anticipate the announcement of the next year’s 3-Day event series schedule. When the 2014 3-Day schedule was posted today, I was happy to see that the 2014 San Diego 3-Day will take place on the same weekend in November that I have come to love. My 2013 event is 109 days away and I am ready to start fundraising for 2014!

As a 3-Day coach, I hear from participants who tell me they don’t know what to say in their fundraising letter. My response is always, “Tell me why you became a 3-Day walker.” It‘s amazing how easily the words then flow. Inspired, tearful or celebratory, I love hearing what motivated them, and after listening to their story, I tell the walker, “Congratulations. You just wrote your fundraising letter!”

One walker who needs no help writing his fundraising letter is Burt Lipshie. Burt started his 3-Day journey in 2004 in San Diego and has not stopped walking since! Burt completed his 15th 3-Day in Boston this past weekend, and is preparing for his 16^th and 17^th 3-Day journeys in Chicago and Dallas. I asked him to share the secrets of his fundraising success. Continue reading →

Outside the Pink Tent

A walker takes down her tent on the Susan G. Komen Boston 3-Day®.

After yesterday’s hot weather that had so many walkers finding water at new, makeshift stops, this morning’s mood was calm with a hint of satisfaction. I moved through camp as I have for the last few days, somewhere between a visitor and a photographer. My position in relation to the walkers is one of allowance. They permit me there, possibly so they can get a photograph in the slideshows or possibly because they want to feel like someone from the “outside” has seen them amid hundreds of others, someone unique in a sea of so many similar stories. But of course, they are unique, and the uniqueness of each story — every one — is overwhelming to someone who is invited to listen to them and watch their movement of 60 miles by foot over three days.

A Susan G. Komen Boston 3-Day® walker suits up in her tent on the last day.

I am grateful for it, and admittedly, we are both exposed. The walkers to the elements, to each other, and most difficult sometimes, to the camera. I find myself exposed as well. I wear the dark grays and blacks of a staff member; they wear pinks. I am a man; a large percentage of them are women. I am not often walking with them; they are pushing up hills in 95 degree weather. I stand out and I am identified by most on Day 3 as a photographer. There is no hiding. My movement around their tents, around the only sacred space for three days, leaves me careful with the camera and whom I approach. It’s a delicate balance with those who want to talk more this morning and those who are quiet, and anticipating the long journey into the heart of Boston, the final destination of this powerful movement of people.

First-timers on the Boston 3-Day

Everyone give a warm welcome to Cyndi, Sandy and Denise!

Cyndi Whitehead, Sandy Haynes, and Denise Vaudrin during lunch on the Boston 3-Day.

When Cyndi Whitehouse of Springfield, Massachusetts, was diagnosed with breast cancer 30 years ago, she probably could not foresee July 26, 2013 as her first day on a Susan G. Komen 3-Day^® Series with sister Sandy Haynes and good friend Denise Vaudrin! Here they are, and being with them even for a few minutes at lunch gave me the sense of their great love for each other and of life. Cyndi asked her sister and friend to walk with her, and they gladly said, “Yes!”

How did they remember their first day? “Ouch!” They recommend a lot of training to prepare walkers for the long days. They also had some great ideas for fundraising, as they had a local vineyard hold a wine tasting, complete with a relabeled wine “Poppy’s Girls” (named after the sisters’ father). It sounded like a great evening with everyone happy and interested in breast cancer research and finding a cure.