INSPIRATION BY OUR DIRECTOR, SCOTT HARMAN

First, let me inspire you.  Billy Lindsay is the namesake of our DinoMights rink.  He grew up at the playground and found mentors in his sports coaches.  His story embodies so much of who we are at DinoMights.  We will be using funds from the tournament to help support our programming and to honor Billy Lindsay’s legacy.  
 
The Billy Lindsay Rink received refrigeration in 2022.  This means that our outdoor rink will be open for an extra 4-6 weeks in the future.  Dino participants will have increased opportunities to skate, and be mentored at the upgraded facility.  We'll be increasing the number of staff and amount of time that staff interacts with youth.  We would like to raise $10,000 in the Winter Classic to kickstart these efforts.  You are helping to make that happen for hundreds of amazing local youth!

1) Build Your Personal Fundraising Page 

Everyone registered for the Winter Classic will have a personal fundraising page.  When you register your page is created with default settings.  Anytime you visit the fundraising website, you can login and manage your page.  When you are logged in, you will see "manage my page" in the menu.  We recommend you do 3 things with your page to get started.

• Add a picture
Click View My page.  Under the default picture you will see "Edit Profile." Click "Edit Profile" to add a personal picture.  If you have pictures of yourself with DinoMights or at anything Dino related, those would be great! Pics of yourself playing hockey are good too.

• Add a personal description
In the Manage My Page menu, choose "Personalize My Page." Then update the text in the section that says, "Add A Personal Message To My Page."  Your description should connect you to the cause.  If you have been involved with DinoMights in the past, mention that.  If you are new you can simply say that you believe in what DinoMights does.  

"I believe that hockey should be for everyone . . ."
"The whole life youth development provided by DinoMights leads to high school graduation, which is something I strongly support . . ."
"I love hockey, education, and supporting kids . . ."

• Add a Call To Action to your description
Let your donors know what you are planning to do in response to donations.  You are playing in a 3 v 3 tournament for a cause, which is a big deal!  So you can say, "I'm playing in the Winter Classic 3 v 3 Tournament to bring awareness and raise funds for DinoMights." 

You can also tell donors that you will do something for each donation given:
"For each donation I will write a handwritten thank you note."
"For each donation I will give a shout out on social media."
"For each donation I will do 10 push ups"
"For each dollar I will shoot one puck in the driveway."
"If I raise $1000 I will take a bucket of ice water over my head."

Be creative.  

2) Make your own gift.  
People want to see that you personally support this cause.  Give an amount that is meaningful to you.  That amount is personal to you, and could be anything from tens, to hundreds, to thousands depending on what is meaningful to you.  If you are a student and you give your own $10 or $25 it means something to people.  If you can't muster even the smallest amount then your supporters will wonder why they should do it.  It costs about $1200 to serve one student for one full year at DinoMights.  That's a great rule of thumb when asking.  Every $1200 raised supports the full cost of a student.

3) Reach out to others
1.    Send your fundraising page link to your supporters by email, text, and phone to encourage them to support your cause. We recommend reaching out to your friends, family, classmates, roommates, professors, former coaches, teachers, people from your church, coworkers, and anyone you know who loves young people, loves camp, loves sports, loves that you volunteer for DinoMights and might want to be a part of your team.

2.    Follow-up personally with your supporters to ask them to contribute on your behalf. I can't stress this enough.  The most important thing to know is that you should follow up your email with a personal contact.  You can and should send a general email/facebook post and a lot of people with think that is nice, but to really get people to action you need to speak with them on the phone or in person.  You want them to have the link to make giving easy, but it is a lot easier to say yes to something when they hear from you personally that it matters to you.

Don't be afraid to ask for specific amounts when you follow up personally.  If you know that your mom wants to support you and she is capable of giving a gift in your top category you might say to her, "Mom, you know I'm raising money for camp with my race.  I'm looking for someone that can give $200 gift in my top category.  If you do I'll send a handwritten thank you note!  It would just be awesome if you could do that."  

Don't expect any one person to give one gift that is the size of your entire goal.  However (not to get too technical here, but it is a reference) you probably do want to get a gift that is the size of 20% of your goal.  In fact, your largest gift will likely be 20% of your total.  

*You can accept donations by check or cash or online.  Any check should be made out to DinoMights and either mailed to DinoMights, 3400 Park Ave. Minneapolis, MN 55407 or delivered to DinoMights Staff.  That can be done on site at the tournament.  Any offline donations can be logged on your fundraising page (Go to Manage My Page>Raise $500>Enter Cash/Checks).

You should get started right now, but don't get discouraged if you don't get response right away.  A lot of people will want to give near the last minute.  Some people need to hear it a few times before they actually act.

3.    Promote the tournament and your team on Social Media, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook etc.. Use the #dinomightswinterclassic .   Engage your supporters in ongoing dialogue and consider creating a team hashtag so people can easily follow your team tweets on Twitter. We would love to get more people involved!

4.    Update your email signature to raise awareness for your team by including a catchy tag line that promotes your team and DinoMights.

• Feel free to email scott@dinomights.com with ANY QUESTIONS!  We love raising funds for DinoMights and we're happy to help you.  

Stay in touch and have fun!  

Sincerely,
Scott Harman, Executive Director