When 8-year-old Shelby and 6-year-old Benjamin Chestnut were diagnosed with serious neurological illnesses, their father Matthew struggled with all the expenses that came along with caring for not only one, but two children with disabilities.
The children’s grandmother, Mary Ann Chestnut, wanted to help her grandchildren get the mobility equipment they needed to live as happy and comfortable a life as possible. “I decided to email my closest friends to ask them what their thoughts were on asking family and friends for support,” Mary Ann said.
The success of that email has developed into what is now the Chestnut Foundation, an organization that helps families with more than one child with a disability get the appropriate resources needed to meet all of their medical/mobility expenses.
Starting Their First Fundraiser
Mary Ann Chestnut started her fundraising efforts with a simple email to friends, who began spreading the word about her grandchildren. She also asked local business owners for permission to leave signs and donation boxes in their shops to further spread the word.
“Once you get the hang of asking for help and see the response from the people around you, it’s easier to do it again and try for larger goals,” Donna Hart, a volunteer at the Chestnut Foundation, explained.
Donna got involved with the Chestnuts’ efforts after she passed by one of their signs in Narberth and noticed that Benjamin had transverse myelitis, the same condition that she had been diagnosed with 12 years earlier.
The first fundraising event held was a simple backyard BBQ advertised through word of mouth, emails, and signs displayed within the community. The Chestnuts held the BBQ and placed a donations box out during the event. The event raised $7,000 (including pledges from individuals who did not even attend the BBQ).
Setting Up a Trust or Guardianship
After the initial fundraising efforts, the Chestnuts decided to set up a family trust. The Chestnuts highly recommend that others who are looking to do local fundraising also investigate setting up a trust or guardianship as well. Trusts can be set up at a local bank and are easy to administer. The Chestnuts do advise that there may be limitations and guidelines relevant to depositing and withdrawing money, depending on the type of trust. Overall, a trust helps protect the money raised in order to take care of long-term needs of someone with a disability. A trust also gives credibility to a cause because potential donors can be confident that the money will be used for medical-related expenses.
Developing a Website
The Chestnut Foundation recently set up a website to spread awareness of their cause, advertise their fundraisers, collect donations, and help other families with more than one child with a disability use their foundation to find resources and funding as well. Donna suggests that other families looking to do fundraising take the time to develop a website, even if they have limited computer skills. “I discovered that Yahoo, Google, and many other sites will give you the tools to create a site yourself, and with a little effort you can do it,” she comments. “Even if it looks homemade, that’s okay,” she asserts, because “for some reason, [it] makes you seem more legitimate.”
The website Donna chose to set up was through Yahoo, where there is an annual cost of $110. Other sites are even available at no cost, but you always have to purchase a domain name, and the costs for that vary. The Chestnut Foundation discovered that almost all of their donations come in around a scheduled event. For instance, the silent auction they held last October received multiple donations each day for 6 weeks prior to the event. Christmastime was also a popular time for donations through the site.
The Chestnut Foundation’s website was set up using PayPal for donations because they felt it was the easiest and most secure way for donors to pledge using their credit card. However, PayPal is not a free service, so they encourage people they know to send a check to the foundation instead. One of the foundation’s ongoing goals is to generate more traffic to their website on a more regular basis.
Ongoing Fundraising Efforts
Since their initial backyard BBQ fundraising event, the Chestnuts have held yet another BBQ and even extended invitations to the families of their children’s friends. Shelby and Benjamin have two other siblings, and they included their older brother’s class in the invitation as well. The Chestnuts advertised their fundraiser by sending flyers home with the children that included information about the foundation and their goal of purchasing a van for Shelby and Benjamin. The Chestnut Foundation was overwhelmed with their guests’ generosity, raising $3,000 towards the purchase of a minivan.
In the fall of 2009, the Chestnut Foundation held their first silent auction dinner, which brought in approximately $5,000 in donations. The second annual silent auction dinner, and most recent, doubled its goal from last year, raising $11,000 for the foundation. A large part of the success of the second auction was that more than two-thirds of the items were donated by local merchants, including donations of food for the dinner, which cut costs tremendously.
“One thing we learned is that we’re always surprised by how generous even the businesses are.” Donna said. “You just have to get up the nerve to ask for what you want or need.”
Donna and Lori Driscoll, the fundraising director for the Chestnut Foundation, do most of the event planning. They started to solicit donations for the silent auction in person about 2 months in advance. Donna suggests getting to know your local store owners or managers and remembering their names for future fundraising events. She feels that establishing a relationship is important, as business owners may receive requests from many people/organizations.
The Chestnut Foundation typically invites friends, relatives, prior donors, neighbors, volunteers’ co-workers, former classmates, and members of their children’s school to their events. Email is their main source of invitation because it’s the easiest and least expensive. Email also gives them a chance to direct people who can’t attend the event to a link to their website to make a donation (which they count towards the total raised for an event). Other advertising efforts include signs, flyers, and mail. Since starting the foundation, the Chestnuts have recently tried larger advertising efforts, such as placing an ad in the local paper, Main Line Times, having their silent auction promoted on CBS, and even filming a commercial on a local cable channel.
For more information, visit the Chestnut Foundation.