<p>Has anyone here planned such a recital? This would be a vocal recital in the summer with any donations going towards paying for a summer program.</p>
<p>We’ve done a lot of fundraising recitals-- in fact, my daughter did one today and raised over $1700 for her cause. If you are fundraising to pay your own tuition, it’s going to be slightly different with the fiscal sponsorship, and contributions cannot be tax deductible. However, I do see kids doing fundraising concerts to help pay their own tuition.</p>
<p>This is to help pay for a summer program so invitations would go out to friends and family. Actually, several of my friends suggested it. They complain that they never get to hear her sing so they thought this would be a good idea and people could just donate as much or as little or nothing at all. She spent time over break looking for a venue - that’s a challenge in and of itself.</p>
<p>Cartera, my son has done a lot of recitals, as have his friends, and although my S has never charged, plenty of people have. We have mostly been able to rent church venues for the cost of tuning the piano (helps that the piano teacher is a member of the congregation). Another friend’s son just had a voice recital and she called around to find a church in another town that charged only $100. You just want to make sure you have access to the “common room” or a space for a little reception afterwards. That is usually included.</p>
<p>The tax implications that Glassharmonica raises would be my only concern. But I know people can raise money for these concerts, so good luck to your daughter.</p>
<p>We have done a fund raising recital for a summer voice program. We did an email invitation that gave a synopsis of her repertoire, gave a brief description of the summer program and the fact that she was raising money to attend. It was very successful and fun. She even set up a table at the movie theatre to invite people who were attending the Met in HD performances. The theatre was very accommodating. IT was a good fiscal experience for her in learning accountability.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for the suggestions.</p>
<p>Catera, my case was different as it was for a 501c charity organization to which my son belonged, however you might benefit from a few of my discoveries. I’d recommend taking the time to set up and including in your email a DONATION paypal button (or Buy Ticket button and let the receipt be the ticket).
That way, people who are NOT available to attend will most likely still consider donating.</p>
<p>Another handy device is to use a free online program such as evite to “design” your electronic invitation and track responses (eg. number who will attend). That helps manage the numbers.
Good luck!</p>
<p>Yes, Evite is a good idea. We have to talk about Paypal - she has to get more comfortable with the “asking for money” concept and wants it to be more low key. I guess it might depend on the wording.</p>
<p>Apropos to asking for money, we had an interesting experience this weekend with the fund raiser. This is the third charity fund raiser my daughter did. The first two time she charged admission, $20 to the concert. She netted about $2500 and after expenses (hall, piano), ended up with $2000. This time she used a local church (no hall fee) and the pianist donated his time. She asked for a freewill donation (no set fee.) The gate ended up being just over $1200 (or $20/person), with an additional $800 in mailed-in and electronic donations from out of town friends and relatives. In other words, she raised the same amount when she charged for tickets as she did with a freewill donation. </p>
<p>I also can’t emphasis how important it is to promote the event in a personal way. This means mailing invitations to those people who don’t use email (this includes elderly relatives.) If you include a reply envelope you are more likely to get an answer. For yesterday’s concert, my daughter stuffed mailboxes in our neighborhood. We sent press releases to the local neighborhood papers and the city newspaper. She also called and emailed people personally (rather than sending an impersonal evite.)</p>
<p>cartera, have you tried this yet? DD was just accepted to a summer prgram and needs to raise funds. POTOmom, we are not sure how to word a fund raiser. She is kind of shy about just coming out and asking for money. How did you pitch it?</p>