I’m visiting friends and family in Ohio today and reading their newspapers. USA Weekend, which is a magazine similar to Parade magazine that is distributed with The Monroe Evening News, had an interesting link that I followed up on: Step by Step Fundraising.

You’ll want to bookmark and read through this site if you are involved in a non-profit or find yourself on a fundraising committee. It’s got a lot of good basic information as to how to market your fundraising campaign and get the most for your efforts.

The site mentions free community publicity outlets such as on-line calendars. There are a lot of opportunities for doing that in Monroe County; but the key is to start EARLY!

For best possible placement in The Monroe Evening News, Monroe County event announcements should arrive to the newsroom at least a week before the event or reservation deadline. Regional event announcements should arrive at least two weeks ahead, because the sections where they are most likely to appear in the newspaper appear only once a week.

That’s not an unreasonable time frame. In fact, you should be starting your publicity campaign three to four weeks ahead when you start adding in cablevision community access channels and church bulletins. And if you want to target a potential audience through the non-profits and clubs, be aware that many of them meet or send newsletters out only once a month - which could put your marketing campaign into a two month’s notice cycle.

If the newsroom gets an announcement early, we can hold it for print until the best possible date. I’d rather have that situation than have you miss a deadline and not get the publicity you need.

Now about those online calendars — you’ll find them at www.monroetalks.com (I’m one of the administrators for that site); at emonroe.com; at Monroe County Convention and Tourism Bureau; and at Monroe County Library System.

Regardless of whenever you distribute your fliers or list the announcement in the newspaper, get the notices submitted to the on-line calendars as soon as you have the event details confirmed with time, date, location, contact information and ticket prices. The longer your event stays posted on those calendars, the more people are likely to see it.