I put those fundraiser notices on the MonroeTalks calendar, and I schedule them on the Community Page in our print and e-editions.

One of the developments in the Nevaeh Buchanan case is that there are  restaurant benefits taking place to raise money for one of the funds in her name … and the proceeds, at this point, are likely to be used for funeral expenses.

Some of our readers on the monroenews.com comment boards and the MonroeTalks discussion boards have been wondering about the concept of restaurant fundraisers. While most questions involve where the money will be spent, there also have been questions about the concept in general.

After all, isn’t a fundraiser event really free advertising for a restaurant?

Don’t the restaurants make money anyway on the extra traffic from customers who want to support a fundraiser?

The answer is: take it or leave it. There are always other opportunities to contribute to any cause. Feel free to donate directly to a charity or benefit fund if that is your preference. Keep in mind there also are people who don’t like product fundraisers, or mail appeals, or umbrella campaigns. To each their own.

But fundraising via corporate partnerships, in itself, is not unusual. During the past couple of years, I have noticed a significant shift in the local fundraising atmosphere toward such an approach in lieu of direct cash donations from the business.

For example, Kroger and Meijer donate to causes that customers specifically designate on their shopper card accounts.

Many of the local stores or restaurants have, in recent years, decorated their walls with paper feet, paper hearts or paper shamrocks in celebration of customers’ donations to a featured charity.

Many of the free and low-cost community events we take for granted in Monroe, Mich., simply would not happen without corporate support. The annual River Raisin Jazz Festival in downtown Monroe is one such example. On a smaller scale, the State Farm Insurance office in New Boston recently hosted a free child safety event

And The Monroe Evening News really does receive several notices each month about this or that restaurant donating a percentage of its receipts on an off-peak night to a particular charity benefit or cause. Perhaps you heard about Camp Day, which was a charity promotion at Tim Hortons that took place June 3.

Yes, these partnerships and sponsorships do result in free publicity for the businesses, restaurants and corporate partners. I frequently have to tone down the commercial spin from the original press releases when I’m typing up event and fundraiser notices for the newspaper.

But if you live in Monroe, Mich., you know that an atmosphere of service and giving is part of our community personality – whether you are a fifth-grader collecting food pantry donations, whether you are a civic club member who is leading a charity golf outing to raise funds for a scholarship, … or whether you are a restaurant owner or manager that has decided to donate some of your business proceeds to a cause.

– Paula Wethington

By Paula Wethington

My reporting job at The Monroe Evening News includes getting the non-profit and charity announcements scheduled for the Community Page in our print edition and posted in our on-line calendar at MonroeTalks.

The Mom 2 Mom sale concept has really caught on in Monroe County, with several such events taking place this spring. This is a huge jump in traffic. It was only about a year ago that this rummage sale concept, which has been popular in metro Detroit for several years, started popping up locally. Mom 2 Mom sales are multi-family garage sales that feature only kids’ stuff, and are typically sponsored by a church, school or mother’s club.

Unfortunately, I’m seeing Mom 2 Mom sale notices being directed to people all over the newsroom, with requests that they run in sections where rummage sale notices don’t normally appear.

I have to be firm on this procedure because so many of you are announcing Mom 2 Mom sales now. I can guarantee space on Community Page for any local non-profit event if the notice arrives to my desk in a timely manner. The other spots that some of the Mom 2 Mom sale committees have requested are space available situations. You don’t want to miss out on what we can absolutely can do for you FREE on the Community Page at The Monroe Evening News by trying to compete for news space elsewhere in our newspaper.

Besides, its only fair that all of you get the same placement for your sale notices.

They are going on Community Page.

If you aren’t paying attention to that section of our newspaper, you should be. Most of the public service announcements and free community events that I post on Monroe on a Budget are directly from the Community Page notices.

Here’s the procedure for Mom 2 Mom sales:

• Send all Monroe County Mom 2 Mom sale notices to me, Paula Wethington, paula@monroenews.com, fax (734) 240-5745, or mail / drop off the notice to Monroe Evening News, 20 W. First St., Monroe MI 48161.
• I can run one “table rental” notice on Community Page whenever you are ready to take table reservations.
• I can run on “sale notice,” which will usually be scheduled on Community Page two or three days before the sale takes place.
• We list the Mom 2 Mom sales in the today / tomorrow calendar listings on Community Page.
• We list the sales on the MonroeTalks calendar as soon as I can get the notices posted, which is often the same day as the notice arrives. Here’s a pre-set search for the rummage sale events in the next few weeks, which includes Mom 2 Mom.
• I do post calendar links on the Monroe on a Budget blog to remind blog readers of various events, and lately that has included rummage sale roundups.
• For best results, send me the Mom 2 Mom notices as soon as you have the details firmed up. You’ll get traffic from the on-line listing that I can post immediately, and I will keep the notice on file until it is time to run the information in in the newspaper. (Regardless of the event, I need all Community Page notices at least a week before event or reservation deadline.)

If you are involved with a fundraiser or non-profit event this spring in Monroe County, Mich., such as a bake sale, Easter egg hunt, spaghetti dinner, car wash, musical program or educational speaker, NOW is the time to get your event notices sent to The Monroe Evening News.

You can fax them to 734-242-0937; e-mail them to paula@monroenews.com; mail or drop them off at our downtown Monroe office, 20 W. First St., Monroe MI 48161; or go through the MonroeTalks calendar submission page. All event notices in Monroe County should arrive at the newsroom at least a week before the event or reservation deadline, those that take place elsewhere in the region but are of interest to a local audience should arrive at least two weeks before the event or reservation deadline.

I’m one of the reporters who gets all those notices scheduled in the print edition of The Monroe Evening News and placed on the MonroeTalks calendar. There’s a lot we can do to help promote your non-profit event at no charge if the newsroom has your notice in a timely manner.

We get all events set up for the Community Page, Classroom Page, Now Showing Lists or Church Page as appropriate. Some of them show up in the County Roundup on Tuesday. Some of them show up in the Scoop calendar or the Month Ahead calendar. Some of them are spun off into our specialty publications such as Monroe County Parent and Thrive magazines. And as much as possible goes into the MonroeTalks calendar, which is a searchable database.

But if you are contacting the newspaper on a Thursday afternoon for an event that happens on Sunday …  the remaining options are very limited. Even if I can get it in the paper, it may not go in the spot where your potential customers and guests would most likely notice it.

In addition, the three to four weeks just before Easter is a traditionally an extremely busy time in the community.

So I’m hoping those of you who are involved in a fundraiser or special event this spring will send the details to me ASAP. It doesn’t matter how far in advance I have the notice on file – as long as the details you are sending are confirmed and correct, I’ll get the announcement scheduled in the newspaper on the most appropriate date and make it available for any other possible listings.

I would rather have my folder full of press releases for events that are six weeks away than to tell  another customer, “I’m sorry, but there’s very little I can do to promote your event that happens two days from now.”

Last fall, my daughter Karolyn was a speaker for an awards program. Specifically, as one of the area’s Gold Award Girl Scouts in the class of 2007, she was asked to give a speech about her scouting experiences during the Huron Valley Girl Scout Council’s annual Women of Distinction awards luncheon in September.

I made arrangements to get her from her college campus in South Bend to Ann Arbor on the appointed date, and the two of us attended the luncheon.

Before lunch, my daughter and Jennifer Guerra from Michigan Public Radio, who served as mistress of ceremonies, went over their presentation notes. Various dignitaries, some of whom we had met previously, and some we knew only by name, came by to say hello.

After the program, I told my daughter it would be polite, since she was a speaker, to give personal congratulations to each of the winners. So we made our rounds through the room.

Keep in mind my daughter was the only one in the room wearing a youth Girl Scout uniform and had already given her remarks to the audience. As a result, she was easy to pick out in a crowd.

And yet, with the rush of friends, relatives and corporate sponsors to the award winners, we had to wait quite a bit for our turn to give remarks and a handshake to each of the honorees. “Congratulations on your award, it was nice to meet you,” … and that’s about all we were able to manage.

But we accomplished our goal of personally greeting all four honorees before everyone departed.

Now what does this story have to do with the business of being a reporter?

Well, this is a busy time of year for awards programs in Monroe County. And the newsroom does get a lot of requests from the sponsoring groups to “please send a reporter or photographer to our awards event.” I found one such query in my e-mail when I arrived this morning.

But what I have noticed as a reporter who is assigned to cover at least one awards program a year is exactly what I noticed as a guest at the Women of Distinction program:

Award honorees barely have time for more than one interview question or to pose for a good photo when they are being showered in quick succession with trophies, gifts, flowers, handshakes, autograph requests, etc. from relatives, friends, corporate sponsors and guests. Example: I was lucky to get three sentences for a newspaper story out of Miss Monroe County Rachel McCleery on the night she received her crown in August, and the pageant contestants had been told in advance that the newspaper would want quotes from the winner that night!

That’s why it usually works best for the award committees handle the situation this way: the committee sends a photo of each of the honorees or a list of their names, along with a description of the award and how or why the person met the credentials to The Monroe Evening News.

This can be done before the event, as part of the “tickets are available for …” announcement; or it can be done soon after the event, which is appropriate in cases of a surprise award.

Perhaps the newspaper staff will decide to do more of a feature story than an announcement on the honoree, either before or after the formal presentations take place. But for the best results on such a write-up or photo, as a reporter, I would want to set up that appointment for when the honoree has a bit more time than the typical awards program permits.

Well, the avalanche has begun. And I’m not talking about the piles of snow. I’m talking about the piles of press releases and event announcements that arrive at The Monroe Evening News starting about three weeks before Easter.

You might think that back to school or Christmas season is the busiest time of year for community events in Monroe County. Guess again. The peak happens in spring with Easter egg hunts, craft shows, school plays, fish fries, Lenten church services, fundraiser auctions, car shows, golf outings …

And since most planning committees want to avoid Easter weekend, Mother’s day weekend and Memorial Day weekend, a lot of events are crammed into the rest of the dates on the calendar.

If you, or any committee that you serve on, is planning a community event or fundraiser this spring, you will want to get those notices sent to the newsroom as soon as you have the details confirmed. The sooner we get the notice, the longer your event will be posted (and seen!) on the MonroeTalks calendar and the more likely we can arrange for the best available date for your notice to appear in the print edition.

My long-standing recommendation has been to get the announcement to the newsroom at least a week before the event or reservation deadline if you intend it to run on Community Page, and two or three weeks ahead for events that are intended for the once-a-week lists such as Arts & Entertainment.

It’s a bad idea to wait until two or three days before the event to send your announcement. You never know when crazy things will happen with e-mails inaccessible because of a power outage, stamped mail that runs into a delay at the post office, snow storms that shut down the roads for a day, and telephone tag messages that can’t be returned on time.

You’ve put a lot of time and effort into planning that event. I don’t want you to miss out on publicity opportunities because the notice arrived too late for the newspaper to help you with your marketing plan.

And what about the other free publicity you might be able to arrange for in Monroe County? I know, from having made phone calls on that very question a couple of years ago, that there are several free options that work very well in conjunction with a newspaper announcement. And the more frequently someone sees a notice, the more likely they are to remember it. But you need to make those additional publicity arrangements three to four weeks ahead in some cases!

Well, I finally found out what a feather party is – and it’s not nearly as exciting as I thought it was going to be. (Although, I have to admit I was a little leery when I kept seeing the sign for one at my local American Legion place, conjuring images I just didn’t want floating around in my brain.)

The Feather Parties are bingo/gaming parties where the participants win various assortments of fowl. They’re usually held to raise money for a church group or veteran’s organization.

I was looking for more information on them since I’ve been seeing signs and only really turned up links to Michigan. Is it true – are feather parties exclusive to the Mitten?

In recent years, there have been what I like to think of as old-timey raids on different events in southeastern Michigan because of the mix of gambling and booze.

Have you ever been to a feather party? What’s your favorite fact or story about feather parties?

(Above cartoon from www.kevscartoons.com)

When a NASCAR driver wins a race, there is a ceremony in Victory Lane called “the hat dance.”

This tradition developed as a way for the winning driver to thank all of his sponsors. The driver and his pit crew put on ball caps that represent a particular sponsor, pose for a formal photograph that will be delivered to that sponsor, swap hats to pose for next photo for the next sponsor and so forth.

It’s quite possible that by the time the photo session is done, the team will have faced the camera a couple of dozen times.

Most of those sponsors are businesses and corporations you’ve never heard of. The driver, his team, and the media announcers, at least on a regular basis, don’t rattle off the entire list of 40 or so names whose logos appear on the car and uniform. Instead, the cars are generally known by the name of their major sponsor: “The Budweiser Car,” “The AT&T Car,” and so forth.

The hat dance is where all of the financial backers get a chance to be in the spotlight – at least to a certain extent.

After all, you don’t see the hat dance played out as part the media coverage of the race. The broadcast crews know this ceremony is more advertising than news, is going to take up a lot of time, and will not be watched for long by their viewers. So they treat it appropriately with a quick peek to for fans to notice the festivities and then cut to the sports news roundup or the next program on their schedule.

This story is a good analogy for local volunteers, civic clubs and community leaders to consider. How do you thank your sponsors?

One thing that doesn’t work – just as it doesn’t work in a NASCAR race – is to rely on news reports of the event to carry your thank-you message.

Page 1 in The Monroe Evening News is meant to let local residents know about the most important or most interesting story of the day. The Community Page section is meant for announcements of events, programs and awards. The Letters to the Editor section is meant for discussion of current events.

There isn’t enough space anywhere in the newspaper to provide a thank-you column for all of the sponsors of all the local fundraisers. (If you want to pay for an advertisement to list your thank-yous to the sponsors, a lot of people do that. But as someone who’s been involved in fundraisers and community events, I’d rather send or receive a thank-you card in the mail or in person.)

So if you want your sponsors to get recognition in the community, in addition to any individual thank-you gifts or thank-you notes that proper etiquette dictates you should provide to them and your special guests at the event or immediately afterward, here’s what I suggest instead:

• Allow sponsors to display advertising banners at your event. For example, it’s customary for charity golf outings in this community to have “hole sponsors.” At each hole, a banner explains which sponsor paid for that advertising spot.
• Sell advertisements in the program that will be distributed at the event, when you have the undivided attention of the people who attend the program. (If you don’t wish to sell advertising spots, you could still list those people as patrons.)
• Allow your sponsor the privilege of introducing the winner of the award they have sponsored. This is done very effectively at many local award and honoree events.
• If you have a long list of sponsors, select the one or two that provided the biggest amount of donations to promote as “major sponsors” in your publicity. (That’s what NASCAR teams do, after all.)
• Use your club’s or non-profit’s web site, or the club’s newsletter, as a way to publicize the list of everyone who contributed to the cause.
• Create a “sponsored by” plaque to display in your meeting hall or non-profit office.

It’s common in the Monroe County area for charity and non-profit organizations to request a local, regional or state celebrity or a politician to attend a function or event as a special guest or a speaker. The intention is that more people will attend the event in order to meet or hear the VIP. While a celebrity appearance is no guarantee of higher attendance, there’s certainly enough established precedent for the committee chairs to give it a try.

But I admit, I find it hard to keep a straight face when a someone tells me, in all seriousness, something along the lines of, “… and I’m inviting Gov. Jennifer Granholm to come to our fundraiser.”

Go ahead and send out all the invitations you want. But I won’t include a celebrity appearance as part of your announcement in The Monroe Evening News or on MonroeTalks.com until you’ve got those details confirmed.

Even my teen-age daughter knew better, when one of her committees tasked her this summer to prepare an invitation for Gov. Granholm to attend a dinner.

Yes, the governor was expected to be in the area on the specific date. But, as my daughter said while she was scripting out the letter, the committee members knew the chances were slim that the governor would show up. (She didn’t attend.)

Now with very little thought, it’s easy to come up with list of people who are the local celebrities.

But you know what? It’s hard to book those A-list VIPS. They’ve got jobs, kids, college classes, council meetings, travel commitments, personal appointments … and everybody else’s invites to consider.

So here are some tips if you are planning an event and want to invite someone special:

• Don’t just consider name recognition. Look for a guest star who is a good fit for the demographics and interests of your audience.
• Before you contact your VIP, plan out what you’d like from him so he understands what he is being asked to do. A five-minute speech? The invocation? A photo session? Presenting an award?
• Contact your prospective VIPs very early in the planning stages for your event. Publicity for most events needs to start five or six weeks ahead of time to build up an audience, and you’ll want any celebrity appearances confirmed before the invites and fliers get distributed.
• Look for up and coming talent in addition to, or in lieu of, the usual local and state celebrities. You’ll find lots of prospects in the pages of The Monroe Evening News. In particular, pay close attention to the Community Page, Classroom Page, Business Page and Arts & Entertainment sections to read about who just released a new book or CD, won a scholarship essay contest, won a singing contest, received a heroism award, led a successful volunteer project or earned a promotion in their industry.
• The success of your event depends on a lot more things than a celebrity appearance. You need to have an entertaining or interesting program regardless of who is attending or in the audience. There’s always a chance that your celebrity will need to back out at the last minute – can your program stand on its own merits?
• Be a gracious host or hostess. Your celebrity might only be able to visit for a half-hour rather than attend the entire two-hour program. That’s fine. They still get the appearance credit, and you still get the publicity and word-of-mouth. In case the guest does need to leave early, have a thank-you card, flowers or gift ready to be presented at a minute’s notice. And show hospitality as appropriate with arrangements such as mileage reimbursement, dinner ticket for an escort or a charitable donation to their favorite cause.

If you’re a crafter or home business owner, looking for a place to sell your inventory, the Monroe Evening News newsroom is starting to receive show dates and contact information for the fall and Christmas craft shows.

The announcements are listed with a “Crafters Wanted” headline in the Upcoming events section in the Community Page print edition of The Monroe Evening News.

We also post the information at the MonroeTalks calendar. This is a searchable database, look up keyword “craft show / bazaar.”

Yesterday I got a call from a non-profit volunteer who wanted to promote her event. I told her the announcement was on file in the newsroom, and I’d double-check that it was running as scheduled for The Community Page.

She complained that nobody seems to have heard of her organization and wanted to know if there was any media coverage possible beyond the advance announcement.

I am familiar with her non-profit, and told her there had been stories and photos in the past. Specifically, I knew about two feature stories that ran within the past two or three years and there was additional publicity last fall … and while I didn’t remember the exact dates, I did tell her circumstances and what those pieces focused on.

I also told her an article ran in another area newspaper during the past year that mentioned her non-profit.

She didn’t remember any of the media coverage – either from our newspaper or the other one.

But what particularly upset the caller is that hardly anybody she has spoken to while promoting her event was familiar with their group. During the past month, she’d only met one person who had heard of her non-profit.

“Well, you can tell those people that they’re not reading the newspaper,” I replied. And I talked about some of the other marketing efforts I know her group is doing.

Now … while this is a story about one local non-profit, the fact is I’ve had similar conversations in the past with local volunteers and promoters.

Don’t take it personally if nobody’s heard of your non-profit. In order to become a widely recognized group, you need to work the marketing from a variety of angles like a business does. While a front-page story results in a lot of attention, it’s quickly forgotten as people go about their daily lives. The most effective marketing campaigns get the message out in a repeated manner under a variety of formats. (The more you see something, the more likely you’ll remember it.).

So this fall, while your clubs and non-profits are starting their activity seasons, hold a brainstorming session among your board of directors or members as to all the different ways you can market your event or organization to the public.

A front-page feature story is just one possibility with The Monroe Evening News. There are a lot of free options available on both The Community Page in our print edition and on our community web site at www.monroetalks.com. Feel free to contact me at paula@monroenews.com to discuss what can be done at the Community Desk. (The possibilities available at the newspaper increase if you have an advertising budget.)

Depending on what audience you’re trying to reach, you may also want to place notices in church bulletins, at school offices, on public access cablevision, the area’s weekly newspapers and the metro newspapers.

Internet sites also can be very effective ways of reaching your audience. One organization director recently told met that her group’s web site takes care of the “frequently asked questions,” and the phone queries they get involve more specific questions. (And if your group has a web site, we can link to it from an event notice on MonroeTalks.)