What a Week...

Last Friday, I finally got to submit Farmers Insurance Group 2.0 ( the name 2.0 refers to the fact that I wrote it twice for two different 'asks' haha) and I am very happy to see it off. It was the first letter I wrote asking for support for First Night-St. Louis, so here's hoping we hear back good news.

Just began a new letter for the Cracker Barrel Foundation...so far it's only made me hungry. I'll be writing again for Students Creating Art for Public Enjoyment or SCAPE. Due to recent developments, I haven't progressed very far with it.

Also last FridayJay and I walked over to Kota to talk with Chris LaRocca about supporting our first official "Young Friends of Grand Center" event, which is going to be held as a part of Cinemania on August 12th. We'll be screening Dirty Dancing. We are expecting about 50 guests and will be giving a short spiel about Young Friends and well as charging $5 donation in return for a free drink at Kota. Jay's working on the e-vite, and it looks great!

This week I came in Monday morning for a meeting with Peg and the Chamber Music Society of St. Louis about their Gala fundraiser they are planning. I was busy before the meeting printing and editing their documents. With those documents in hand, we sat down for an hour or so to discuss some of the issues they are having with their contacts, as well as some of the changes I made to their letters/etc.

I really enjoyed meeting with them, and as of now, I am going to play a big role in the development of their fundraising. I left the meeting charged with drafting a solicitation letter (draft #1- in progress), a solicitation letter for their subscribers (draft #1-complete), as well as constructing a spreadsheet of names and addresses for their solicitation letter to go to.

All of a sudden I have way too much to do in the 16 hrs a week that I am here, but hey I cannot complain. This is all great experience!

I'd give more detail, but I have no time.

The Art of Writing Letters

Are you Mr. X or Mrs. X or should I write to you with your given name?

I really wish there were set-in-stone rules because I am getting a lot of varying perspectives and opinions. Then again, I want to write to everyone formally because it's one of those "manners" my mother beat into me when I was young. "Always address your elders as Mrs. or Mr. XYZ." So even now, it's weird to call colleagues by their first names.

Anywho...A little confusion/frustration stemming from that simple question, since for the past couple weeks I've been working extensively on some grant letters.

Here's my little list to catch you up on what I've been doing the couple weeks my blogging has been m.i.a.

1. Hiphip Hooray! Messing Family Charitable Foundation letter FINALLY went out today in its nice little package of: Letter, Ask Menu, 2009 Dancing in the Street Program, Event Photos, and our 501(c)3 non-profit certification letter. Upon Mr. Schoemehl's signature, it'll be gone.
P.S. Who knew it was so complicated to print a silly mailing label? The all-in-one return address/mailing address label....

2. Farmer's Insurance Group letter for Dancing in the Street....completely written and then tossed. A sad day last week....

3. Farmers Insurance Group 2.0-- Rewritten to ask for support for First Night-St. Louis. Now I'm working on the revision and will give it back to Ms. Weathers in a bit.

4. Also, RIP my Dana Brown Foundation grant. You'll be chalked up to good grant-writing experience, but you will never be sent out asking for SCAPE. I believe it will now be for Operating Expenses and the good Mr. Perry will be taking that one.

5. It's been quiet on the events side, but Ms. Weathers asked me today if I'd be interested in helping St. Louis' Chamber Music Society with their event planning. More on that to come....after our meeting on next Monday at 11:30 A.M.

6. Latest Annual Appeal Total: $2,665
Up from last week!! Very exciting....we hope to reach $3,000 now!


I think that's all for now, but I'll keep you updated on Farmers....Here's hoping it'll be out by the week's end!

I Lied When I Said, "This is my last essay ever."

It's been a pleasantly busy week so far with everyone back from the Holiday weekend, and I've been doing A LOT of writing. And re-writing. And editing. And writing. You get the picture. On that note, It's been really productive.

I finally submitted the Dana Brown Charitable Trust grant to Peg that I've been working on for ages for SCAPE. Granted....I'm not entirely pleased with what I've written so far. The dreaded Question #7 makes me want to pull out my hair, because really there is no way I can see to really answer it. We have written and rewritten #8 to the point where I don't know what I have and have not tried before. Anyway as always, Peg's purple pen will destroy it and what will come out will be a billion times better. So for now...I'm taking a break on that.

Also, I gave Jay the iPad ask for Digital Partners, Inc. that I wrote. Again, it was a little difficult to figure out the wording on that one too. Hopefully I'm closer on target...
Still looking forward to writing to Poptions more haha.

Jay assigned me a new grant letter to write too yesterday. The Messing Family Charitable Foundation is one of my prospecting discoveries (that word makes me feel like I'm looking for gold, but that note aside...). It was a good prospect and I have drafted a letter asking them for a gift for Dancing in the Street, which I hope we get since we are a little behind financially. I gave Peg the first draft yesterday and just resubmitted a bit ago.

So now it's the waiting game....Peg has two. Jay one. So until they are returned I am the lucky social media lady. Time for Grand Center, Inc. facebook updates, blogging, and oh yes, the new Annual Appeal Total: $2,295. Still far from our $4,000 goal, but respectable considering it was a blast of primarily lapsed donors in the first place. We had a lot of returned mail and a couple people's snotty responses to the new parking situation.

That's today's weekly update blogosphere!