Description of the project  

Our team wanted to focus on making a local impact through our fundraising project. We wanted to fundraise for an organization based in Chicago. Because of this, we hosted a fundraising event in Oz Park to get the community involved and collect monetary, and book donations for Bernie’s Book Bank. Our event was a bookmark decorating, pay-what-you-can bake sale at Oz Park during a community bonfire event that the park hosted. Because of our organization’s nature; being centered around books and kids, it made sense for us to do a family, and more importantly, a kid-friendly activity. We wanted to do something that would allow people to spend some time at our table and draw the attention of others, so we chose bookmark decorating and a bake sale. The bookmark decorating was free, and the bake sale was pay what you can. This might seem counterintuitive for a fundraiser, but we didn’t want to limit our potential donations by assigning specific prices to our goods. Instead, we just reminded anyone interested in buying a baked good where the proceeds were going and had a QR code linked to our donation page on Bernie’s website out on the table. 

Brief description of the charity 

Bernie’s is a nonprofit dedicated to making sure that having books in your home is a luxury all children have access to regardless of what their home looks like. The organization originated from the Chicagoland area, and now operates in Milwaukee and around Florida as well. 

Factual analysis of success in terms of project objectives  

Our goal was to raise $250 in donations and 100 book donations, we were able to raise $320 and collect over 250 books. Not only were we able to collect donations for the project, but we were able to raise a lot of awareness about Bernie’s within the community. Having the bookmark decorating aspect at our event meant people spent longer at our table, and were able to listen to us tell them more about Bernies, or read about it on our trifold. 

Three lessons learned about managing projects  

• One of the biggest lessons that we learned through this project was the importance of having backup plans, and being able to pivot. A lot of our original ideas had to change; our organization, our event location, our number of events. Being flexible and being able to pivot rather than starting over was essential.

• Good communication is the most important thing for a team. Finding out what kind of communication works best between you and your teammates. Putting in shared effort to respond quickly and thoughtfully to each other. 
• The project moves faster than you expect it to. You are on a timeline that the world outside of your team, like the business you’re trying to partner with, is not. So doing everything within your team punctually is important. 

Advice for future teams doing similar projects 

Use this project to do something you’re passionate about. There is so much freedom in what your project, event, scale, demographic, organization, etc can be, so I’d suggest using that to your advantage to get experience, and network, in an area that you’re interested in.