Promote Your Fundraiser

Your pack or troop is planning to hold a fundraiser. Is it a one day event, such as a meal or a car wash? If it is, then you need to get the word out about it. You need to promote it.

How do you do that? And how can it be done for little or no cost to your unit? After all, if you have to pay for advertising, then you have to sell more product to cover those costs. Here are a few tips our troop has learned over the last twenty years. (Some of these may work better in a small town then they do in a large city.)

Newspapers - Placing an ad in a newspaper can be expensive, but some newspapers will give non-profit groups a little discount on the cost. Our local papers have a "local events" listing which lists group activities and fundraisers for free. Does yours?

Television - Commercials can make a newspaper ad look very inexpensive. However, some stations will air a "Community Happenings" spot during local programming free of charge. You will need to get the information about your event to the station three to four weeks before the event's date. Many community access television stations run a bulletin board of local events between their programming. Your fundraiser could be listed there free of charge.

Radio - Some radio stations will do public service announcements. Your fundraiser may qualify as such an announcement. Or bring some tickets of your event to the station and let them give them away to a lucky caller. Volunteer to be interviewed on the air by the deejay. Look at how much promotion the Girl Scouts receive by bringing cookies to radio stations during the sales period.

Marquees - Almost every bank and credit union has an outdoor electronic marquee these days. Our financial institutions will place information about our fundraiser on their marquees, free of charge, for two or three days before the event.

Posters - This has got to be one of the oldest ways to advertise. Posters can be easily designed on a home computer and then printed in large or small quantities. Many stores, restauraunts, offices, churches, and schools have cork boards for the placement of these posters. Some businesses will even place the posters in their front window. Just be sure to ask permission before placing a poster.

Church Bulletins - Contact your local churches. Most of them would be happy to include your event in their weekly parish bulletins.

Electronic messaging - Send out emails to friends and family. Text your friends on the phone. Just do not do it so much that people start looking at it as spamming. We even post a note about the event on our troop's website.

Speaking - Yeah, that is right. Talk about it. Tell your relatives. Tell your friends. Tell your coworkers. Talking has worked for centuries. Spread the word, man!

Well, there is my list. How does it compare to yours? Did I give you any ideas? Do you have ideas that I did not mention? If you do then leave a comment and share it with us all.

Cub Scout Commercial: Locked Out

I have mentioned in previous posts that I wish the national office would do a more advertising to promote the Scouting program. Or maybe the councils should be doing it. I know I do enough of it on a local level. I have been collecting Scouting commercials for the past twenty years. Lately, I have been inserting them into Scouting films I produce for the local television channels. Hey, anything to promote Scouting, you know.

Here is one commercial that features Cub Scouting. I think it is a cute film, and one that contains a little humor. It is short, to the point, and best of all, shows a father and his Cub Scout son working on an advancement requirement together. Watch it yourself and leave a comment about what you think about it.

In The Newspaper

I have written hundreds of newspaper articles about the troop and its functions during the last three decades. When I write the articles I concentrate on the Boy Scouts and what they are doing. I try to leave myself out of the stories as much as possible. I do not want to promote myself. My job is promote the boys and Scouting.

So when I local newspaper reporter contacted me a year ago for an interview about being a scoutmaster for over twenty-five years, I kind of shrugged her off and said I would do it someday in the future. Well, I guess the future arrived. She remembered that I said I would do it later, so called me about it again earlier this month. She wanted to run an article for the issue that came out during Scout Week, but we could not find a time to meet. She did not give up though. The article finally came out in this week's issue.

I thought I would bite the bullet and let you all (or at least those of you who would be interested) read it on the newspaper's website. It can be found HERE. Don't laugh to hard when you read it, okay?

100th Anniversary Logo Chosen

The logo to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America has been chosen, and it was designed by Philip Goolkasian, a seventeen year old Eagle Scout from California. Philip's design was chosen from over 4000 entries.

The logo looks pretty sharp. I like it. The BSA will be using the logo for promotions during the next couple of years. Check it out HERE or on the BSA website HERE.

What Have You Done Today To Feel Proud?

A newer video (2006?) by the Boy Scouts of American can be found on Youtube. It is a two song music video that features Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts participating in Good Turns across America. The First video asks, "What have you done today to made you feel proud?" It is a catchy song. The second song I think you will recognize from several years ago. Watch the video, then post a comment about your thoughts.

Youtube Experiment Results

Well, the Youtube Scouting Video Day experiment did not accomplish the goal of getting a Scouting video or two to the top five "views" pages on Friday, February 8th. I do appreciate everyone who participated in the project. We gave it a good run, but we just did not have the numbers needed to do it. Here is a brief summary of the results.

The views received by each of the four suggested videos varied by the hundreds. The Cub Scout commercial featuring Steve Young only received 201 hits on Friday, as near as I can tell. The Boy Scout commercial about Jim Lovel did better, receiving 367 views.

The "What Parents Say About Scouting" did better then I expected when compared to the other videos. I thought it would come in with the lowest number of views since it was the longest of the videos. It received 271 hits, seventy more then the Cub Scout video.

The "Scout Zone" received the most hits, which was something I expected. It was watched 533 times, far more then the other videos. I would guess that was because it was the first video listed, and that it was a music video which was fun to watch.

The experiment failed to get any of these videos to the front pages, but I would not call it a complete failure. Dozens, or even hundreds, of people watched these videos for the first time and may have been introduced to other Scouting videos found on Youtube. I would call that successful, wouldn't you?

Once again, I would like to thank everyone who participated in the project and spread the word to others. Maybe we can try it again next year, or maybe make this a yearly occurrence.

PS - After writing this article this morning, I took another look at the numbers around 10:00 am. Either Youtube is playing with me, or a lot of people watched the videos since 7:00 am. The numbers of views for each of the videos has gone up by the hundreds! Take a look at these numbers:
The Cub Scout Commercial (Young) - 223 more views.
The Boy Scout Commercial (Lovel) - 346 more views
What Parents Say About Scouting - 221 more views
The Scout Zone Video - 470 more views.
I think these videos have received more views in 36 hours then they normally receive in two months!

Happy Birthday & Youtube Scouting Video Day

Happy Birthday Scouting (BSA)!

Wow, has it been 98 years already? It seems like just a few years ago when that unknown Boy Scout in England helped William Boyce find his way in the fog of London. And look what the BSA has accomplished since then. Ten of millions of boys have been involved with Scouting. Hundreds of millions of hours of community service has been done around the country. And look at all the boys who earned Scoutings highest award, the rank of Eagle Scout. I ask, has there been any other youth group in the history of this great country that has accomplished as much as the Boy Scouts of America?

And to think, it all begin in the USA because of the good turn of one Boy Scout in England! It just goes to show that you never know what that daily good turn could lead to, do you?

And do not forget to watch the videos on Youtube that were listed in a previous blog entry. Let's see if we can get something shown on the front page today.

Youtube Scouting Video Day

In one of the Scouting forums, someone accused me of just trying to get a video on the front page of Youtube when I suggested that we try this "Youtube Scouting Video Day" experiment on February 8th. Before I saw the comment someone had already replied to him that that was the point. I had to chuckle to myself. That was the purpose of the experiment, but I do not think he understood the reasoning behind my idea.

The way I see it, if we can get a video or two to the Youtube front page then the chances are pretty good that more boys and parents will see it then these commercials were ever seen when they aired on local television stations at 2:00 in the morning. Besides, many of the Youtube users are teenagers. Aren't they the ones we want to know about Scouting?

So yes, I am trying to get these videos on the front page. I am trying to promote Scouting, and I need everyone's help to accomplish this. And this way of doing it does not cost any council or district a dime to have people watch it.

By the way, if I was going to try just to get a video to the front page to boost my ego, don't you think I would have suggested one of my own original videos? I am trying to promote Scouting, not myself, with this experiment.

Boy Scout Anniversary Experiment

I would like to conduct an experiment, and I am going to need your help to do it. As most of you know, February 8th is the 98th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. I would like your help to celebrate it in a unique way.

Currently, there are a few thousand videos on Youtube that feature Scouts or are about Scouting. Most of these videos never receive more then a couple hundred views, if they even get that many. Only a few have ever hit the 10.000 views mark. I do not think a Scouting video has ever made it to the daily top five pages.

There are millions of Boy Scouts in the USA, and tens of thousands of adult leaders and professionals. Add the Scouts and leaders from around the world and we have a staggering membership. Even if we get a small percentage of the Scouts and leaders with internet access to participate in this I think we could make this work.

So here is my idea. Let's make a "Youtube Scouting Video Day" on February 8th. Let's try to get as many Scouts, adult leaders, friends, and family members to watch Boy Scout videos as we are able. Let's see if we can get a video or two to appear on the Youtube front pages and really help to promote Scouting to the internet masses, or at least the Youtube viewers.

To make this the most effective I think we need to concentrate our efforts on just a few videos, but I encourage you to watch as many as your time table allows. Here are the videos I would suggest we watch:

In The Scout Zone Video (2:24)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKFnGDRaMQU
The BSA Commercial featuring Jim Lovell (0:30)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNq6WsYIAFI
A Cub Scout Commercial featuring Steve Young (0:30)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqnkjBArjUo
and finally, the "What Parents Say About Scouting" (5:52)
at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1axj3lNc0Q

This would amount to approximately ten minutes of your time if you watched all four videos, ten minutes to help promote Boy Scouting and Cub Scouting on a popular internet site. Would you be willing to spend ten minutes trying to bring Scouting videos to the light of day for one day?

So, I ask that you spread the word about "Youtube Scouting Video Day". Copy this message and send it to other Scouts and leaders. Let's see if we can't get these videos highlighted to the internet masses and promote Scouting on February 8th.

Scouting Journalism

I was a pretty good student in high school. Mathematics was my best class. I did well in English classes, but not so well in phy ed class. (I was the 98 pound weakling of my class, literally.) I did like to read, but I never considered myself a writer. If someone had told me back then that I would someday be writing articles for the local newspaper, or penning scripts for the local cable access television station, or posting entries to internet blogs, why, I probably would have laughed in their face. And then go back to reading whatever book I was into at the moment.

I may have had no desire to be a writer when I was in high school, but when I was nineteen years old my first article about the local Scouting troop and pack was published in the local weekly paper. I was the new assistant scoutmaster of Troop 68 in June, 1980, totally unaware of what I was about to get myself into.

Those first few articles were only a few paragraphs long, co-written by one of the committee members. They covered what happened during troop and den meetings. Short articles, and straight to the point. As the years passed, my writing style began to change and develop. I focused more on the monthly activities, and less on the humdrum meetings. The articles became less frequent, but they became longer. Pictures accompanied the articles so the reader could see what the Scouts were doing in addition to reading about them.

In 1986, five Troop 68 Boy Scouts and myself spend two weeks at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. I kept a journal while hiking through the mountains. Using those notes from my journal, and the pictures taken during the trip, I wrote a long article for the local newspaper. I think I got a little long winded. The article ended up being a two parter, with each part taking up nearly half a page of the paper with the photos.

I have written many articles about Scouting during my twenty seven years with Boy Scout Troop 68. I have saved these articles and keep them in four scrapbooks. I now have three local newspapers that agree to print my articles when I write them. You might think I am making a little money with all that writing. Not a cent. I write the articles to promote Scouting, not to make money.

I still get a warm feeling when someone mentions that they enjoyed reading one of my articles. I will not lie, I am rather proud of myself for being able to write something that some people enjoy reading. But I am also humbled that people enjoy reading things that I write. After all, I am not a professional writer. Stephen King has nothing to worry from me.

Hmmm... That gets me thinking. Maybe I should write a book about my Scouting experiences. Maybe title it, "The Scoutmaster Thinks, and Unfortunately Wrote It Down."

Scouting Commercials

Here are a couple Scouting commercials you may, or may not, have seen.