42point195
By marathonerArchive for October, 2008
Raising money
With the incredible conclusion of having to reach out to thousands of people whom I do not know in order to reach my fund raising goal, I reasoned that I had better approach people whom I know first. I thought and I hoped that people who knew me, who knew my interests would be kind enough to show their support by donating more. In fact, this would have been how I acted. I would have been more responsive to a friend compared to a stranger who asked me to donate money.
The challenge here is how to get people interested and respond. Mass mailing does not work. Yes, it is easy to get to hundred over people through mass mailing. The reality is that people rarely respond to them. I do occasionally receive mass mails from people I know asking for donations. These were mostly emails that were forwarded on and arrived in my mailbox. So it was probably my friend’s friend’s friend who was trying to get help. I do not remember having responded to these emails. They end up in my trash bin, especially when I hardly know the person and when I could not identify strongly with their cause.
These are two important points, at least to me – knowing the person and identifying with the cause he or she supports. So I was hopeful to mobilise some very old friends as well as those who are aware of my enthusiasm for running. I was hoping that they can give their support if they can.
It was more difficult to establish a rapport with people on the second point. I do not think many of my friends are as crazy over India as I am. Bringing education to children in India may not be something in the radar screen of my circle of friends when it comes to supporting a charity. There are a few of them, however, who know of my adventures in India and know that I am very fond of the country.
Despite it being more difficult to connect with people on the cause, this was in fact the most important factor in keeping me persistent in pursuing my fund raising campaign. There are many good causes to support and I could have chosen just any charity to run for. The result would have been another good deed anyway. The problem is it being just “another good deed anyway”. I think there is a difference between “it is good to do something for them” and “I would like to do something for them”. In wanting to do something that contributes to children’s education in India, I actually got quite serious in doing what I could to meet my fund raising goal.
So, how did this exercise fare eventually? Well, firstly, I have some friends who graciously offered their donations. Many thanks from me to them for their support. Secondly, some other friends replied to tell me that they are not able to help, which is perfectly fine since everyone has their own priority. I am appreciative of them letting me know their decision. Then, I also have friends who have not replied. I suppose their answer is “no”, but not having heard from them also made me wonder if I should be doing a better job in keeping in touch with people over the years. Maybe it is the idea of this distant woman popping up only once in a while and with whom they share little in common that explains the absence of a response.
Anyway, after this wave of activities, the good news was that I was very conservative in my initial estimates on the number of donors I needed. People were very generous. I figured that I actually needed not as many people as I thought, but the bad news was that I was still far from the amount I had to raise. In other words, there was some progress, but not enough.
No, you cannot stop
I can remember very little from the race. What I can remember are the things that I have planned to do before the race even started.
Start running at a 10:30 pace for as far as possible. Take my GU gel at the top of the first 2 hours. Have my Kit Kat at mile 15. Get a pack of Power Gel at the mile 18 aid station. Grab a banana at one of the 4 aid stations along mile 20 to 24.
Otherwise, I had very little idea about which part of town I was running in. I cannot really recall much. I only knew that my pace was dropping after the half-marathon mark. I remember having to stop and stretch my ITB at one point, after which I felt so revitalised. I recall my back and my legs aching badly later and my body felt so expensed that I simply walked through the aid stations, hoping that the short breaks from running would help me recover for the final couple of miles.
The last mile probably felt like the longest. I decided that I would keep running through the last 2 aid stations. Looking at my time, I knew that I could make it in under 5 hours. I could, only if I kept running. Having worked so hard for months, I should not let the 5 hours slip away.
No, you cannot stop. Knowing that it was the last mile kind of removed my reservations on needing to conserve myself for more. Pain no longer mattered. I kept looking at my watch to see how much time there was before it was over. I kept looking ahead of me, anticipating where Roosevelt Road is, where we, runners, would be making the turn towards Grant Park.
The 26th mile marker appeared after the turn. Elation. The end was near. We seemed to be all pumped up and picked up our strides. One more turn onto Columbus Drive. The finish line was within sight. It was then only a matter of crossing the line.
The Chicago Marathon 2008 medal
Tougher than marathons
Some time ago, I wrote about raising funds for a charity as I prepare for the Chicago Marathon. I have not written anything on that since then.
The reason is that my fund raising effort was not going on very well at first. I did not feel like writing anything about it since it would have made me feel like I was complaining about things not going right instead of proactively doing something to put things on the right track.
I never thought that raising funds was going to be easy. I was even telling myself after signing up with Team Asha Chicago, “Gee, I think this will be harder than my marathon training!”
The way I see funding raising similar to taking part in a marathon is that you have a goal, you set your plans on how you think you can achieve it, and then you go ahead and execute that plan.
For the race, my goal is to cover 26.2 miles on 12 October. My training plan started 5 months ago, with my weekly mileage meticulously planned to make sure that it is gradually built up to prepare me for the race distance on 12 October. I carefully weaved in both quality runs and rest periods, ensuring that I have a good dose of both.
For the fund raising, my goal is to raise $1200, preferably by 12 October as well. I had some initial thoughts on the channels I could tap on and whom I could approach for donations. I put together a rough plan, telling myself that I ought to do this by now and to do that by then.
That is about where the similarity ends. The marathon training plan, it is something that I can and have religiously followed. By remaining sensible and not doing crazy things, it has been possible to keep myself injury-free. After slogging through 20 miles on a Sunday morning, I could pretty darn well strike it off my calendar and I had one more long run down.
The fund raising plan, there was so much more uncertainty to it. I could not say for sure that I would reach 80% of my goal 2 weeks before the race. I was not even 100% certain that I could raise all that money. There is not an equivalent to the last 22-mile run 3-4 weeks before race day that I could shoot for. Neither is there an equivalent to gritting my teeth over the final miles on race day and telling myself “I will do it”.
There were many factors that were not within my circle of influence. How many people can I convince to make a donation? How much will each person donate? This being the first time that I am out to raise money, I have no better idea on these numbers other than to make wild guesses.
I used to be the conservative and skeptical sort, when asked to contribute to donations. Put it in other words, my generosity had not made the kind of progress that is on par with that of my earning power. I asked myself how much I would give if approached by someone I know and how much I would donate if approached by a stranger. Using my response as a yardstick (which is in no way accurate, but definitively very conservative), I came to the conclusion that if I could get some 30 odd friends and acquaintances to support I still need some hundreds or maybe even 1000 strangers to donate as well, whatever means I use to reach out to them.
30 friends and acquaintances; 1,000 strangers. Attrition not yet considered.
I really had no good sense of how strangers would to respond donation requests. I might get one positive response out of 10 whom I approach, I thought. So, right, I would have to reach out to 10,000 strangers in that case.
30 friends and acquaintances; 1,000 strangers out of 10,000 who are approached. Daunting (crazy? unrealistic?) numbers. Wisdom told me that I should convince as many friends as possible first. I would then look at my progress and revise my estimates.
