- Oct 12, 2000
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Hi Everyone,
I volunteer for Remote Area Medical, aka RAM, an organization that provides free medical, dental, vision, veterinary care for those in need. Our organization just branched off to form an affiliate in California and I'm on the fundraising committee.
The founder is Stan Brock, for all you older folks here, if you remember the TV show Wild Kingdom, that's him
.
Last year, in Northern California, we did two tours, Sac and Oakland, and helped around 6500 patients over 8 days. We'll be back in 2012 at the end of March and beginning of April to provide the same service again and expect a larger gathering. For the time being, we'll be using headquarters equipment (located in Knoxville, TN) but feel we can be of better service with our own. That way, we can run 2 expeditions on both coasts without having to ship/truck equipment back and forth.
Headquarters have about 100 operational, portable dental chairs. They also have a mobile vision center, an 18 wheeler that can cut lenses on-site, for patients. We're trying to raise enough money for 44 chairs and our own vision unit.
So, I've been on this forum for 10 years, everyone here is smart, educated, motivated and resourceful. I'm asking you guys for some helpful ideas. All the supplies are donated and all the labor is free. To give you an idea of how tightly we run our budget, for the two NorCal expeditions we spent less then 100k. That's 8 days, from 6am-6pm of work and we treated 6500 people and made 1000 pair of glasses.
The total cost for the equipment will be close to 1 million.
Our board and core team are awesome people. With so many non-profit groups out there we're always thinking outside the box to compete for grants and funds.
I'm thinking of a 1 dollar 1 mission 1 million. Like a pay-it-forward kind of idea. I can ask my friends/family to donate 1 dollar, they can ask theirs and so on and so forth. To increase this exponentially, I'm going to try Facebook and connect with people thru their friends network, we know a few key people at FB which will help get us some momentum.
My other option is to go thru prehealth clubs at university and colleges. Fundraising will be a good experience, they can volunteer at our events and network with doctors in their field. It is also something they can write on their personal statement which always looks good on their application profile.
For my part, I really want to try and keep corporate donations to a minimum if possible, the reason why RAM has been so effective is because we are free of politics and bureaucracy. I'll let our board of directors handle that.
So what do you guys think? I have a meeting with some FB reps on the 28th so throw out some ideas!
here's some more info on RAM
PBS
60 Minutes
Bill Moyer
Watch the 60 minute clip, it's awesome! Also, if you know anyone who would like to volunteer, they're more then welcome to sign-up. Check main site for future events or if you have other skills, like non-profit accounting or grant writing, we need those also.
Here's me at the Oakland Coliseum, March 2010
Here's my team with Stan Brock in Chicago, Aug 2011
cliffs:
- volunteer for non profit, Remote Area Medical, RAM.
- looking for ways to fundraise for a new affiliate, RAM - California.
- asking ATOT for ideas.
I volunteer for Remote Area Medical, aka RAM, an organization that provides free medical, dental, vision, veterinary care for those in need. Our organization just branched off to form an affiliate in California and I'm on the fundraising committee.
The founder is Stan Brock, for all you older folks here, if you remember the TV show Wild Kingdom, that's him
. Last year, in Northern California, we did two tours, Sac and Oakland, and helped around 6500 patients over 8 days. We'll be back in 2012 at the end of March and beginning of April to provide the same service again and expect a larger gathering. For the time being, we'll be using headquarters equipment (located in Knoxville, TN) but feel we can be of better service with our own. That way, we can run 2 expeditions on both coasts without having to ship/truck equipment back and forth.
Headquarters have about 100 operational, portable dental chairs. They also have a mobile vision center, an 18 wheeler that can cut lenses on-site, for patients. We're trying to raise enough money for 44 chairs and our own vision unit.
So, I've been on this forum for 10 years, everyone here is smart, educated, motivated and resourceful. I'm asking you guys for some helpful ideas. All the supplies are donated and all the labor is free. To give you an idea of how tightly we run our budget, for the two NorCal expeditions we spent less then 100k. That's 8 days, from 6am-6pm of work and we treated 6500 people and made 1000 pair of glasses.
The total cost for the equipment will be close to 1 million.
Our board and core team are awesome people. With so many non-profit groups out there we're always thinking outside the box to compete for grants and funds.
I'm thinking of a 1 dollar 1 mission 1 million. Like a pay-it-forward kind of idea. I can ask my friends/family to donate 1 dollar, they can ask theirs and so on and so forth. To increase this exponentially, I'm going to try Facebook and connect with people thru their friends network, we know a few key people at FB which will help get us some momentum.
My other option is to go thru prehealth clubs at university and colleges. Fundraising will be a good experience, they can volunteer at our events and network with doctors in their field. It is also something they can write on their personal statement which always looks good on their application profile.
For my part, I really want to try and keep corporate donations to a minimum if possible, the reason why RAM has been so effective is because we are free of politics and bureaucracy. I'll let our board of directors handle that
.So what do you guys think? I have a meeting with some FB reps on the 28th so throw out some ideas!
here's some more info on RAM
PBS
60 Minutes
Bill Moyer
Watch the 60 minute clip, it's awesome! Also, if you know anyone who would like to volunteer, they're more then welcome to sign-up. Check main site for future events or if you have other skills, like non-profit accounting or grant writing, we need those also
.Here's me at the Oakland Coliseum, March 2010
Here's my team with Stan Brock in Chicago, Aug 2011
cliffs:
- volunteer for non profit, Remote Area Medical, RAM.
- looking for ways to fundraise for a new affiliate, RAM - California.
- asking ATOT for ideas.
Last edited:
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