Sure a scout troop, school band, or church youth group can organize a car wash, run a bake sale, or collect funds for every mile walked. The trick is to come up with a new project to attract media attention.
Water Aid, a nongovernmental organization (NGO), needed a project to gain support for Goal 6 of the UN's 2030 Sustainable Development objective, water and toilets for all. This wasn't a naturally attention-getting topic, like saving children or baby animals. And the place where Water Aid wanted to attract attention was New York City, center of high-priced public relations firms that make the big bucks by promoting any and every thing, such as rock stars and best sellers.
What Water Aid did was invite individuals and organizations to join a two-mile, "water walk" from 72nd Street and Lexington Avenue to the United Nations building at 45th Street and First Avenue. Two miles just happened to be the distance the average girl or woman in many developing countries walks every day to procure the family's water...time she could spend getting an education or earning an income.
On their walks through NYC, females and males of all ages and various nationalities and professions offered the media a visual photo opportunity by carrying buckets in their hands or on their heads. The buckets also collected funds from passersby.
All the walkers could explain how a lack of water and sanitation caused diarrhea, other diseases, and death; every two minutes one child under five dies from dirty drinking water and poor sanitation and hygiene. Water Aid considers the right to water a human right and opposes selling water, since privatization enables cities and corporations to limit water access to manufacturers and people who can afford it.
The two-mile "water walk" idea invites groups to put greater effort into coming up with original fundraisers. I just saw an article that mentioned managers made Google great by demanding employees to think bigger and bigger. And Water Aid collected funds in buckets that were relevant to its cause. I've seen firemen and women collecting money in their big boots. A middle school collected money at a fundraising dinner in oatmeal boxes band members decorated to look like drums in the middle of every table.
Once a group has a visual event and related fund-collection containers, write a news release describing the event and the purpose of the event. Make a list of producers, addresses, and telephone numbers at local TV news programs and editors at newspapers. Send out your news releases, designate someone to call stations and papers a couple of days before the event, and get ready to welcome the attention. The world has many needs that merit your best efforts.
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