Behind most successful fundraisers lie a string of things done right. For instance, on February 12, 2006, the Arizona Character Education Foundation sponsored the Character Challenge 6K Run/Walk and One Mile Walk, which highlighted the importance of character education in Arizona. “Most first-year events only have 300-500 participants,” says associate deputy superintendent Tammy Linn. But the Character Challenge had 860, and raised $20,000 to provide CC! Character Development Seminars to Arizona schools and nonprofits starting in the fall!

“The key is corporate sponsorships,” says Tammy. In a large-scale event like the Character Challenge, enrollment fees tend to pay for the awards, brochures, insurance, sanitation and police assistance. Many of these costs can be hard to foresee and quickly eat up an unsponsored budget. How can you anticipate them? “Look at it as a business," Tammy says.

The foundation then created a spreadsheet to show potential sponsors how much exposure they would receive based on their contributions. Bashas’ grocery chain and APS were among the many corporate sponsors.

The Character Challenge also garnered much media coverage, thanks to the sponsorship of local newspapers and television stations. The event received over $100,000 in free advertising from KTVK, the Scottsdale Tribune, and the East Valley Tribune.

Besides media and sponsorships, the following items are important to consider when planning a large fundraising event:

• Contacts -- Who do you know? Draft a clear proposal of your event and look first to the contacts you already have.
• Volunteers -- Solicit the help of high school students and members of community organizations such as the YMCA. Provide specific job descriptions for the volunteers and set up committees to handle matters like prizes, corporate relations and food.
• Marketing -- Who is your audience? The Arizona Character Education Foundation marketed the Character Challenge to both competitive and amateur walkers/runners.
• Agreements -- Get them in writing! “We had a band cancel three weeks in advance,” Tammy says. Make sure your vendors give you detailed accounts of how they will contribute to the event.
• Date and time -- Think of your audience. Will your activity be convenient for them? This event took place on a Sunday, which is out of the norm, but it occurred early enough that attendees could still go to church or tend to other obligations.

“I get goosebumps thinking of the kids,” says Tammy. A touching sight was a little boy pulling a wagon with the Six Pillars on the side. The Foundation is already gearing up for next year's event, which will take place on the first Sunday in March.

Students at Hillis Elementary School last month discovered caring can be fun. In a canned food drive in conjunction with CC!, grade levels competed against one another in to see who could donate more food to the Food Bank of Iowa.

The fifth-graders emerged triumphant, donating 222 items out of more than 600 the school brought in. Afterward, principal Larry Streyffeler told the school assembly he was proud of the students’ efforts. “CHARACTER COUNTS! stresses respect and appreciation,” he was quoted as saying in the Des Moines Register. “Service is an important part of life. This was a way we could reach out and help those less fortunate.”

Among the givers were Billie Jo Brown, a nine-year-old fourth-grader, and Jake Hollister, an eight-year-old third-grader, both from Des Moines’ west side. Brown donated her entire piggybank to the food pantry. Jake summed up the event best by saying, “I learned it’s fun to care and it’s fun to help others.”

CHARACTER COUNTS! may help prevent future hazing incidents at Flower Mound High. Currently, 18 students and an ex-coach face criminal charges for alleged hazing at an August 2005 party.

In response, the Lewisville Board of Trustees approved a new hazing and CHARACTER COUNTS! curriculum for all students in January 2006.

The curriculum provides a working definition of hazing so students can better tell if they are committing it. "Sometimes kids haze and they really don't know it's hazing," former Lewisville athletic director Neal Wilson told the Lewisville Leader.

It also lets students know how to act if they find themselves in a hazing situation.

Mr. Wilson helped create the curriculum and starting next summer all sixth-graders will spend a week on the material, which has a major section on the Six Pillars. High school P.E. students and those who take part in extracurricular activities will also study the material.

Hazing is a serious, underreported problem in high schools and colleges. According to one benchmark study, 1.5 million high school students endure hazing every year, and some 50 percent are athletes.

Minot residents and Edison School host a celebration each February spotlighting residents who are making a difference in the lives of young people. Everyday Heroes, sponsored by the Minot Character Counts! Coalition, is an integral part of the 'Celebration of Good Character' in Minot. This celebration grows more popular every year and has recently expanded to other schools in the area.

Some 21 students came to the studios of MTS Broadcasting in February 2005 to record public service announcements (PSAs) about character. They were from Mace's Lane Middle School Government Association and the PSA effort was a project of CC! Mid-Shore.

The students wrote and recorded all the parts of the PSAs, which described and defined the Six Pillars. Some were skits and some were announcements that students took turns to read.

Here is a sample, from student Adrienne Cornish: "At a basketball game the referee is making bad calls because he wants the other team to win. This is not fair to the other team. Fairness means to treat everybody fairly and equitably. Character counts, anywhere and all the time."

Adrienne told the Daily Banner she wrote about basketball because "that's one of the best examples of fairness that I know about. Character is very important."