5 easy steps to form and lead a team

Get organized | Recruit team members | Raise money
The home stretch | Celebrate what you achieve

This 5-step program will help you get started
and finish strong!

Step 1—Get organized

• Invite a couple of people from your firm or among your family/friends to help you plan the team

• Set 2 goals: how many climbers you want to recruit and what fundraising goal you want for the team (using $500 per climber is a go od guideline)

• Sign up your team at www.storybystory.org and create your team web page, including a Personal Web Page link (user-friendly URL) that includes the team name

• Post the team recruitment and fundraising goals on the team web page

Step 2—Recruit team members

• Ask everyone you know to join the team—use email, Facebook, Twitter, voicemail, letters or just plain word-of-mouth to reach as many people as you can

• Suggest Story by Story at your children's school as a great community project for parents and kids to do together (note that the minimum age for participating as a climber is 16)

• If you have served as an Her Justice legal volunteer, reach out to your former client(s) to invite them to join your team (they can register as a client/former client, with no minimum fundraising requirement)

• Ask people who can't or don't want to climb to support the team with a donation or by becoming virtual climbers

Step 3—Raise money

• Plan a team kickoff get-together and ask all of your team members to bring someone who has not signed up yet. Energize the group and engage each one of them on how they can fundraise

• Make sure every team member has registered online at www.storybystory.org and set up a personal fundraising web page

• Encourage everyone to set a personal fundraising goal of $500—or more

• Ask team members to review the cash sponsorship opportunities posted on the Story by Story web site and consider whether they can engage their company or firm in providing direct sponsorship support (any sponsorship secured by a team member will count toward the team's fundraising total)

• Follow up with team members after Her Justice's email blasts and challenge the team to win prizes. (Prize contests will be announced in September and October)

• Regularly check the Story by Story web site to learn about other teams that have registered and what they have raised—consider opportunities for generating some friendly rivalry to drive your team's fundraising

• Remind team members to ask donors to use their company's matching gift program to raise additional funds

• Most importantly, track the team's progress and communicate it often

• Highlight team members who are doing well—and thank them

Step 4—The home stretch

• Send last-minute donation reminders by email, Facebook, Twitter and voicemail

• Ask your team members to check the online tally of donations to make sure that anyone who pledged to give has followed through and made an online donation or sent in a check

• Check that all team members have met the $100 fundraising minimum by October 14, 9:00 am

• Send out a reminder to team members with the stair climb's date, time and location and coordinate plans for the team to gather at the event

Step 5—Celebrate what you achieve

• Her Justice will provide access to the digital photos of your team from the event. Share them with team members and donors. For company-affiliated teams, see if your marketing department would like to use the photos for newsletters and other forums for promoting its employees' philanthropic endeavors

• Send thank-you notes to your team members

• Remind everyone to thank their donors

• Her Justice will honor the top fundraising team with a special prize. An announcement will go out after October 31, 2013 naming the team that won top honors

Get organized | Recruit team members | Raise money
The home stretch | Celebrate what you achieve