A Roadmap to Success – How to Raise More Money

My family loves car trips. Almost too much. Growing up, anytime we went on a vacation and the destination was in the continental US, we drove there. And while this has led to some great memories, it has also resulted in some interesting detours and experiences.

The most prominent car trip fiasco took place when I was 10. We were on our way to a hotel/resort in the middle of nowhere Indiana to meet some friends for the weekend.

My parents were particularly excited for this trip due to their recent purchase of a GPS. This was going to be life changing for them. No longer would my dad have to sit in the passenger seat reading from a map. Instead, the map would simply read itself. Nothing could possibly go wrong. And so, we all packed into the car and started our journey.

My parents spent the first twenty minutes or so admiring how easy the GPS was making the trip. They had so much faith in their new little device, they didn’t fully acknowledge anything was wrong until the forty-five minute mark, when we officially left behind paved roads and instead switched to all dirt roads. Not gravel, not stone, just packed dirt.

We ended up spending almost an hour on these backroads, driving on cliff faces with no guardrail between us and the 300 foot drop six feet to the right. Eventually we did find our way back to civilization and our hotel.

That evening, as we ate dinner with our family friends, we recounted them with the tale of our trip, wondering aloud why someone would build a hotel in such a hard-to-reach area. After we shared our tale, one of the friends asked my parents, with a look of sympathy, why we hadn’t just taken the interstate. 

Sure enough, our hometown and the hotel were connected by an interstate. It was pretty much a straight shot and would have saved us an hour of fear. What we had been on, we later learned, was an area appropriately nicknamed by the locals as, “The Devil’s Backbone.” That evening my dad shoved the GPS in his luggage and it was decided that we would just use a physical map and the interstate to get home.  

It can be easy to forget the importance of a good map, until you’re actually lost. Just because a map says that one way will technically work, doesn’t mean it’s the best way to reach your destination.

That’s how we at Perspectives feel about how United Ways are currently raising money. It can be confusing, and there are so many roads that can get you to the destination of meeting your revenue goals. We’re here to make that process simpler. To show you the different routes to raising money outside of workplace campaigns.

In our upcoming webinar Perspectives’ Roadmap to Raising More Money we will discuss the best places for your United Way to raise more money, how to use these methods successfully, and learn from inspiring examples of United Ways who are already doing these methods and thriving.

Join us on March 23, 2022 at 2 p.m. ET for this 90-minute webinar.