Hi. My name is Ceciry. I am the Director of Development and Community Engagement here at the HMS school for children with cerebral palsy. It has been in existence since 1882 so we’re celebrating our 140/3 anniversary this year, which is phenomenal for an institution like ours. We are Read More
Hi. My name is Ceciry. I am the Director of Development and Community Engagement here at the HMS school for children with cerebral palsy. It has been in existence since 1882 so we’re celebrating our 140/3 anniversary this year, which is phenomenal for an institution like ours. We are one of two special education schools that focuses on students with CP. The other one is actually located in Australia, so a lot of our families move from around the nation to be able to have their students attend HMS because of the highly specialized education that they’re receiving here, even though all of our kids are in power mobility chairs or manual wheelchairs, when they come to HMS, they’re not the only student in their school that is in a power mobility or manual wheelchair. So they’re really able to engage with their peers and have a lot of fun throughout the day, throughout the day, our educational programs are taking place so they are in the classroom, but then we also have all of our therapies on site available for each of our students. So that includes speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, recreation therapy, which kind of also covers our dance movement therapies, music therapies, arts, expressive arts, therapies, and we also have theater and yoga programs that happen throughout the day as well. So a lot of our students are not able to communicate verbally like you or I. So we do encourage the use of assistive technology where they’re able then to communicate their thoughts, feelings, opinions, a lot of opinions through those devices. We do have some students that use eye gaze technology. Depending on where they focus their eyes, it will select a different item for them. Fundraising can be very transactional. The way that I’ve learned to fundraise, and how I personally view fundraising, I don’t like it to be transactional. I find it to be much more helpful and beneficial to be in a relationship with your donors. It’s not just about a transaction. DonorPerfect is a big part of my day. I’m logged in constantly throughout the entire day, I will say, being a team of one, I rely heavily on DonorPerfect. Prior to my arrival, there wasn’t a real major gift program happening at hms. We did have some donors that were giving at the capacity that you can tell there may be potential for major gift giving, but nobody had been asked. So once I started and I was able to really dive into the data thanks to DonorPerfect, then I was kind of able to see what the donor history was and who may be a potential to tap for a major gift. Thanks to DonorSearch, which we do have integrated with DonorPerfect, I was able to find a specific donor that had been giving for a while at the $1,000 level, $2,000 a year, $5,000 a year. And I was able to use donor surge to see what they were giving at different organizations over their course of their donor lifetime, which was very, very helpful, because then I was able to kind of talk a little bit more about the mission, learn more about why they had begun donating to begin with, and then ask them to increase their gift. So I was able to go from a $5,000 gift to a $25,000 gift, which was super impactful, especially for a smaller organization like ours, where every dollar really does count. I like to be able to communicate effectively, and each individual donor likes to be spoken to in different ways. So building those relationships are really important for me.
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