I have no idea how to go about this personally and wouldn’t have time if I did, but I would love to see a series of rubber (or silicon) bracelets marketed for the Katrina victims. There could even be several of them: purple/green/yellow (the colors of Mardi Gras) earmarked for New Orleans, blue/red for Mississippi, red/white for Alabama, etc… They cost less than a quarter to produce and if sold for $2 each could raise millions very quickly. Does anybody know if there are plans to do this or who should be contacted?
I don’t understand. Somebody who would pay $2 for a piece of plastic wouldn’t donate $2 for a good cause? Is it that the bracelets serve as a self-marketing product?
Lance Armstrong’s foundation has raised over $25 million to date from the sale of these bracelets selling them at $1 per piece. Does this mean that 25 million people bought the bracelets who wouldn’t donate $1 for them? In some cases, perhaps, in others no, but it got the money rolling in and was a brilliant stroke in keeping awareness after the initial publicity on his foundation waned. Today the plight of those left homeless by Katrina is dominating the news, but a month from now… ?
There are lots of places that manufacture these wristbands. We just ordered a batch for our youth football team. They cost us about $1.35 a piece for 500. Looking at the catalog from the company we used, you’d have to order several thousand to get a unit price below $1.00. As **groman ** suggested, I can’t imagine you could sell that many of them in such a short period of time, and even if you could, I’d bet you’d end up with far less money than if you simply collected donations.
Nice idea, though.
There is an article in The New York Times, In a Multitude of Forms, the Offers of Help Pour In that says a similar idea is already in progress.
[quote=The New York Times]
In Parkland, Fla., students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School have ordered 4,000 strands of Mardi Gras beads they plan to sell for $2 each starting today in hopes of igniting a new fad to rival the ubiquitous yellow rubber “Livestrong” bracelets.
Actually, I mentioned it to a friend who, I didn’t know, has a friend who does PR for the Red Cross. They liked the idea so much they’ve ordered 50,000 of them. (If we could get Wal-Mart to sell them, THEN we’d be talking Oprah money.)
Out of curiosity, has anyone compiled a list of the various national Livestrong copycats? I swear, some people will give money for anything as long as they get a pretty wristband in the deal.
Very true. I have a glow-in-the-dark Children’s Miracle Network on right now.
I just want to pre-emptively say that I don’t oppose raising money for hurricane victims in this manner and that I’m not comparing hurricane charity efforts to the more trivial of wristband-selling organizations. I’m mostly just amused by the people I see walking around with five different bands on each wrist.
In any case, it’s walk-a-thons that really make me scratch my head. I could never figure out the train of thought of people who make per-mile donations; “Sure, I’ll give some money … if you’ll walk around this track for a few hours.”