I NEED YOUR HELP !!!!!

[killerfly128]

Copy paste from Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/SPCMichaelRoberts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ). I hate to beat you guys up for money because it isn't really my style, but I really need some help with this. If you are unaware of the situation you can read the Facebook page or this article ( http://www.dallasnews.com/obituary-head ... first-.ece" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ).

We are in dire need of donations to the scholarship fund so that we can double the awarded amount. Please make a donation so that we can continue to honor Michael for many many years.

To donate to the Spc. Michael Roberts Memorial Scholarship please make your checks out to MCR Scholarship Fund and mail them to

MCR Scholarship fund
C/O Jason Bird, Band Director
Richland High School
5201 Holiday Lane E.
North Richland Hills, TX 76180

Donations may also be made by PayPal by sending a gift to spcmichaelrobertsscholarship@gmail.com. Please make sure to mark it as a gift so that PayPal gets the whole donation to us.

We were able to award the third Spc. Michael Roberts Memorial Scholarship to Daniel Liu (third from the right). Daniel is planning to become a doctor and work with Doctors without Borders. He is a truly an inspiring young man and it felt wonderful to see Michael's name make a small difference in his life. Your donations will ensure that we can continue to allow Michael to live on by helping these great kids pay for college.



- Patrick

[killerfly128]

I really hope this is OK to post here. Sadly I am having a rather hard time raising funds.

[killerfly128]

Anyone?

[jmra]

I appreciate what you are trying to do and I wish you the best of luck in raising funds, but I think (as shown by the lack of response on this forum) that you may need to take a little different approach in your fund raising. Your best bet for raising funds is going to be from people whose lives were touched by this gentleman, the local community in which he was known.

The reason is very simple, there is huge competition for charitable funds. I can sit here and list a dozen causes presented to me in the last couple of months that would draw tears from any grown man. I simply do not have enough disposable income to contribute to more than a few of these causes. Given my limitations I have to be extremely selective with my contributions. Absent specific direction from the almighty, my contributions are typically limited to those causes local to me that affect those who have had a direct impact on my life or my small community. I wish it were different and hopefully someday it will be, but for now that is reality.

Please don't take a lack of response on the forum as hardened hearts. I believe most people are not in a much different boat than myself.

Again, I wish you the best of luck in your endeavor.

[killerfly128]

This is my first foray into raising funds for charity, I honestly don't have a clue about what might be the best practices. The lack of response isn't just on this forum, I think getting people to donate money is like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. I did get a generous donation from The Annoyed Man (Chris).

If anyone has suggestions on other methods on raising funds please let me know. I really am at a loss on how best to go about this. Any help I could get would be amazing, be it is a donation or advice.

-Patrick

[Abraham]

"I think getting people to donate money is like trying to squeeze blood from a turnip."

That's because everyone has their own favorite charity or charities.

[KRM45]

Done.

I never met Michael, but today is all about remembering him and all the others that gave their lives in service to our country. Most of them far too youg.

Can you tell us more about the scholarship fund?

[jmra]

The first thing I would do is form a board to oversee the nonprofit organization. I would ask the most influential people I know to sit on that board. The more people they know the better. Include his pastor, local businessmen, a member of the red hat society,..
I would then build a team of people compassionate about honoring this young mans memory. I would have the team wear shirts with the name of the organization and a pic of the young man while canvassing the community he lived in. I would ask local businesses if I could leave flyers and collection containers. I would focus on places where there are people who know him or his family.
1. The alumni association where he went to school
2. The church/churches he and his family attended
3. Any clubs or associations he may have been part of
4. Any restaurants or hang outs he may have frequented
It's a lot of work but that's what it takes to get blood out of a turnip.

[killerfly128]

Done.

I never met Michael, but today is all about remembering him and all the others that gave their lives in service to our country. Most of them far too youg.

Can you tell us more about the scholarship fund?

First off thank you so much for your donation. Shortly after Michael was killed in action you got off his band director (Bill Watson) when he was in high school, the band director set up a scholarship in Michael's name to benefit band students. Around time the scholarship was formed there was a flood of donations but since then become kind of stagnant.

As of now the requirements are they fill out a questionnaire and the answer couple questions such as what are you going to do in college, what is a major event that had an impact on your life, and what is your goal in life after college. This is the first year I've had heavy involvement with the scholarship process, prior to that it was run by the Richland area band boosters. It's overseen by the Richland area band boosters but I've taken a more involved role in scholarship. This last year I judged all of the scholarships and a panel chose the winner of the Michael Roberts scholarship, every year they award three scholarships, one in Michael's name and two that are RABB scholarships. After I saw how things are done we decided to revamp the questions asked of the students to tailor it more to choosing the perfect student to receive Michael scholarship.

As of now the scholarship is $500 for the student to use for books, tuition, or whatever they need. My goal is to increase the scholarship to $1000 which will be the largest scholarship they offer, that way it'll be the crown jewel scholarship if you will. The only way I can do that those who hadn't provide the funding to bring the scholarship up to a higher level.

This next year there will be a new question added to the questionnaire that the students fill out asking them what they feel the army definition of selfless service means to them and they are to tell us about a time when they exhibited selfless service. The band director, the RABB president, and myself all felt that this was a wonderful way to find out who is most like Michael in spirit. Michael was one of those people that was generous to a fault almost, he would gladly give you the shirt off his back, quite literally.

To give you an example of his generosity, when Michael was deployed to Iraq in 09-10 he was functioning as a commo guy, installing radios and fixing them, making sure the channels for setup for the troops are going outside the wire. Michael spent most this time on the base, so he and his friends decided that the troops were going outside the wire needed a coffee shop so it felt just a little more like home. They built the coffee shop from scratch, got coffeemakers in all the stuff you would see at Starbucks off of Amazon as well as through donations. Then Michael couldn't find anybody to provide the flavored syrups that they needed to make these fancy flavored coffees. Michael got on the Internet found someplace that carried them and purchased something like 35 or 40 different flavors of coffee syrup and have them shipped to my parents house here in Texas on his measly little E3 pay. He then paid my parents to ship these syrups over to Iraq in huge boxes. After talking to Michael's Sgt. at that point in time Michael really made a huge difference with the guys coming out the wire after they were done with missions and had some downtime. I'm hoping that the scholarship will do the same for students maybe make their life a little bit better in their first foray into the adult world.

I hope that's a good enough explanation, I haven't had a lot of sleep these last several days, it's been kind of emotional weekend.

[killerfly128]

The first thing I would do is form a board to oversee the nonprofit organization. I would ask the most influential people I know to sit on that board. The more people they know the better. Include his pastor, local businessmen, a member of the red hat society,..
I would then build a team of people compassionate about honoring this young mans memory. I would have the team wear shirts with the name of the organization and a pic of the young man while canvassing the community he lived in. I would ask local businesses if I could leave flyers and collection containers. I would focus on places where there are people who know him or his family.
1. The alumni association where he went to school
2. The church/churches he and his family attended
3. Any clubs or associations he may have been part of
4. Any restaurants or hang outs he may have frequented
It's a lot of work but that's what it takes to get blood out of a turnip.

The scholarship is under the control of a non-profit organization right now, the Richland area band boosters. Everything that you've listed just about, but I thought I would use the Internet is a tool to go ahead and maybe get a little bit more into the scholarship fund. So far I'm halfway to my goal for the Internet donations and hopefully we can keep the scholarship funded for several years. My biggest fear is that it starts running out of money because people forget or don't feel strongly about making sure that Michael's memory lives on.

My next step is to try to work with the city Michael lived in and that I currently live to see if there's anything that we can partner out to raise funds to go ahead and maybe there is a scholarship even further. I think if I put in enough hard work I might be able to turn this $500 scholarship into something really amazing.


-Patrick

[KRM45]

Thanks for the additional information. Michael sounds like he was a great guy. You're doing an excellent job honoring him with your work on the scholarship. I wish you great success in growing the fund and helping those with a similar spirit.

[killerfly128]

Thanks for the additional information. Michael sounds like he was a great guy. You're doing an excellent job honoring him with your work on the scholarship. I wish you great success in growing the fund and helping those with a similar spirit.

Thank you so much. I feel like I can never do enough to honor him. Ill toss up some links for you guys to check out if you like.

A video that was put together by a band parent and some of the students Michael went to school with.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A longer video my uncle put together for us.
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A few news stories, there are a couple more but I can't find the link.
http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/08/28/fami ... d-serving/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Two-So ... 99933.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Where Michael was forever immortalized in the Congressional Record.
http://www.acacamps.org/sites/default/f ... 20Camp.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[The_Busy_Mom]

Our high school band boosters started a scholarship similar to this one - it is always funded by the boosters. Every year the boosters budget the cost/amount of the scholarship into their budget. The boosters also sponsor two other band scholarships as well. The boosters fundraise throughout the year for various reasons, and allocate the funds raised to the various scholarships/expenses. If you want to increase the amount of the scholarship, then it needs to be increased in the band boosters' budget. You can solicit for donations through various sources, like you did here, but in the end it is revenue to the boosters, specifically designated to the scholarship. We always keep $1500 in a CD at the bank as back-up for the scholarship, just in case fundraising efforts fall short in any given year. This has never happened, and we have gone from the scholarship being $500 in the beginning to $1500 currently. Like you, I have had the pleasure to chair this committee through the boosters, and judge applications. If the scholarship is really important to the boosters, then work with them to increase the fundraising efforts in the community.

Examples of fundraising efforts for the scholarship that I have personally been part of/participated in/coordiated:

Bake sale at concerts/events
Spirit item sales
Community carnival/community events that the public can pay to attend
Car washes
Poker Run / Raffles / Games of Chance
Alumni Association Events (former band students who have graduated come back to the spring concert and play as a group - we call it the Alumni band)
March-A-thon

Possible options:
Coordinate with the JROTC from the school to do a joint fundraising effort, but you will probably get resistance because it is a band scholarship, open to band members only
Classic Car show to benefit the scholarship, or something like that
Advertising in the band's program - one page dedicated to those people/businesses that donate for the scholarship specifically

I know most of these methods are being employed by the band/boosters for the general funds at most schools, but if they aren't doing one of these things, then maybe you coordinate that event specifically for the scholarship fund.

In any event, it takes a lot of work to get people to donate money to a cause that doesn't impact them directly. The more band parents/former band parents/former band members/veterans/2A supporters/etc. you can target, the better the turnout will be.

TBM

[The Annoyed Man]

killerfly128, I have an idea that might be worth investigating..... check out IndieGoGo.com: https://www.indiegogo.com/. They are a crowd-funding source, but I think they also do crowd-funding for charities too.

https://www.indiegogo.com/explore?utf8= ... le=charity

[killerfly128]

Our high school band boosters started a scholarship similar to this one - it is always funded by the boosters. Every year the boosters budget the cost/amount of the scholarship into their budget. The boosters also sponsor two other band scholarships as well. The boosters fundraise throughout the year for various reasons, and allocate the funds raised to the various scholarships/expenses. If you want to increase the amount of the scholarship, then it needs to be increased in the band boosters' budget. You can solicit for donations through various sources, like you did here, but in the end it is revenue to the boosters, specifically designated to the scholarship. We always keep $1500 in a CD at the bank as back-up for the scholarship, just in case fundraising efforts fall short in any given year. This has never happened, and we have gone from the scholarship being $500 in the beginning to $1500 currently. Like you, I have had the pleasure to chair this committee through the boosters, and judge applications. If the scholarship is really important to the boosters, then work with them to increase the fundraising efforts in the community.

Examples of fundraising efforts for the scholarship that I have personally been part of/participated in/coordiated:

Bake sale at concerts/events
Spirit item sales
Community carnival/community events that the public can pay to attend
Car washes
Poker Run / Raffles / Games of Chance
Alumni Association Events (former band students who have graduated come back to the spring concert and play as a group - we call it the Alumni band)
March-A-thon

Possible options:
Coordinate with the JROTC from the school to do a joint fundraising effort, but you will probably get resistance because it is a band scholarship, open to band members only
Classic Car show to benefit the scholarship, or something like that
Advertising in the band's program - one page dedicated to those people/businesses that donate for the scholarship specifically

I know most of these methods are being employed by the band/boosters for the general funds at most schools, but if they aren't doing one of these things, then maybe you coordinate that event specifically for the scholarship fund.

In any event, it takes a lot of work to get people to donate money to a cause that doesn't impact them directly. The more band parents/former band parents/former band members/veterans/2A supporters/etc. you can target, the better the turnout will be.

TBM

Great suggestions, I will bring these up at the next board meeting.