Thread: Shimmying for a Cause

The subject of teaching belly dance to breast cancer patients has come up in a couple of threads recently, so I thought it might be good to dedicate a thread where everyone who wants to do dance-related project to help fight breast cancer or other illnesses could post what you're doing.

I know a lot of dancers have organized shows, charged an admission fee, and donated the proceeds to breast cancer research.

Maybe one of our UK colleagues could post a link to the official Just Because web site and tell us what kind of progress they're making?

In my next message, I'll post an update on what I'm up to.

My sister-in-law is a surgeon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and 100% of her work is breast surgeries. That's all she does. Nothing else. My husband and I are going there to spend Christmas with her and her family.

She and I have decided to team up with a Sioux Falls yoga studio to offer a one-time 2-hour beginner-level belly dance class while I'm there as a benefit to cancer patients. Here are the details:

• Cancer patients and survivors may take the class at no charge. Not just breast cancer patients, but people fighting any kind of cancer.
• Other people must pay $30 for a 2-hour class.
• 100% of the money for the class fees goes to a local Sioux Falls non-profit called Therapeutic Healing Institute. (Web site is The Therapeutic Healing Institute if you're curious - among other things, they do free massages for cancer patients who are currently undergoing chemo or radiation therapy.) My sister-in-law chose them to be the beneficiary because they provide direct, hands-on help to people who are intensely stressed out about their fight with cancer.
• The yoga studio is donating the space.
• My sister-in-law will be putting posters up in her exam rooms and helping get the word out, to help us reach as many patients as possible.

I like the fact that the proceeds are going to Therapeutic Healing Institute instead of to a big faceless research organization because locally-donated money will go to help local people who need help in a big way. It'll be tangible, hands-on help to assist individuals in coping.

If anyone is curious, my press release draft is at Dancers for Cancer Workshop Press Release . I may fine-tune it a bit as I run it past my sister-in-law and the yoga studio for review.

I've been doing some research on the particular issues that cancer patients may encounter in class so I can anticipate those and make pre-emptive comments to put people at their ease.

Here's the promotional poster. It will be placed in the exam rooms of the surgeon's office, and at the yoga studio. I'm not sure where else they might put it - I'm leaving it up to the surgeon and the yoga studio to get the word out:

this is just because's website

Just Because......it's a matter of life and dance | Home

what they do is trying to get enough funding together to keep a mobile mammography unit running for three years, in egypt. 100nds of dancers in the UK have contributed with hafla's, raffles, shimmathons etc. have a look at the website, you can also donate a small sum via paypall, from wherever you are in the world!


i'm dedidicating my first festival to this charity, (Buikdanseres Artemisia). all the performers (my students but also severa professional working dancers) have donated their performance, and i'm hoping to make a good chunk of money for just because

we will also be working together with a local breastcancer prevention unit and a revalidation centre, to raise awareness.

worldbellydance day in belgium (sometime in may) will be working together with the pink ribbon campaign. but i dont have any more info on that one yet

Our university dance troupe decided to start running our annual spring show as a benefit last year. Previously, the proceeds had gone towards funding the troupe , but, now that we're financially secure, we thought the money could be put to better use elsewhere. The troupe is non-professional, and we perform primarily at campus and intercollegiate events.

Hunger and homelessness are major problems in our city, so we chose the Downtown Evening Soup Kitchen, which provides soup kitchen and food pantry services to the community, as our beneficiary organization. We use a campus theatre that's free to student groups, and all of our other performance-related expenses are covered by our university's student organization funding committee, so we were able to donate 100% of our ticket price.

In the end we raised over $1050 for DESK, and, barring some unforeseen financial crisis for our club, we plan to make this an annual event from now on. Plus, running the show as a benefit for the soup kitchen means we can keep using this catchy name!

Here's the promotional poster that we used to advertise around campus:

That sounds like a great event! I would like to donate time to help the cause, I can perform or help out with the show ..g.:

Jennifer

Originally Posted by jenluv93

That sounds like a great event! I would like to donate time to help the cause, I can perform or help out with the show ..g.:

Jennifer

Donna Diva is having one in April, 2009. Check out her website Diva Ventures || Chicago Suburban Belly Dance Classes | Workshops | Hula | Roselle

Originally Posted by bonnywhiteford

Donna Diva is having one in April, 2009. Check out her website Diva Ventures || Chicago Suburban Belly Dance Classes | Workshops | Hula | Roselle

And Atereen is having one in February in Rockford as well. I think all the performance spots are taken, but I sure she could never have too many helper habibis.

Here's a question for everyone who does events to raise money for causes...

How much assistance do you get from the benefiting organization?

Do they help you promote it? Do they put up posters at their facility, or facilitate interviews with the media, or notify their e-mailing list, or mention it in their newsletters?

Do they send volunteers to help you with stuff like setup, clean-up, taking money at the door, etc?

Do they use their relationships with local supporting businesses to get you discounts on printing your flyers, posting those flyers in places that would normally accept only non-profit stuff, etc?

Or do they simply let you do all the work and limit their involvement to signing the check that you present to them?

i think that really depends on what kind of organisation your are speaking off. a local, community based kind of thing or a nationwide charity or..., and on whether that organisation has any volunteers/paid employees that are able to help out, etc etc etc.

Shira, At the event that my organization that we just held. They took some posters and sold some tickets. They also helped with getting items for the raffle and silent auction. But other than that we took care of everything. They gave us their tax ID number so we can give that to local business who donated their services (as well as businesses who donated their goods). We asked them to speak for about 10 minutes at the event as well as a table for them set up a knowledge table.

They didn't know a lot about the belly dance community and absolutely loved the show. BTW-we raised a little of 7K. I am so excited we did that as this was our first time doing a charity event this size.

I get very little help from the organization. Everything is done as a 3rd party fundraiser. I usually just transfer the money via check by the end of the night. I did have assistance finding dj who is volunteering her time though. I attached a flyer.

Funds are raise by cover charge, 50/50 raffle, item raffle, and vendor donations.

[QUOTE=*Shira*;310525]Here's a question for everyone who does events to raise money for causes...

How much assistance do you get from the benefiting organization?
QUOTE]

We've done 5 "Shimmy for the Cure" events so far, and after the first one, where the proceeds went directly to the Komen Foundation, and where we got no support from the organization itself and just sent a check, the proceeds have gone directly to individuals who are pledged to walk in the 3-Day Breast Cancer Walk, or similar event.

Our last event was co-sponsored by the Ladies' Auxiliary of the VFW who asked us to help them raise money for their cancer support and services fund, where all of the money is used in the local community to help victims of all types of cancer and their families. So you could say the Auxiliary is the "benefiting" organization. We've found that everyone attending our event is happy to hear their donations stay local, or where they meet the person they're helping (i.e., the Walkers), rather than proceeds going into a large foundation where some of the money is used for salaries and promotions.

The Auxiliary donated the room for the event (where previously we paid a fee), one of their ladies, who is a caterer, gave us a great price on the food, and they did a great job of promoting the event with the local newspaper and radio station, as well as selling tickets to their members. They helped set up and tear down, clean up. And they enjoyed the evening so much, before we left for home, we got out our calendars and scheduled the next one.

We get some help from the local businesses as far as displaying posters, donating items or services for the raffle, but we don't waste a lot of time going door to door or cold-calling businesses that we don't normally have contact with. We ask our vendors -- who do not pay for space -- to donate one or two items off their tables for the raffle, and we have a 50/50 money raffle which is very popular.

Our event, after having organized so many, pretty much runs itself. We have boiler-plates for tickets, promotional materials, show programs, etc., so it is very easy to change the details and get the printing done. As soon as we confirm a date for the event, I put the word out and ask for volunteer performers. Our next event is April 26 and we already have a very full lineup of performers.

We have averaged raising about $1500 at each event we have held. And we've had attendance numbers from 120 to 200 (including performers).

I'm happy to share any other information I have in my files, including boiler-plate forms, to anyone contemplating a benefit event. The members of my troupe, Amirah and Anisah -- and our friend Atareen -- have all done the work for you. Please feel free to take advantage of our experience and knowledge of running these types of events. If you have a cause, and you are willing to do a bit of work to help it, we'll be happy to help you get going.

Donna

Well, on a more local note... one of our own community members just finished her treatments for breast cancer. She had a mastectomy as well as suffering through chemo & radiation.

We did a local hafla & silent auction and raised nearly $1000 for her. She cried when I have her the cash. *sniff* It was a great event and everyone really came out and helped.

It's nice to see the bigger projects people are organizing too.

I'm actually in a fundraising team of student/amateur dancers - we participate in the Breast Cancer Network of Strength (formerly Y-Me) Walk to Empower as Team Bellies for Breasts - we walk with everyone (in costume) and we donate performance time on the day of the walk as well.

We don't receive any more assistance than any other regular team, I think.

We're still working on better fundraising ideas, so far the best has been a restaurant relaxed hafla where the audience members could pay to pick a song and the dancer - that was a lot of fun as we had a lot of non-bellydance music on the list. I think the favorite was the Mexican Hat Dance...

The studio I study at held a "Shake What Your Momma Gave Ya!" mother's day workshop and breast cancer research fundraiser. It apparently went really well, lots of mothers and daughters having a good time.

i am getting really excited about my event. at first i didnt think i'd really get into "how much money will we raise", but since it's going so well (ticket sales), i'm starting to dream of nice numbers... i am so happy i decided to do this, and already starting to think about doing this again in a year or two.

A portion of the proceeds from all San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of MECDA events goes to Next Door Solutions to Domestic Violence in San Jose, California. They do not send any assistance, but we never expect any from them. For the next event see SFBA MECDA Events