Zero

Last spring, when Megan and I organized the Lost Stork Foundation's first raffle for National Infertility Awareness Week, we didn't get much of a response. We chalked it up to last-minute planning, the fact that not many people are going through infertility treatments and even then there's a wide range of treatments, and the fact that the raffle didn't last too long. So our last raffle was a bit of learning opportunity for us.

This time, when I organized the adoption raffle, I was prepared. I got all my donations well in advance, promoted like crazy, and even offered a separate raffle for those who wanted to support our organization but weren't going through adoption. We also lowered the cost of the raffle tickets from $5 each to $2 each and had the raffle going for two solid weeks.

We sold zero tickets.

ZERO.

I feel upset, discouraged and embarrassed all at the same time. I have no idea what went wrong. We had awesome donors and we made sure that everyone in the adoption community knew about our raffle, yet nobody participated. Yet every single day I have people who find my blog by searching "fundraisers" or "infertility grants" or some other keyword on that subject. It just seems like everyone wants a handout from an organization that has money to give but they don't want to help out when there's an organization who's trying to build up funds to help them.

It's left me questioning what my future is with the Lost Stork Foundation. With our adoption looming I know I won't be able to put forth the same effort I gave for this last raffle. And with the response we got I'm not sure I'd even want to do that again. It's very discouraging to try and build up and organization that's meant to help others and then fail miserably at it.

Megan thinks we should just hold a giveaway in honor of National Adoption Awareness Month. Part me thought the appropriate thing to do is to return the donations if we're not using them for the intended purpose, which is to raise money for our foundation. For now though, I don't want to think about it. The gifts for the Family Fun Night were all purchased by me so as the donor I've decided to donate them to Toys for Tots. There were a few other items I contributed in the adoption raffle so if there's a giveaway then they will stay within the giveaway.

There's an adoption-related post up on the private blog.