25 May 2010 No Comments
Fundraiser Spotlight: Ian Ranshaw for Lupus Alliance of America
Ian didn’t expect to lose his daughter Timberly to Lupus, but he is not giving up hope for other Lupus patients and is determined to spread the word about the potentially life-threatening autoimmune disease that affects over 1 million Americans.
His family participated in the Walk for Lupus in Lapeer MI this year to raise money for Lupus research through the Lupus Alliance of America – Michigan Indiana Affiliate. Since May is Lupus awareness month, we are sharing Ian’s story and his experience with FirstGiving.
Why is raising money for this cause important to you?
Simply put, it means we are that much closer to finding a cure. I think of each dollar as a baby step towards getting closer to the cure. If you take a bunch of baby steps eventually you will get there. There hasn’t been a new drug on the market to help Lupus patients in over fifty years. So if it takes me to collect baby steps to get there..I am all in!!
What has surprised you about your fundraising experience?
How generous people really are. We had our first ever Lupus walk on May 16th in Memory of my Daughter, Timberly, who passed from complications from Lupus on May 20th last year. We raised over 17,000 baby steps for the Lupus Alliance. We were blown away by the generosity of the people who gave the sponsors, volunteers, and those who donated through FirstGiving.com.
We never imagined raising that much money for our first walk, especially during these hard economic times.
What has been the most challenging?
When we started this walk, I told my wife that I just didn’t want people to come and donate without learning about Lupus. I wanted them to know what it is and what effect it has on the lives of those with the disease. I think we accomplished that but since Lupus is such a complicated disease, we had a hard time determining what exactly we wanted them to learn about it.
So we put up over 20 “Did you Know” signs throughout the mile walk. And I heard a lot of “I didn’t know that” coming from a lot of people who were walking. We do feel that Lupus doesn’t get the recognition it deserves through the media outlets across the globe, mainly because they don’t understand it, but we hope to change that one person at a time.
How has FirstGiving helped with your fundraising?
FirstGiving has help reach the people who could not attend the walk. And for those who live out of state and wished to donate. I had a classmate and his wife donate from Missouri, which was a big surprise to us. We raised over 1200 dollars through FirstGiving and we will use it again next year and hopefully reach out to even more people across the country. The best thing about it was, it is so easy to use for those wishing to donate to your cause.
How are you using social media to help your campaign?
We used Facebook to get the word out about our walk. It was amazing to see the number of people confirmed keep growing and growing. We had over 500 people attend our walk and 400 of them were confirmed on Facebook. It’s a great networking tool to get the word out about your event and your fundraising page.
If your fundraising page could play a song, what song would it be?
Cinderella by Steven Curtis Chapman…it makes me think of Timberly :)
To learn more about Lupus click here. To view the page in Timberly’s memory, click here.
