We Plan On It

“hmmmm….that’s a good question.”

Have you ever heard that response before? We have, and, unfortunately, it seems like we’ve been hearing it a bunch more recently. We’ve been trying to figure out why some groups have stopped making cards and/or why some made cards, but never shipped them.

In terms of the first set – made some, but stopped making more – we’re still thankful for their contributions and hope they will be able to contribute again in the future. Plus, we chatted with some folks on our board and they currently said that no matter what, we should not remove any logos from our site, you’re safe here! 

Screenshot of our Silver Participants as of April 2016

“You should try it! It’s a LOT of fun!” That’s something we often discuss with other groups. We try to let groups know how hosting events is A LOT of fun AND very easy. Here are some of the main points we usually use:

• Besides shipping, it’s 100% free to make or receive cards

• It’s a great way to bring together fellow members/coworkers

• You’re putting smiles on kids’ faces!

We’re hoping as word starts to spread, people will become even more interested in participating. Then when we ask why groups can’t host another event for a while, they’re response will switch to, no WE PLAN ON IT.

If you have any insights, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us at: info@cardzforkidz.org

#UpliftingSpirits #WePlanOnIt

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Cold in the Summer

We’re trying to get this message our quickly since we still have a couple weeks left, right?

If you look at the chart at the bottom of our donation page, you’ll see why we’re getting so desperate right now - every year, we see a decline in the amount of cards made in Q3 (July-September).

We’re trying to prepare for the summer. The number one reason we see such a decline is that we don’t get cards from the majority of our schools since they are on summer break and/or trying to get acclimated to returning to classes. Overall, nearly 1/3 of our cards are from students or staff members at various schools.

Now, the one tricky part is this summer, we’re going to need a bit more cards than usual. We agreed to partner with Gift of Life to send cards to children who recently got transplants as they’re at a special summer camp. We don’t know EXACTLY when or how many cards we’ll send, but we’ll need more than the standard bare minimum of 1,540 we strive for on a quarterly basis.

Therefore, our goal is to continue to search to find new ways to get more groups to participate over the summer, BUT also work to make sure that we get as MANY cards as possible in Q2 just in case participation gets a little COLD IN THE SUMMER. Please let us know if you have any ideas on how we can increase participation over the summer.

#ColdInTheSummer #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

Organization of Our Word

Not sure if you saw some of our prior posts, but we made several promises about how we’d work to improve Cardz for Kidz overall impact. We agreed that we would first stop by updating our How To page, then the next time we wrote a personal story on our blog. Finally, we said if we didn’t meet our goal we’d start reaching out to different news sources. Here’s proof:

Tweet to the Ann Arbor News

Tweet to a newscaster in Cleveland, OH

Please let us know if you have any recommendations on how we can spread the word. Currently we haven’t heard back from any of those news channels, but we’ll keep trying. To this day, not many people have heard of us. Even some of the people who have participated in our organization, don’t know our name. In addition to contacting newspapers, we tried adding #cardsforkids just in case there were people who were using that in order to increase awareness. So much of our time now is looking into the future and thinking about how we can grow, but we’re thankful for the groups who were proud enough to support us, even before a newspaper or news channel responded.

We are an ORGANIZATION OF OUR WORD and we are continually trying to find ways to increase awareness. These next few months we’ll continue to do EVERYTHING possible to get MORE cardz to MORE kidz (e.g. call and/or simply stop by a news station).

#OrganizationOfOurWord #UpliftingSpirits

To see more pictures and stories please check out our website www.cardzforkidz.org, like us on Facebook page, follow us on Twitter , visit our Google+ page, or visit our LinkedIn page! Also, check out some of our videos on YouTube!

March Gladness

We've created a few flyers and images, but we decided to put together this short blog post to provide some more information on our March Gladness tournament.

Process and Guidelines:

1. Students and faculty can work together to get classmates and colleagues to host events or make cards independently throughout the month of March.
2.  Cardz for Kidz! will tally every card that’s received by  April 30th that meets the following guidelines:
• Cards are signed with the staff and/or student’s first name and SCHOOL.
• Cards do not say ‘Get Well Soon’ or anything else referring to the children’s condition(s).
3. Cardz for Kidz!  will set up a poll where all fans can pick to see which school has the BEST Top 10 cards.
4. School that has the highest combination of quality and quantity gets crowned the NATIONAL CHAMPION!

Rewards:

1. Bragging rights!
• Since this is open to all universities you’ll be able to claim you’re #1.
2. Lasting impact!
• The university who’s our “NATIONAL CHAMPION” gets to select which city, or at least state, Cardz for Kidz! reaches out to partner with next.

In summary, how it works is that we're going to have one overall competition to see which university can produce the most quality cards. The winner will help us decide which hospital or shelter we partner with next!

Thanks!

#MarchGladness #UpliftingSpirits