Nonprofit Book Drive In Atlanta, Georgia

Nonprofit Book Drive in Atlanta, Georgia

Introduction

Organizing and creating a nonprofit community book fundraiser will take good people, a smart location, and tools to accomplish the goal of raising money for the Literacy Program. Rules and regulations for creating a nonprofit organization along with the fund that will benefit from the fundraiser are good places to start. We will need to fundraise by sending out letters to corporations, creating a Facebook page for information, and maybe having a raffle to encourage donations. Followed by finding churches or business to place the bins for collections of books. Using flyers posted around the area, business and post cards, and radio announcements to get the word out to members of the community for donations of books or money. Supplies for the book drive will be plenty. Things such as books, tables, chairs, boxes to place around the area for collection, volunteers to pick up books, cash registers, petty cash, snack food, and other necessities. The Georgia World Congress Center is enough space to have the books separated from the snack area to keep the books protected. There will be appreciation letters sent out to donators. Also being sent out or given at time of donation will be tax letter to incorporate into your federal tax return at the end of the year.

Rules, Regulation

There are rules and regulations on becoming a nonprofit organization in Atlanta, Georgia. Our organization must pick a name not being used and register it with the State of Georgia. If they approve it you must then apply to the IRS for exempt status and if that returns clear you may proceed to file the status with the State and publish your "notice of intent to incorporate". (Irvin, R.A, 2005) At this point, people may try to stop you from becoming a nonprofit organization. There are different reasons for which others can block your attempt to incorporate. After two weeks of publishing, you may then return to the IRS and ask for your tax exempt number. Then you may begin to use your identification number to start organizing the fundraiser.

Donations and Fundraising

One way to raise money for the book drive will be to create a fundraiser page on Facebook. Facebook is a great venue to spark interest in people on different topics, completing this page in advance of the book drive, to create support for the cause. To help to encourage donations, if one thousand dollars donated within 24 hours (Austin, 2010), a large donor or group of donors can agree to do a match on a set on that dollar amount. The page will need to be updated daily leading up to the book drive. Workers for the book drive will spread the word about the page and invite everyone they know to be a part of the project. A fundraiser web page will also be needed to collect the funds with a PayPal account. The web page will have information about why we are starting a book drive and list the ways the funds raised will help with Literacy. There should also be an address to mail books; this would be needed for people out of the local area to send in books. With any fundraising, accountability for finances is of the highest importance. The committee will ensure that all funds raised go to the Literacy program or donated to a like cause if there are excess funds. Some of the funds can also be used to entice further donations. Examples of this would be to purchase a kindle for a raffle. To get tickets for the raffle a person must donate three books. After the book drive, the winner of the raffle will be randomly drawn and contacted as well as posted on the Facebook book drive page.

Flyers and business cards will be dispersed around Atlanta to promote interest in the book drive. Flyers will contain the location, time, date, and other details about the book drive, along with a link to the Facebook page for the fundraiser. While this approach may not reach as many people, it will attract more mature people that could be willing to donate more books, garnering as much publicity as possible for the fundraiser and book drive. Local radio stations will also be contacted to gain airtime reaching all of the listeners in the area. Creating a basic ad about when and where the book drive is being held.

Book Drive Supplies and Cost

The supplies needed for such an event is extensive. One of the biggest items on the list would be volunteers. We need them to work the drive, collect books from locations, set up, clean up, and any other tasks needed for the book drive to be successful. Depending on the venue chosen we may need to rent tables and chairs to place the books on and for volunteers to sit on. Books and donations to buy books are top on the list as well as boxes to place at the drop locations for the donation of books. Tags to mark each books price, making it easier to check out each purchase. Petty cash, paper receipt books, and square-up card reader are needed to check out the customers buying books. Snack food such as cookies, cakes, candies, coffee, tea, and any other food products that we can get donated. Suppliers can donate food, or we can ask food vendors to come in and sell their food donating twenty percent of their sales to the fundraiser. Databases will be created to record all donations, names of companies donating, and volunteers working. The data will be helpful in sending out appreciation letters and tax deduction letters. Keeping track of money, donations coming in, and profit from sales will also go into a database for record keeping. The cost associated with creating this organization and acquiring the supplies is great. You must take into consideration all of the electronic device needed, paper products, bags, and incidentals. The total cost for starting up a project like this fund raiser will be approximately $2600. This cost can be cut greatly if some of the businesses would be willing to donate some of the items that we will need for start-up.

When, Where and Who

A nonprofit book drive being held on a Saturday, December 6, 2014 starting at 8am-7pm at Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) which is located downtown at: 285 Andrew Young International Blvd NW Atlanta, GA 30313 (404) 223-4000. The building offers a variety of different sizes to accommodate anyone planning to have an event. For a room that is 4,239 square feet the fee for renting a room that size would be $260. Now, as to how many can fit in a room that size, there are options one can pick as to if they want a theater type room which holds 516, classroom type holds 250, and a banquet type of room will hold 270. The Congress Center is a great location being located in the heart of Atlanta, which is 3.9