Fine Arts is fabulous and fun!
The Department of Fine Arts at University of Lethbridge designed custom buttons to be used as swag for prospective students. They will be given away after presentations by their recruitment officer and during Experience Fine Arts Day at the University.
They will be highly sought after - who doesn’t want a cool button for free!
Connect:
Website: http://www.uleth.ca/finearts/
FacebookNon-Profits, Not-for-Profits, Charities, Organizations all need to raise funds for their causes. There are many ways to do this. Many of them get into the junkmail business, many canvas door to door or on street corners. Many of the canvassers do not even care for the cause and are paid quite well for bugging people. The large charities employ sub-contractors to knock on doors and if they make a sale of, say, a $10 monthly subscription the first 2 years or as much as $240 will go to the sub-contracting company and only the subscriptions in the third year and beyond benefit the charity. I know I’m going to get angry emails from the large charities telling me “It’s only the first years subscription that goes to the sub-contractor” but whatever the deal is and I know they vary, I don’t think the generous subscriber new they were filling the coffers of the for-profit canvassing company. Full disclosure and real volunteers would be a better way to go, but I actually believe these charities harm their image when they call people on the phone during dinner or knock on doors when people are relaxing (or sleeping). As for the junk mail? That’s just got to stop. Our household has given annualy to possibly 10 charities for years. We probably get more than 1000 letters a year. Yes averaging more than 3 unnecessary letters a day. You could argue that’s a lot of trees but it’s also a lot of cash that should be going to saving whales, fighting climate change, or building women’s shelters. It should be used for whatever the money was actually intended for.
Darfur, Sudan relief
Anti-poverty
Haiti relief
campaign button
fundraising button
fundraiser
Fundraising with buttons is extremely low cost, fun, attracts new subscribers and interested parties and does not bug anybody because people come to you
There are many ideas for using buttons to fundraise and I will layout a few ideas to show that instead of sending junk mail getting a button maker is a better investment.
1) Buttons are a low cost way to promote your organization. Get your name logo out there. It’s obvious but simple.
2) But what about a “Make your own buttons table” in front of your office, at street festivals, yard sales, schools, universities or any public events. As well as your button maker you need blank circles, crayons, pens and markers. Get people to draw their designs and put it in a button for them right there and then. People will flock to your table and as they come they will bring more people (naturally, you don’t have to set up a robocall) Make it for a donation for your cause and you will get $5, $10 for a button that costs 8 cents. I once even got $50 for a single button because the donor believed in the cause. You should also have your own designs available at the table for people who don’t want to draw. Not just a button with your logo but a load of buttons that are relevant for your cause. Make them funny, make them pertinent, make them serious. Make some radical and some gentle. Have buttons that describe the full array of your cause with humour and with passion. All the time people stand at your table, reading your button designs, more people will come. ( You won’t have to bludgeon anyone with your clipboard anymore, they will come to you.)
Do get a graphic designer to design your buttons! Good design is the key!!!
3) Got something interesting on your website? Draw traffic to the page with a QR code. What’s a QR code?
Pin-back buttons, pins, badges or whatever you call them are an ideal vehicle for promoting websites but what about a button that can be scanned on a cellphone and the image takes the cellphone user straight to your website.
QR codes don’t just need to go to a homepage, you can generate a QR code to lead a browser to any web address, to a special offer page, to a secret page or a surprise page. Follow a QR code button on your smart phone and see where you end up!
4) Use your button maker as a tool to leverage volunteers. If you have a large number of volunteers coming in to help then that’s great but you need a way to utilise that people power. You also need a way to give those that do volunteer a sense of satisfaction, the sense that there voluntary labour was put to good use. I used to be involved in an organization that had lots of walk-in volunteers. I found that if I invested time in explaing tasks to them I would sometimes be dissapointed as they could loose interest and drift away. On asking I found they often thought the volunteer jobs pointless. But explaining to a new volunteer how to make buttons takes literally a minute or two. They work away at making buttons and as the finished buttons pile up they get a sense of achievement. You can use the button maker to judge staying power in your new volunteer. Once they have proved themselves making buttons for your next event, you can invest some time and take them to the next level, they have earnt it.
5) A printing press in your office. Once you get good at making buttons you can publish a new button even daily, it takes minutes. As and when a new campaign slogan comes up, a reaction to a press release or a new idea formulates; put it on a button. Have new designs on the website with a pile of freebies at the front desk for drop ins, for a donation or otherwise. Those buttons will go forward and spread the word. Let your supporters spread the word for you.
Syndicated blog from TheButtonGuy.netHi Yes Tecre or all good button makers are fixed. There are 2 problems with interchangeable die button makers.
I would always recommend a solid metal button maker, no plastic parts (on the button maker or the button parts) and the button maker should be of a standard North American size so that you can use cheap, good quality button parts. At the end of the day your customers, clients or purchases of your buttons don’t care how you made your buttons. But they do want an excellent quality all metal button and you want to produce that at the best price – so get a Tecre Button Maker.
Looks all very well but the white plastic base will wear out pretty quickly and the button maker will not align any more
All metal, solid steel, no plastic – How a button maker should be!
Tecre button maker with the distinctive black with red handle.
Syndicated blog from TheButtonGuy.net
Check out these awesome custom campaign buttons for University of Toronto. They are part of a
February campaign called Joy at U of T that is primarily Twitter based. The purpose of the campaign is
to help combat the February blahs and spread some JOY on campus. Last year, they
did the campaign online only, but this year the student staff expressed concern
that they were forcing students to go online to find JOY and that it should be
done also in person. So they had the idea of creating buttons
that the staff could distribute on campus to make people happy and spread a
little joy. Great Idea and nice buttons!
Connect:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/search/realtime?q=%23joyatUofT&src=savs
Pesticide Free Roses
I am pleased to see that stronger magnets are now available so that there’s a bit of a snap to the magnet button when it goes on the fridge. Of course you can use rare earth magnets but ouch! They are expensive. But ceramic magnets seem to be available at about the same price as the peel n’ stick magnets. Ceramic just looks way better as well as being stronger!
Ceramic magnets are stronger and can also improve the look of the back of the button.
I see the new ceramic magnets available for 1″, 1-1/4″, 1-1/2″ and 1-3/4″ are now available from some distributors.
Checkout your favourite distributor and make your magnet buttons even better!
The Button Guy
Syndicated blog from TheButtonGuy.net
A Cutting Pair
Rotary cutters are perfect for cutting circles out of paper or fabric. They are built to last and come in all sizes for button making.
