Many athletes can resonate with the fact that parents and family members are the main influencers and motivators in one's athletic career. They may have motivated us to start and shaped our goals and dreams, but with the MAKEACHAMP campaign, they can also help our athletic career keep going.
Your family members and close relatives (a.k.a your first circle of supporters) play an important role in your crowdfunding campaign. It is your job to activate the huge potential of your first circle of supporters. If done correctly, your family members will jump up from their seats and will do anything to support your campaign. Here we will outline steps to properly activate the first circle of supporters.
1. Get them involved in the campaign creation
An effective way to get your family involved in the campaign is to get them involved in the creation of the campaign. If your family member has added something to the campaign, which can be anything from the video, the campaign description to the rewards, they will feel more involved and will be more likely take a bigger role in your fundraising. Try to allocate different tasks to different family members based on their unique skills. If one of your parents has great writing capabilities send them your campaign description, they will help you write a great description and will be more involved with sharing your campaign once its launched. If your grandmother enjoys knitting or creating crafts, you can offer her specialty as a reward. Remember, you are not alone in this - it takes a community to build a champion so start getting your community involved.
2. Get them to contribute
Getting your family to contribute is an important step that is very often overlooked by the athlete running the campaign. Getting your family to contribute is essential, because it adds credibility to your campaign and makes it look successful. In terms of credibility, the friends and especially the crowd are not likely to contribute if they dont see the family members contributing. When they see that family members have jumped in, they will feel an increased responsibility to contribute. Besides legitimizing the campaign, the contributions from your first circle of supporters will make your campaign look more successful. As we know, success brings success so it is very important to show off the fact that you are getting contributions. You can start by publicly thanking your family members on Facebook as it is written in this blog. In order to make this happen, try to explain to them the importance of their contribution and we are positive they will understand.
3. Get them to share
Every single one your family members has their own circle of friends and colleagues. The success of your campaign depends on how well you are able to get your family members to spread your campaign among their circle of friends. Your parents might be able to share your campaign among their colleagues at work. Your siblings might also belong to different clubs/institutions where further support can come. Regardless of the community they belong to, they can be an active agent in your crowdfunding campaign on MAKEACHAMP.
4. Don’t just talk to them, email them
We’ve found that using emails, you can reach much better results. Furthermore, you can email your family members directly from your MAKEACHAMP account. If you can accumulate 10-15 emails and enter them into the grid available when you log into your MAKEACHAMP profile, you will have an effective campaign. Also, this way you can reach your out of town relatives that you’ve not spoken to in a while.