It’s easy to lose focus in the senior year of high school; there’s a lot of hoopla around grad with talk about limousine rides, fancy dresses and of course a big dance. But Laura MacTaggart, a participant and planner for her school’s Grad Service Committee, manages to keep everything in perspective. A senior at Ecole Secondaire Notre Dame High School, MacTaggart is not only ensuring that her graduation year is memorable, she is making sure a fellow classmate who won’t be graduating this year, is remembered.

To to honour a classmate who can’t be with her to celebrate, MacTaggart, along with other high school students, parents and teachers raised $130,000 for the Red Deer Suicide Prevention and Educational Services. “This is a very important charity to my classmates and I because suicide is a growing concern for people our age,” MacTaggart says in her EventIQ scholarship application.

What a great bunch of grads.  We are super proud to support students like these by awarding  awarding three – $500 scholarships for high school seniors in Canada.

The deadline for scholarship entries is May 15 – winners will be announced in June.  More details on the scholarship, as well as the application form itself, are here.

A hero on the hardwood, Jordan Kelso doesn’t need lessons in how to be motivated.

Kelso, a Frank Maddock High School senior, doesn`t have much space in his trophy case – he’s been part of two league championship teams, won several tournaments and was named the school’s Outstanding Male Athlete of the Year.

It wasn`t until he met 16-year-old Eric Stitzenberger that he was truly inspired. Stitzenberger  was asked to serve as the team’s manager; filling up water bottles and helping out in practice. Knowing that Stitzenberger was passionate and knowledgeable about the game, but an unlikely candidate to hit the hardwood because he has Down Syndrome. Kelso was motivated to become a mentor.

“I feel as though I have been able to enhance his quality of life and make a difference to him and his family by taking him each week to do regular activities,” Kelso says in his EventIQ Scholarship Story.

We have three scholarships available for high school seniors – each worth $500. The deadline for applications is May 15 – winners and a runner up for each of the three scholarships will be published in the SchoolTools Newsletter on June 12.

Kelso and Stitzenberger bonded, forging a strong friendship off the court. And despite all his accomplishments on the court, Kelso now seems to care less about the scoreboard and more about the well-being of his friend Eric.

“We have created a true friendship that we will both cherish for the rest of our lives,” he says.

Alberta Technology Leader in Education is a conference that supports education through the convergence of learning, leadership and technology. Kelsea Rose Klassen, a student who is currently becoming a teacher shares her experience with last year’s conference and how informative the keynote speaker Drew Dudley was. What I couldn’t agree more is what she takes away from the conference.

“We have to take pride in our accomplishments, especially as future teachers, because we are role models and if we can not accept a compliment how are we supposed to teach others to.  We build trust with people in our lives by being kind and gracious and taking the time to appreciate others in kind.  Small reassurances and recognitions can have the largest impact on all facets of a person’s life and we must try to make people know that they matter on a daily basis.”

Klassen also visited several vendor booths at the conference and provides her opinion about them, including InviteRight.

“InviteRight has a great concept to eliminate inefficient paper usage for forms in schools.  Dave and Ryan (I forgot to write down their last names) were eager to talk about their product and had plenty of information right there as examples.  The company helps with organizing consent forms, school lunch orders, ticket purchases, and even school course registration.  They also keep track of the accounting associated with many of these forms to make it easier for secretaries and the like to use their simple program instead of a pile of envelopes with money and forms.  I would definitely use them in the future as I remember how difficult it was to schedule courses on paper for high school and wait for hours to fix it.”

You can read more about her experience at the conference on her blog here.

A common question from non-InviteRight users is what happens when guests RSVP or register for their event? Where does the information go?

One of the best features about using InviteRight is you have access to every guest response whenever you want it, simply by signing into your administration area. And guests are automatically send a confirmation email listing their RSVP/registration details.

After you have opened your event to registration, sign in to your Administration Area to view who has responded for each event created. From your admin area you can also:

1. View a summary of all the guests coming to your event
2. Add and edit details of each response
3. Sort, search, and export a report of your responses/registrations
4. View all the events and event forms you have created

For a more in-depth explanation of searching, sorting and filtering your guest responses, check out our FAQ page. And if you want to learn more about how to look like a hero to your finance people, read Eric’s blog on custom reporting.

Working for eventIQ has given me the luxury of experiencing many different types of events and while every gala has similarities – tables, chairs, food – each one has something unique about it.

Even though I’ve managed to hang around here for two years now, I still haven’t experienced as many fundraising events David Kravinchuk who works with fundraisers to enhance their donor campaigns. Kravinchuk, who cut his fundraising teeth at the MS Society of Canada and now consults through Fundraising Pharmacy, recently spoke at a luncheon for the Association of Fundraising Professionals in Edmonton.

In his blog he gives five ideas to save your next fundraising event:

1. Invite the right people.  Make sure you have a healthy mix of donors at your event. And they can be an excellent time to inspire loyal annual giving donors to increase their giving level or make a stretch gift.
2. Make your mission the shining star.  Even if you have a ‘celebrity’ hosting or appearing your event, make sure that it’s your mission that is the biggest star.  Have the people your charity serves play key roles at the event by delivering a passionate speech, thanking people for coming at the door or handwriting personal welcome notes to use as place cards.
3. Remind people why they are there.  Set a goal for the evening and let your attendees know. Give them updates throughout the night, thanking them often along the way.  Try cutting one speech for every fundraising milestone achieved.
4. Show your work.  Get your event attendees excited by showing them the work you will accomplish with the funds raised that night.  Have the doctor who will be using it give a short presentation about what it will do and the impact it will have on an individual patient.
5. Do something awesome.  This is the hard one, but you’re smart and creative.  One of my favourite ideas is a stroke of genius a former colleague of mine had while she was working for a big-city hospital foundation. She did a live auction of naming rights for hospital rooms at their gala dinner!

So, please give it another go.  It is possible to raise more money, control costs and create a brilliant and memorable event.

Congratulations to our Business Development Director Ryan Godfrey for his second new born baby!

Kaida Kobylka loves makeup…and painting.

The Grade 12 student at Strathcona Composite High School is behind-the-scenes during the drama production, but the impact of her work is noticed nonetheless.

Strathcona is known to many in Canada as THE track and field school, but the school also has plenty of credentials when it comes to drama productions. Kobylka says a few friends in Drama 30 vaulted her into stage makeup. And when a friend asked if she would provide her services for a play they were directing in the school’s OneAct Festival (plays directed by Grade 12 students and student cast and crew), she did not hesitate to say ‘yes.’

Thanks to a friend who wanted to direct a play in the school’s OneAct Festival (plays directed by Grade 12 students and student cast and crew), Kobylka now can add gory looking burns, scars and cuts as well as beautiful sets, to her list of many artistic accomplishments. And in June she hopes to have $500 for university thanks to the EventIQ scholarship.

The deadline for scholarship entries is May 15 – winners will be announced in June.

“My makeup horrified people,” she says in her EventIQ scholarship application. Kobylka did the makeup for the actors and actresses appearing in the play The Most Massive Woman Wins.

“They craned their necks to get a better look at the burn, cringed when they saw her arms,” Kobylka says of the special effects makeup she did for an actress whose character in the play reveals trauma from a fire.

“I knew I had done well, however, when an audience member later admitted that she had struggled with an eating disorder, and, for the first time, felt like she was understood when she saw our play.”

Each scholarship is worth $500 and is open to high school seniors who are student-athletes, involved with the arts or who make an extra effort to make grad the best experience possible.

For details on how your students can qualify, read our blog.

If your annual giving program is feeling a little under-the-weather, David Kravinchuk can give you a remedy.

A fundraising consultant and self-proclaimed dispenser of free advice, Kravinchuk dolled out plenty of tonic at the Edmonton Association of Fundraising Professional luncheon April 4. Believe it or not, direct mail should still be part of your campaign strategy.

“I’ve been talking a lot to clients who are examining their annual giving programs and are wanting to go to the next level. Mail still forms the backbone of gift programs across the country.”

(more…)

When it comes to graduations and school events, InviteRight SchoolTools‘ membership list is key. Today we’ve introduced major improvements to this feature that will make graduation coordinators and event organizers look even smarter to their students and attendees.

In case you’re not familiar with what the membership list is or how it works — Typically schools will use the Membership List feature to limit the number of tickets sold at one time. By restricting the Student ID to only be used one time, the organizers ensure that only those eligible to attend the event or graduation ceremony are coming.

Another example of how the membership list can be used is to ensure that any outstanding student fees are cleared up with the school before the student is allowed to proceed with buying tickets for their grad banquet.

The membership list is also a great tool for giving discounts to volunteers or students who have done fundraising and for those events that involve free and paid tickets. Now that you’re caught up, here’s what’s new with the membership list:

• Ability to set organizer member holds and enter custom description of hold (reason for hold)
• For organizers – now your list loads 2x faster
• Improved filtering and searching capabilities
• Improved adding and editing existing members
• Membership discounts can now be applied incrementally based on how many times they use their ID

Hear an audio clip from a graduation coordinator at St. Francis Xavier High School in Edmonton that used the membership list feature to recover $70,000 in outstanding student fees. Click here to listen.

To learn more about adding and editing the membership list, read our FAQ pages which answer common questions or call us at 1-866-811-3144.

Since he picked up two candlesticks and started mimicking playing the violin, Rafael Piesiur has worked hard at his craft and remained a top student.

A violinist since he was 5, Rafael plans to play his heart out to fellow grads and their guests this spring when he too graduates from Old Scona Academic High School in Edmonton.

Rafael is one of many Grade 12 students that have applied for one of three EventIQ scholarships this year. Each scholarship is worth $500 and is open to high school seniors who are student-athletes, involved with the arts or who make an extra effort to make grad the best experience possible. For details on how your students can qualify, read our blog.

The deadline for entries is May 15 – winners will be announced in June.

Rafael has some major accomplishments: two finals at the Northern Alberta Concerto Competition, five nominations for the Alberta Provincial Music Festival – including one second place finish in 2005 and one first place finish in 2011, as well as being a member of the Edmonton Youth Orchestra for eight years (four as concertmaster).

Another Acting Out Scholarship applicant, Bailey Wright of Neelin High School in Brandon, MB., says performing is her life. Certainly she’s been lucky to combine her love of performing and school as she’s been in 19 school productions in addition to dance, choir and musical theatre lessons.

“Performing has made me into the person I am today, and has taught me so much about responsibility, team work, and learning to push yourself out of your comfort zone, Wright says. “I couldn’t imagine not being able to perform anymore which is why I plan to minor in Drama Performance at University which is where I would use the money if I were to win the Scholarship.”

Hearing that is certainly music to our ears Bailey! Good luck to you and all the other scholarship candidates!