Funraising

[Dustdevil]

Is it an EMS organisation, or a fire department? Ideas would vary between the two.

Honestly, a building is just a place to house your trucks. I'm always amused at departments raising a million dollars for a station to house ten year old trucks run by volunteers who don't know how to even operate them properly.

If you can raise $800k, you can afford to pay professionals, or to at least pay for serious education of your volunteers. To not do so is seriously negligent.

[emt12resq]

I never once said we couldn't "afford" to pay for professionals we just choose not to. Our county has paid crews at many of the other departments. The department I run for however just chooses not to ask for paid crew because we have it covered. Our guys/girls get paid by there jobs to run calls. As I've said before we don't get many calls anyway. It would be pointless to put a paid crew in such a low call area when the volunteers have it covered. I'm not saying it won't happen one day but as for now we don 't really need it. We don't have any failure to respond and our response time is actually better than most of the county paid people.

As for now we are just trying to make the best of everything. Our department just merged a few years ago so we're trying to get a new building to store both ambulances and fire trucks in the same building. The same with many of the departments in county that are paid. So we're not the only ones getting a new facility!

[Just Plain Ruff]

I'll address two things.

to get participation - tell the crews that they cannot run the calls without participating with other parts of the job such as helping to raise money. Make it part of the requirements of joining. Your members think it's great that they volunteer so why don't you make it a requirement that they help out with the scut work.

Second - is the fire department paid? do they get taxes paid for by the citizens of the county???? IF they get taxes then make their asses pay for most of the building. That's what county taxes are for. If your service merged and you are all volunteer than I retract the above. but you didn't say if your fire department was paid.

[emt12resq]

Our fire department and rescue squad merged together. We're all one company now. Our asst. chief is going to ask the county for some of the money because we aren't a paid company yet and haven't asked for a crew. We are just trying to get and idea for somethings in case that fails.

[Just Plain Ruff]

ok, why go with a new building when you can convert a comparable building for less.

I'm not sure if you have any comparable buildings but where were the trucks housed before the merge?

Why not use that building and just expand it? I gather from your posts already that you don't need bunks since you are not a paid service. If you don't need bunks then you won't need a lot of crew's quarters space.

You could probably get an existing building with more space for cheaper than you could build one.

[itku2er]

Don't know if you all can do it but Bingo is a good option. We have done it a few times at the vollie squad i belong to. But alot has to be done with it to set it up with all the laws and stuff. But its a good money maker.

Terr

[SSG G-man]

Our department and several local departments are having great success with Texas Hold 'em tournaments.

[emt12resq]

Sorry Ruff i didn't mention that. We actually are adding onto our rescue squad building. Our squad already has bunks in case of us going on a code red along with a kitchen, three bathrooms, an office and then the bay where we store our ambulances and squad. We just need a place now to bring in our fire trucks. It was too hard to find a level area for a building since we live in the mountains. The community wouldn't be too fond of us relocating either, that was one big concern when we started. Our first blue print was going to have two stories and now we reduced it to all one floor. Everything is just so expensive now a days.

Anyway I was thinking about a cake walk or christmas candy. Since the holidays are coming up does anyone have any ideas?

[RuralEMT-I]

Plenty of grants available out there, some from the government, some from private organizations. Our agency is in the process of developing a plan for a new building. We just finished a new training building and now we want to build our own bay and move our business office there as well. Currently, we rent bay space in an old gross building. We are planning on half a million for this project. We will have some seed money of our own but the majority of the funds will come from grants.

[emt12resq]

I think our company is trying to raise as much money on its own before we start asking. I don't know... we just got done with our haunted hayride fundraiser and we did pretty good on that. The problem with fundraising is its a great idea until we ask for help. Everyone says they will show up but then they don't! There is so much drama and gossip in our company that its pushing people away and then they don't want to do anything. Not only does it have and effect on our income but the community sees it as well and then they don't wat to help anymore. I just need so me ideas to make it fun again!!! make people want to be a part of our volunteer organization and make they want to help out not only by running calls!