The Fundraising Thermometer Helps You Accomplish Your Objectives Quicker

A fundraising thermometer is a straightforward and fun tool that will help make progress on your fundraising goals. By having a visual representation of whatever you wish to achieve, you’ll be pushed to accomplish and will reach that goal very quickly!

So what is it? Well, you may have driven into a small town and seen a big thermometer along the side of the road, showing their progress toward raising money for an important civil project. Sometimes they’re at schools helping keep track of a sports team’s progress toward new equipment. You can even find folks who use them as measures of progress towards an individual goal like saving up for a class trip, buying a gift for a loved one, or an annual charitable donation.

The basic psychology of the thermometer goes back to lessons we learned as kids. Mom or Dad would respond to our want for something – new clothes, a special toy, a car – by encouraging us to save our money. By saving up, we’d appreciate what we got in the end, and would be more and more motivated as we got closer and nearer to that goal.

The same thought underlies one of these thermometers. As a group, the goal is to raise a certain amount of money to accomplish a goal. By having a visual representation of that goal, we’re more motivated to realize it. Instinctively, we want to see that picture colored all the way up to the top. And as we fill in more and more of the picture by raising more and more money, we’re driven to keep at it.

This urge to meet our goals increases as we make that progress. The closer we get to the goal, the more we want to achieve it.

If you are going to make one at home, it’s actually fairly simple. Yes, it will involve some drawing, but it’s pretty simple drawing. First, get some poster board or some butcher’s paper. Laying out the paper in a portrait format, draw a tall, thin rectangular shape. At the top end of the rectangle, turn that straight end into a rounded end (now the top looks like a hot dog). On the bottom end (the straight end) you draw a large circle. Now you’ve got the basic thermometer shape. In the body, make marks showing the increments you’ll use to measure your progress. To make use of your drawing, get a red marker and color in when you make progress towards your goal. You know you’re done when it’s all red (or better, when you’ve beat your goal and the red is shooting out of the top).

You can even find companies offering pre-made fundraising thermometers making it even easier to get started. Whether on your own hand-drawn poster, or coloring in one that’s professionally made, you’ll quickly be on your way to raising money for an important cause.

Tagged with: business • charity • finance • fundraising • fundraising thermometer

Filed under: Work at Home

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