Pass ‘Go’ and collect $18,000

the game of fundraising, you can scramble after profits like hungry, hungry hippos. You may dare to risk. You might even wrack your cranium for a clue. The Kiwanis Club of Tecumseh, Michigan, found a treasure chest in the popular Milton Bradley board game, Monopoly.

Kiwanian and director of Community in Schools Susan Reeder was looking for a project that would benefit both organizations when she came upon a distributor of novelty-themed Monopoly boards. Most often these boards are styled after universities and large cities, but Susan learned they could custom-make a board for little, 8,574-population Tecumseh.

“I saw this as a great way to pair with Kiwanis. Both organizations are focused on serving children and the Tecumseh community,” says Susan. Community in Schools is a not-for-profit organization that helps kids stay in school by remedying distractions students face, such as divorce or bullying.

Susan ambitiously ordered 500 “Tecumsehopolies” (the minimum order was 300), but first she had to designate what would go on the board to give it a distinctly Tecumseh flavor. That’s where her fellow members came in.

Instead of asking for donations, like other fundraisers, Kiwanians visited local businesses and asked them to buy advertising spaces on the board. A typical square ran for $50, while the middle of the board sold for $1,000. Park Place, for example, an attorney purchased the “Jail,” and the “Go” space was purchased by the city so all the players started out in Tecumseh.

“For businesses, the advertising space looked really attractive. After a while people started coming up to us to buy a square. By the time we sold all the property on the board, we were already ahead.”

Because they were so successful in getting advertisers, the club sold the boards at a reasonable US$25. The shipment came in at the end of October, just in time for holiday shoppers. By January 1, there were only two boards left, and the two organizations raised about $18,000.

“This project worked because we have a lot of pride in where we live,” Susan says. “We love our town and the people in it.”