Organization Consolidates Its Online Fundraising Efforts

The Commemorative Air Force has consolidated the online fundraising efforts of its various units into an umbrella it is calling "The 12 Planes Of Christmas" in an effort to continue to maintain the aircraft it flies at airshows around the country.

Earlier this year, a Kickstarter campaign was used very effectively for the restoration of the C-47, "That’s All, Brother". The CAF says that many units noticed this, and thought that it is easy to raise money online. As many in the aviation market found out, it is not always easy to get people to pull money out of their pockets.

After some initial success, the CAF requested all units suspend any crowd source fundraising. With 165 airplanes in the CAF fleet, it could easily have flooded the existing online fundraising sites with worthy projects to support. This would result in too many projects chasing too few dollars on those platforms -- not to mention lead to a terrible perception of the CAF nationwide.

To resolve this issue, CAF headquarters has set up a website which will allow units to put together a campaign for the month of December to raise money for any restoration and maintenance needs of all CAF aircraft. Individual units received instructions detailing how to login and create an aircraft donation webpage, with a unique url for each aircraft.

The CAF cautions that online fundraising is not the be-all, end-all in fundraising. However, it can be a great way to bring attention to your unit’s projects and add some extra dollars to the individual units' aircraft accounts They urge units to keep raising money in the same successful ways that they always have, "and let this program take you to the next level."

(Source: CAF website. Images from file)

FMI: www.crowdrise.com/12Planes