Tag: fundraising

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Random Acts of Flowers Celebrates 10 Years of Delivering Hope and Encouragement

A decade ago, Random Acts of Flowers (RAF) made its first official delivery. With a strong vision and a simple mission, co-founders Larsen and Adrian Jay started what has become a nationwide phenomenon. Over the past ten years, Random Acts of Flowers has delivered more than 340,000 bouquets of recycled flowers to individuals in hospitals, assisted living facilities, and hospice, and the organization has repurposed more than 356,000 vases, all thanks to the more than 161,000 hours put in by dedicated volunteers. Currently, the RAF mission serves four communities in the US – Knoxville, Tampa Bay, Chicago, and Indianapolis – and has inspired more than two dozen smaller organizations in communities from coast to coast, as well as in the UK.
 
From Sunday, July 22nd through Tuesday, July 24th, Random Acts of Flowers employees from all four branches and the national headquarters will converge on Knoxville for a company retreat focused on making the next ten years of delivering hope even more successful than the last ten have been.
 
Knox County mayor Tim Burchett has proclaimed Tuesday July 24th to be Random Acts of Flowers Day.
 
And, that evening, RAF staff will be joined by board members, donors, volunteers, supporters, and community members for the 10thBirthday Happy Hour party at Clancy’s Tavern in downtown Knoxville.
 
And, for the past month, supporters have been part of the Random Acts of Flowers 10th Anniversary Challenge, participating in a friendly challenge to collectively raise $10,000 in honor of 10 years of delivering hope. The person who raises the most during this one month challenge will receive one bouquet of flowers a month (sent to the person of their choice) for a whole year – compliments of RAF’s friends at The Flower Pot in Knoxville. Further, a generous donor has agreed to match the donations made through the challenge.
 
As challenge participant Tiffany Gardner says, “In our busy lives, it’s easy to forget that there are people in communities everywhere who are experiencing health hardships. In hospitals, hospice, and assisted living facilities, people are in need of a reminder that they haven’t been forgotten and that there are people who care about their well-being. RAF does that every day.”
 
Random Acts of Flowers looks to make more than 110,000 deliveries in 2018 and crest 500,000 deliveries by the end of 2019.
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Chicago Patron Society Knoxville Patron Society Newsroom

National Development Director Puts Down Roots to Help Random Acts of Flowers Bloom

National Development Director Puts Down Roots
to Help Random Acts of Flowers Bloom

Random Acts of Flowers has added Sarah Elizabeth Hauge to its national team as National Director of Development. Hauge will be based at the Random Acts of Flowers national headquarters in Knoxville, TN, where she will focus on securing national partners for the nonprofit, but her work also will impact the five branches located in cities across the country.

Hauge is uniquely qualified for the position, having worked the past five years in financial management with RAF partner Pershing Yoakley & Associates, P.C. which focuses primarily on serving the healthcare industry. Prior to that, Hauge was responsible for corporate relations and development with the United States Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C., where she developed and managed a yearly fundraising strategy to retain a portfolio of approximately 30 corporate accounts totaling $3 million in value. In this role, she served as the primary point of contact for current and prospective partners, negotiating existing and new corporate contacts.

At Random Acts of Flowers, Hauge will develop and implement the agency’s fundraising strategy and donor stewardship plan to take the organization to the next level. She will work directly with the RAF executive team and its national board of directors to manage a comprehensive fundraising program including annual giving, leadership gifts, corporate and foundation grants, third-party fundraising and planned giving. As the dedicated fundraising professional for Random Acts of Flowers, Hauge also will assist the Knoxville, Tampa Bay, Chicago, Indianapolis, and Silicon Valley branches in constructing development plans to be implemented on the local level.

Beyond her professional experience, Hauge was drawn to Random Acts of Flowers through a very personal connection to the floral industry. Her grandparents owned Hauge’s Flowers in Morgantown, West Virginia, where she spent many childhood summers learning about the floral industry. One of the most important things from her grandparents was, “Whether for a funeral, a wedding, or a simple arrangement a husband picked up to surprise his wife, flowers meant something special to a person or a family. I knew that I have impacted someone’s world for the better.”

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Knoxville Patron Society Newsroom

“A Jungle of Joy and Happiness”: The Knoxville Mercury Discovers the Roots of RAF

“A Jungle of Joy and Happiness”:
The Knoxville Mercury Discovers the Roots of RAF

Coury Turczyn of The Knoxville Mercury spent a little time with our Founder and CEO Larsen Jay and found out more about the roots of our mission, how we’ve bloomed in Knoxville, and how our branches stretch across the country.

“Random Acts of Flowers may be one of Knoxville’s most well known nonprofits. That’s because its mission makes so much sense that it’s remarkable no one thought to do it before 2008: The national organization takes flowers and bouquets that would otherwise be discarded and redistributes them to patients in hospitals, nursing homes, senior care facilities, and hospices. It provides some emotional well being and encouragement when people need it most.

As it approaches its 250,000th delivery nine years later, we checked in with founder Larsen Jay on how his brainstorm has evolved into a national phenomenon” —

READ THE FULL INTERVIEW HERE…

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Newsroom

Modern Luxury Silicon Valley: On the Scene (February 2017)

Random Acts

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Modern Luxury Silicon Valley: On the Scene
(February 2017)

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Blog

We’re Proud to Be Partners with Flowers for Dreams

Flowers for Dreams is a Chicago charity that sells flowers and donates the proceeds to innovative charities solving uniquely Chicago problems. They pick a local charity each month and donate a portion of their profits to that charity. In July, they made Random Acts of Flowers their charity partner and helped us deliver flowers to new moms at Presence Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center.

After the delivery, they said, “Our staff was deeply touched by the smiles radiated by all of those that received an arrangement from Random Acts of Flowers. We loved partnering with RAF during the month of July, and are looking forward to seeing them add more positivity into the world.”

Thank you, Flowers for Dreams, for supporting us. Talk about flower power!

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Last Day – Help Us Win $10,000

This is the last day to vote! Your vote could help us win $10,000 from KIND Snacks. This much-needed funding will allow us to expand our deliveries to San Francisco hospitals.

There are four ways to vote: Commit to perform an act of kindness (one vote), then send an email to a friend (two votes), share that you voted on Facebook (three votes) and send up a tweet (four votes).

VOTE NOW

Thank you!

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RAF in the News

Only 10 Days Left To Help Us Win $10K from KIND Causes

Every month, KIND Causes gives $10,000 to support a great cause. This month, our branch in Silicon Valley has a shot at winning this meaningful funding, but only if we get more votes.

You can earn us four points by voting at the link below, then sharing on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Vote Now

Thank you for helping make the world a kinder place! Don’t forget to vote and share!