Big Brothers Big Sisters was founded in 1904 in New York City and is the oldest and largest youth mentoring organization in the United States. It hires social workers as case managers to recruit, train, screen, and match volunteers with children. Across the country, 123 Big Brothers Big Sisters agencies have been trained by Benevon. We will be sharing their stories periodically.

While she was going to college in Wichita, Kansas, Debbie Beard was matched with an eight-year-old boy, one of nine children to a single mom who strung together part-time jobs. Debbie and her "Little," as they are affectionately called, would do simple activities like eat lunch in her school cafeteria or watch soccer games. Debbie remembers him having a big smile on his face.

"He always wanted to hold my hand," she said. "He didn't want to leave me when I went home."

She has lost touch with her Little Brother but said the experience changed her.

"I felt like I was making a difference," she said. "I was making his life a little brighter."

Beard has been the executive director of BBBS of Sangamon County (Illinois) since 1976 and has put her heart and soul into fostering one-on-one mentoring. Today, BBBS of Sangamon County matches 700 children a year but would like to reach 1,000 children by 2008. They want to grow their budget from $700,000 to $1.2 million over the same period.

Like many nonprofits, BBBS of Sangamon County spends much of its time putting on special events—golf tournaments, bowl-a-thons, and bingo events. The "Bowl for Kids' Sake" is Big Brothers Big Sisters' signature event and locally involves 2,000 bowlers getting pledges. The event raised $225,000 in 2004. The other events bring in about $30,000. So when Denise Corcoran, the director of marketing and fund development, heard that her group could raise $150,000 with 300 guests in a one-hour Ask Event fundraiser, she was skeptical.

Bowl for Kids' Sake is the signature event for Big Brothers Big Sisters.

"I'm a person who tends to wear rose-colored glasses maybe 24/7. I take them off occasionally, but I was very apprehensive about the [Benevon] formula. I thought there was no way that we are going to raise $150,000 with 300 guests in a room in Springfield, Illinois."

Corcoran said she thought she knew Springfield and that that kind of money just wasn't there.

(Benevon tells its groups they can expect to raise the number of guests divided by two x 1,000 if they follow the model and the coaches' advice. So, for example, an event with 200 guests would raise $100,000 in gifts and pledges.)

A few times, the fundraising team at BBBS of Sangamon County wanted to focus their efforts on wealthy donors, but their coach reeled them back. She told them they had to touch everyone at their introductory events and cultivate only the people who are inspired by their mission.

So they followed the formula. They recruited forty-two Table Captains and ended up with thirty. They practiced everyone's speech. They created a heart-warming video. They even invited a choir of fourth and fifth graders to open up the breakfast.

But the night of the dress rehearsal, the executive director was anxious.

"What if we don't have the people?" said Beard.

Corcoran didn't have that worry.

"Who wouldn't want a free breakfast?" the marketing and development director told her boss.

She had a different concern. "Would they touch the heartstrings?"

Corcoran said they had practiced so much—the speech from the board president, the speech from the Big Brother, the seven-minute video—that it was losing its effect. She wondered how people hearing the presentation for the first time would react emotionally.

The next day, everything went as planned. The choir of kids was there at 7:00 a.m. They had 307 guests. The presentations were moving. They asked for multiple-year pledges of $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000. Two people gave at $10,000 for five years. One was a lead gift they had secured before the event. The other was a complete surprise—from a guest they never had expected. He wasn't a volunteer or on the board.

In the end, they pulled in $257,000 in gifts and pledges—$100,000 more than they had originally planned.

Beard said counting up the pledge cards after the event was like Christmas.

"We were ecstatic," she said.

The event created quite a buzz in Springfield. "Even for those people who chose not to give at all, which was a choice of theirs, they heard such a powerful message that morning," said Corcoran. "I believe if they were thinking in the next eighteen months of an organization to give their money to and they're committed to children and youth, we'll be in their top two choices."
	BBBS of Sangamon County wants to match 1,000 children by 2008, up from 700 today.

BBBS of Sangamon County now has a Benevon team that includes the fifteen people on their board of directors. They have asked each board member to host a Point of Entry^® introductory event once a month and bring six guests.

Corcoran said the Benevon Model allowed them to pull a team from all areas of their organization-program, special events, and development. It was a woman in programming that hooked them up with the school choir.

Today, the executive director no longer seems so anxious.

When asked if she was well on the way to reach her goal for 2008, Beard said, "Yes, I think we are."

Read a story about Big Brothers Big Sisters of Central Maryland.