Category Archives: Fundraising

Give to the Max Day is November 21

November is Give to the Max season in Minnesota. It’s the time of year when Minnesotans share their charitable giving spirit with thousands of area non-profits all on just one website. Thursday, November 21 is Give to the Max Day and Vintage Band Festival will be participating once again.

“Research shows that individual giving from donors like you and me is the largest source of revenue for nonprofits each year,” said Jake Blumberg, executive director of GiveMN, the sponsoring organization of Give to the Max Day. “Give to the Max shines a spotlight on the power of our collective giving each year, showing that tens of millions of dollars for good can be raised $10, $25, and $100 at a time.”

Besides the convenience of using the secure GiveMn portal (www.givemn.org), there are other benefits to giving on Give to the Max Day. Donors can help Vintage Band Festival win part of the $100,000+ Prize Pool! Let’s explain.

Every time a donor makes a gift they are entered into random chance drawings that are held every 15 minutes during the 24 hours of Give to the Max Day. The winner of each drawing gets a $500 Golden Ticket that they can donate to the organization of their choice. There are hourly drawings for $1,000 Golden Tickets as well. In fact, there are nearly 150 chances to win a Golden Ticket during the month of November.

We’re grateful to GiveMN and all of the sponsoring organizations for the opportunity to use this site to help Vintage Band Festival fundraise throughout the year. We’re also grateful to our wonderful supporters and donors who make it possible for us to bring incredible sounds and spectacle to Vintage Band Festival each summer and Tuba Christmas each December.

If you’ve never been to the GiveMn website or shared in the excitement of Give to the Max Day, give it a try this year. We’ll be glad you did! (Pro tip: you don’t have to live in Minnesota to participate.)

Jan Stevens and Lois Stratmoen, VBF volunteers extraordinaire

The next two profiles showcase two of the longest-serving Vintage Band Festival board members, Jan Stevens, our Fundraising Committee chair and Lois Stratmoen, our donor Correspondent.

Jan Stevens

VBF board member and chief fundraiser, Jan Stevens, is a person of action who leads by example. Since 1994 Jan has been involved with the Northfield Rotary Club, and specifically with the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. Jan has been a champion advocate for Northfield and after retiring from the real estate world this is what she had to say about living here:

“Northfield has everything, 45 minutes to an international airport, 5 times a day bus

service to the metro area, one hour to the Mayo Clinic Hospitals, two outstanding

colleges that bookend the north side of Northfield, culture diverse activities that rival

anywhere, recreational activities for all ages, and church and bar music that rivals much

larger communities.”

That civic pride and keen sense of the arts brings us to her involvement with VBF. It was Jan’s generous gift that enabled the Vintage Band Festival Fund to be created in 2023. The fund is part of Northfield Shares and was established to allow the Vintage Band Festival to develop a more sustainable financial strategy. Jan’s passion for our community is contagious!

Lois Stratmoen

When was the last time you received a hand-written note in the mail? VBF board member and Donor Correspondent, Lois Stratmoen, is known for handwriting notes, not only to patrons of the Vintage Band Festival, but also to Northfield area youth who are featured in the Northfield News.

Lois and her husband Noel have been citizens of Northfield for more than 50 years. Her list of civic leadership roles is impressive to say the least. Here are a few: former chair of the Northfield Hospital Board, former church council president of Bethel Lutheran Church, Board of Directors/Northfield United Way, Northfield Arts Guild member and cast member in many Guild musical productions, and co-recipient of the 2003 Northfield Sertoma Service to Mankind Award. We are honored to have the wisdom and personal touch of Lois Stratmoen serving VBF!

Vintage Band Festival 2024 fund drive

We have just mailed our spring fund drive letters. If you’re a past donor, look for one in your mailbox in the coming days. If you are just learning about Vintage Band Festival or you haven’t yet donated to support our work, read on to find out how you can do that.

The generous and loyal financial support from businesses, foundations and individuals like you continues to make it possible for Vintage Band Festival to present such amazing musicians and ensembles and not charge admission. We are fortunate to have the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council as our principal funder in 2024, but their support accounts for just 30% of our $30,000 budget. The rest will need to come from other grants, and businesses and individuals such as you.

A successful spring fund drive outcome is essential to the success of our summer festival. A gift in any amount is welcome, but gifts of $100 or more are critically important right now. Donors are featured prominently in the festival program and in onsite signage at Bridge Square.

Our goal for the spring fund drive is $10,000. We need to have that in-hand by June 15 in order to fulfill the commitments we will be making to our musicians and our partners. Please help us achieve that goal!

If you are donating by check, use Vintage Band Festival as the payee and send it to 204 W. 7th St. W #130/Northfield, MN 55057. If you want to make your gift with a credit card, go to http://www.vintagebandfestival.org and click on the big green “Donate” button and follow the prompts.

Thank you for your consideration and we hope to see you July 26-27 in Downtown Northfield for Vintage Band Festival 2024!

Rase de Terre, Vintage Band Festival 2022 (Photo credit David Perez)

Vintage Band Festival awarded a 2023 SEMAC Legacy Grant

The Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (SEMAC) has awarded Vintage Band Festival a 2023 Legacy Grant for Organizations. The $10,000 grant will be used to partially fund the upcoming Vintage Band Festival 2024 next summer.

One member of the review committee had this to say about our application:

“The people involved in this project are very qualified and have varied skills…great that you are helping to keep Big Band music alive and bringing high quality music to your community….by varying the styles of music it is a educational experience for your audiences and keeps it enjoyable…the location keeps the event very inclusive of all…by mixing amateur and professional bands everyone learns from each other and that makes it a win win for everyone!”

Another reviewer commented:

 “A very unique event that evolves and keeps your community involved because of the quality bands and the live music experience….great that you are including Latino bands also…this project seems to have lots of community support from donors to volunteers to attendees…  Community involvement is great for this project, and there appears to be planning to improve upon past experiences.”

We’re grateful to our fantastic grant writer, Joy Riggs, for another successful outcome. We’re also grateful to the Minnesota legislature for passing the Clean Water Land and Legacy Amendment in 2008. That legislation provides the funding for SEMAC and other regional arts councils in Minnesota to administer.

The Vintage Band Festival Fund

As a result of two recent extraordinary donations, the Vintage Band Festival board of directors has launched The Vintage Band Festival Fund. This fund will part of the Northfield Area Fund, a community fund that is under the auspices of a local non-profit organization called Northfield Shares.

Our intent is for the Vintage Band Festival Fund ( VBF Fund) to be a place where donors may wish to give a legacy gift to help insure that Vintage Band Festival will be able to present live brass and wind band music many years into the future. Our organization will continue to fundraise annually to support the next scheduled festival, but we also need to fundraise with a longer timeline in mind.

Legacy gifts can be made using retirement plan assets. They can also be part of a trust or a named beneficiary when planning for one’s estate. They can simply be one-time gifts to honor someone’s memory.

We are humbled and extremely grateful to board member Jan Stevens for her generous gift that has ennabled the VBF Fund to be created. We also wish to acknowledge the Wenger Foundation for their timely gift that has effectively doubled  the size of the VBF Fund at its launch.

Donations to the Vintage Band Festival Fund can be made online by clicking on this link:

Our Community Funds

VBF on the radio: Tuba Christmas & the VBF Fund

As a result of two recent extraordinary donations, the Vintage Band Festival board of directors has launched the Vintage Band Festival Fund. This fund will part of the Northfield Area Fund, a community fund that is under the auspices of a local non-profit organization called Northfield Shares.

Our intent is for the Vintage Band Festival Fund ( VBF Fund) to be a place where donors may wish to give a legacy gift to help insure that Vintage Band Festival will be able to present live brass and wind band music many years into the future. Our organization will continue to fundraise annually to support the next scheduled festival, but we also need to fundraise with a longer timeline in mind.

We are humbled and extremely grateful to board member Jan Stevens for her generous gift of $25,000 that has enabled the VBF Fund to be created. We also wish to acknowledge the Wenger Foundation for their timely gift of $20,000 that will nearly double the size of the VBF Fund. Anyone wishing to donate to the VBF Fund can send a check payable to Northfield Shares (with “Vintage Band Festival Fund” on the memo line) and send it to Northfield Shares, 205 Water Street South, Northfield, MN 55057. There will be an online option soon for anyone wishing to use a credit card.

Jan and two other VBF board members were recently featured on the Art Zany: Radio for the Imagination show on the local station 95.1 The One KYMN Radio talking about the VBF Fund and the upcoming 2023 edition of Tuba Christmas in Northfield on Saturday, December 2. The VBF segment starts at about 35:30:00 in the recording.

ArtZany! Fine Arts Boosters Fundraiser and Vintage Band Festival, 11-17-23

Give to the Max Day celebrates 15 years in 2023!

Thursday, November 16 is Give to the Max Day in Minnesota. This one-day giving extravaganza makes it extra easy to give to non-profit organizations efficiently and quickly. The beauty of this platform is that if a donor wants to support more than one organization, it can be done without leaving the site. In addition, it offers donors the opportunity to win Golden Tickets throughout the day which will ultimately provide even more funding for their favorite causes.

There is a $100,000 prize grant pool that has been provided by the Bush Foundation. The grants will be awarded to the winners of the Golden Ticket Drawings which occur every 15 minutes and once an hour throughout the day on November 16. There is one Super-Sized Golden Ticket drawn at the end of the day for $10,000. Golden Ticket winners can give their grant to any one of the organizations that they support. There is no limit to the number of Golden Tickets that any organization can win.

The 15-minute Golden Ticket prizes are $500 and the hourly Golden Ticket prizes are $1,000. In addition, donations that are made during Early Giving (November 1-15) will be eligible for the once-daily Golden Ticket of $500. All donations from November 1-15 are eligible for all Golden Ticket drawings on November 16.

Give to the Max Day was started in 2009 and this year is celebrating 15 years of collective giving in Minnesota. Vintage Band Festival has participated in all 15 Give to the Max Days! We have been fortunate to have won a Golden Ticket as well.

There are many strategies about how and when to submit donations to maximize the chances of winning a Golden Ticket. The one that makes the most sense to us is to decide the amount of  your donation and then divide it into smaller amounts so that you can have more than one entry in the Golden Ticket competition. For example, if a person wanted to give $100 total to Vintage Band Festival, making 5 donations of $20 at various times or 10 donations of $10 spread out  through the day would generate additional entries for the drawings.

However, don’t overthink it! The important thing is to participate in any way that is right for you. Whatever you choose to do, if you give to Vintage Band Festival, it will be greatly appreciated!

By the way, the next Vintage Band Festival is July 27, 2024. And don’t forget Tuba Christmas in Northfield on Saturday, December 2, 2023.

Vintage Band Festival announces Wenger Foundation gift

The Wenger Foundation has been a financial supporter of Vintage Band Festival since the festival’s inception in 2006. Recently, the Foundation ended its 40-year mission of supporting arts organizations in the state of Minnesota. In a letter sent to Vintage Band Festival explaining this development in its philanthropic life cycle, the Wenger Foundation also enclosed a very generous check for $20,000. This was a completely unforeseen gift from our lovely friends in Crystal Bay, Minnesota.

Wendy Wenger Dankey, a member of the Foundation’s board of directors, explained, “It has been a great run as an arts funder and as a family foundation, but all things change over time and we have reached our finale. I really send our good wishes for a sustainable and successful future! We really do hope you have many more years of successful Festivals!”

It can honestly be said that without the many years of support from the Wenger Foundation, Vintage Band Festival would not have continued beyond the first festival in 2006. The support came not only in the consistent funding, but also in the inspiration and encouragement that the Wenger board of directors passed along to the Vintage Band Festival board of directors.

The final Wenger gift will allow Vintage Band Festival the opportunity to envision long-term financial sustainability. Stay tuned for more information about this exciting possibility in the coming days.

Give to the Max Day 2022

 

Vintage Band Festival is once again participating in Give to the Max Day (GTMD22), Minnesota’s giving holiday. GTMD22 is Thursday, November 17 from 12:00 am to 11:59 pm. In addition to Vintage Band Festival, you can give to as many organizations as you’d like on one platform. Each time you make a donation, you will be entered in a drawing for extra dollars to be awarded to the organization to which you just donated.

Every 15 minutes on November 17, a $500 Golden Ticket will be awarded to a lucky organization. Every hour, a $1,000 Golden Ticket will be given and at the end of GTMD22, a $10,000 Golden Ticket will be the prize.

Our goal for GTMD22 is $3,000. Vintage Band Festival 2023 has a budget of $20,000 and we’re hoping to raise 15% of the budget on November 17.

The period known as Early Giving began on November 1 and continues until 12:00 am on November 17. Each day during Early Giving, there will be a drawing for one organization to receive $500 as a result of one of their donors. In 2021, Vintage Band Festival was the lucky winner of $500 as the result of an Early Giving donation. Help us win another one! All donations received during Early Giving will automatically be entered into the drawings on GTMD22.

It’s time to thank the 2022 Sponsors of the Day

We have a new giving category for Vintage Band Festival 2022: Sponsor of the Day. In 2019 we suggested that the giving level of $250-$499 be dedicated to honoring a music teacher that was a significant mentor for our donors.

This year, we’ve designated that giving level for special recognition during each of the four days of Vintage Band Festival. Thanks to all of our Vintage Band Festival 2022 Day Sponsors!

 

Thursday July 28 Sponsors of the Day

Premier Bank, David McKee and Lynn Naeckel, Kathleen Vang, David Hoiness, David Otterness

 

Friday July 29 Sponsors of the Day

Allina Health Northfield, Paul and Maribeth Beck, Norman Grier, Gerry and Carol Gengenbach, College City Beverage

 

Saturday July 30 Sponsors of the Day

Sarah and Ross Currier, Steve Lawler and Joy Riggs, Hogan Brothers, Arnold and Celena Witt, Rod and Deb Christensen

 

Sunday July 31 Sponsors of the Day

Dennis and Janet Hahn,, Judy and Paul Tarabek, Judy Broske, Peter Webb and Karen Saxe, Diane Boyum, Stan Mork