Every year, Celebrity Cruises selects a philanthropic organization to which to donate and this year their Southeast and West regions chose the Children’s Tumor Foundation. The company became aware of CTF because two of its employees, Cindee Crain, Regional Sales Manager, and Scott Clifton, Director of Sales, have family members with neurofibromatosis (NF). Scott Clifton’s daughter, Brittney, was born with NF2, and Cindee’s sister, Cheri, lives with NF1.
“Charitable giving is very important to Celebrity Cruises, but our employees are even more passionate about fundraising when it’s for an organization that benefits members of our corporate family,” said Scott Clifton.
“We set a goal of $10,000 and ended up collecting over $16,000,” said Cindee Crain, “It was really gratifying and meaningful that everyone participated so enthusiastically on behalf of a foundation that is searching for treatments that would help my sister.”
Their successful campaign is mostly due to the motivating force of friendly competition. “We decided to make it a contest,” said Scott, “Our Southeast and West sales regions formed two teams and competed to see who could raise the most money within the quarter’s three month time period. It really boosted morale and unity within the offices!”
The teams’ methods included raffling off gift baskets, creating a fundraising page online that could be emailed to clients, friends, and families, and printing flyers and distributing them in their communities.
The teams made fundraising a part of their everyday work activities. When someone had a meeting, that person would email the client’s office about the fundraising campaign and then bring the gift basket to the meeting so that the office could see it and buy raffle tickets on the spot. “People loved being able to see, in person, what they might win,” said Cindee,”Plus the baskets were great conversation pieces at the various offices we visited.”
The value of the gift baskets averaged approximately $250.00, and raffle ticket sales generally equaled or surpassed that amount. This method not only raised much needed funds for NF research, it also greatly increased awareness of neurofibromatosis among the general population.
Celebrity Cruises employees didn’t solely solicit donations, however, they also participated in several Children’s Tumor Foundation events including an NF Walk in southern California and the Rock and Roll Half Marathon in Seattle.
To read more about Celebrity Cruises extraordinary generosity and the NF Heroes who inspired it, please click here.
To find out how your organization can get involved in fundraising or donating to the Children’s Tumor Foundation, please contact Traceann Adams at 212-322-6633, ext. 6691 or tadams@ctf.org.
