At MEDLIFE, we are constantly inspired by the dedication of our student chapters around the world. We had the pleasure of getting to hear from Mia Sofia, the President of the MEDLIFE chapter at Massey School, which recently took home the prestigious Moving Mountains Award from this year’s Chapter Awards. To help other students duplicate this kind of success, Mia shared her chapter’s top fundraising tips to explain how her team turned a simple campaign into an award-winning movement.

How To Turn Commitments into Action

We’ve all been there: someone says they want to donate, but life gets in the way and they forget. How did Mia’s team get people to actually cross the finish line and donate to MEDLIFE’s Moving Mountains campaign?

“The way I got people to donate was definitely motivating them to send as many message as they could,” Mia says. “Not just telling them, but making sure they actually did it and following up on their messages.”

For any college medical club or student organization looking to gain donors, accountability is the secret weapon. Don’t just launch a campaign and hope for the best. Encourage your members to actively reach out and stay in touch with potential donors until the donation is secured.

Target Your “Warm Market” First

When trying to bring in a high volume of donations, where you direct your energy really matters. Mia emphasized the importance of reaching out to the right audience.

Instead of cold-messaging random contacts, her MEDLIFE chapter prioritized people who already understood the heart of the MEDLIFE movement. When donors already know the mission and the end goal of the fundraiser, they are much quicker to support it. One of the best fundraising tips is to always start with the people who already know about and believe in your core cause.

Overcome the Fear of Failure

Fundraising can be intimidating. It involves reaching out to people, explaining your organization, and asking them for money. That’s not an easy task. It’s completely normal for a chapter to worry that their campaign might flop or that no one will support them. Mia admitted that her team faced those exact same doubts, terrified that their hard work might result in an “epic fail.”

So, how did they overcome it? By simply doing it anyway.

By having faith in their mission and trusting that the community would see the genuine good in what they were trying to accomplish, they pushed past their anxieties and achieved award-winning results. Sometimes the biggest obstacle is your own self-doubt.

Fuel the Fire with Friendly Competition

Understanding your chapter’s personality can completely change your fundraising game. For the Massey School chapter, their secret weapon was their competitive spirit.

During their fundraising “power hour,” Mia leaned heavily into this. By turning the giving initiative into a high-energy, competitive environment, she was able to spark massive engagement from her members, which led to an incredible response from the community. If you are looking for actionable fundraising tips that drive immediate action, creating an intense, timed competition among your members can be highly effective.

Mia’s Top Advice for Student Leaders

If your team is getting ready to launch a fundraiser, Mia has a few final words of wisdom to guide you to success:

• Make it fun: If your members are enjoying the process, that energy will naturally reflect in their outreach.

• Get people involved: Cast a wide net and get as many people participating as possible.

• Education comes first: Before asking for a single dollar, make sure your team and your potential donors fully understand the mission and purpose of the fundraiser, and are sharing that with the people they are asking to donate.

A huge congratulations again to Mia Sofia and her chapter for moving mountains for communities in need this year!

To learn how you can get involved with your local MEDLIFE chapter or start your own, fill out the interest form below!