November is off to an incredible start! You’ve gotten to know us a little more and why we devote ourselves so wholeheartedly to the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the many high-quality programs we offer throughout the year for teenagers and alumni. So far, we’ve raised over 10,000 of our $50,000 fundraising goal on Crowdrise. We’ve shared some AMAZING videos from alumni and friends of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards over the last week and look forward to sharing even more throughout the month of November. Every Friday afternoon, we get REALLY excited to release the names of the week’s supporters on our social media!

So, now, you think, you want in. The time is now. You want to join the campaign to reach $50,000 for the non-profit, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, that presents the nation’s longest-running, most prestigious recognition initiative for creative teens and the largest source of scholarships for young artists and writers. We got you.

Here are 50 fun and easy ways to rally your colleagues, friends, family, educators and network to help us reach $50K by December 2!

1. Lead a team of fundraisers for the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers by clicking the FUNDRAISE FOR THIS CAMPAIGN. Make sure to upload a fun photo of yourself, especially if you are an alum and still have your Gold Key Pin! Select the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers as your charity to fundraise for. Set a team goal to achieve with family, friends, colleagues, and educators. Example goals: $500, $750, $1,000. Remember, it only takes TEN people donating $25 to reach $250 and TWENTY people donating $30 each to reach $600.
2. Be the first to throw down the gauntlet! Give the very first donation to your fundraising page for the Alliance so friends are inspired to follow your lead!
3. Alums: Shine on, you crazy Gold Keys! Wear your Scholastic Awards Gold Key and start a conversation about the Scholastic Awards. Bonus conversation starter: Andy Warhol wore his Gold Key Pin to art openings.
4. Smart Casseroles! Host a dinner party to fundraise for the Alliance. Benefits? You practice your cooking skills, spark intellectual discussion about the state of current culture and collect donations for the Alliance all at the same time. Martha, we turn to you.
5. Fact: The Alliance granted access to almost $10 million in scholarships at over 60 schools, institutions and universities to graduating seniors through our Scholarship Provider Network.
6. Share #myAWaward videos on your personal social media accounts and call for friends to donate $50 to reach $50K.
7. Did you hear? The New Yorker saw judging for the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards as the talk of the town last year.
8. The Wall Street Journal gets the Big Picture, too.
9. Fact: Selections from The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are published in the National Catalog and The Best Teen Writing, which are distributed FREE of charge to schools and libraries nationwide!
10. In a pinch: You will not stop posting Fifty Shades of Grey passages on your Facebook page until you reach fifty donations for the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers.
11. Because a writing piece entitled, “A Brief History of My Middle School Courtships,” would not have existed without the Alliance Summer Arts Program.
12. $250 places mentor texts into the hands of two classroom’s worth of students.
13. Fact: In our 2014 Awards season, entries increased by 15% with a remarkable 255,000 submissions from students across the country.  See award-winning work here.
14. Lasting impact: 1999 Awards alum, Lena Dunham, reflected in a tweet that receiving a Scholastic Award was the “biggest deal of my whole life from ages 12-24! And still may be….”
15. Tag your support! Thank your colleagues, friends and family by tagging them on social media after they donate to your Crowdrise campaign for the Alliance.
16. Langston Hughes, 1947 Poetry Judge, reflected how he “certainly enjoyed judging the Scholastic Poetry entries and am continually delighted at the high quality of American young people are doing in some of our high schools.” Decades later, the delight continues.
17. For Women Crush Wednesday (WCW), share your favorite women alumni of the Awards: astrophysicist Lucianne Walkowicz, poet Carolyn Forche, and actor Frances Farmer.
18. Fact: The Art.Write.Now.Tour 14/15 is now in its 5th year and travels nationwide to expose audiences to an annual selection of the most stunning and original work by winning students from the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
19. Start an Awards Book Club! For every week of your fundraising campaign, share a new alumnus to read: Sylvia Plath, Joyce Carol Oates, Ned Vizzini, and Bernard Malamud.
20. Capote Marmalade: Scholastic Awards alumni Truman Capote and Sylvia Plath both loved to cook and bake. Check out their favorite recipes here. Capote preserved jams and experimented in the kitchen during his time in Sicily, Italy. For your fundraising campaign, make your own preserved jams and favorite confections to benefit the Alliance!
21. This gif of award-winning Scholastic Art & Writing Awards work in Times Square for National Events is a GIFT!: http://awawards.tumblr.com/post/88377681715/on-friday-june-6-two-giant-screens-at-1515
22. Birthday Wish: If your birthday falls in November, direct your gifts to the Alliance in your name! Added bonus: no itchy sweaters or stinky perfume.
23. Fact: In honor of 1948 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards alumnus and 2014 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Alumni Honoree Kay Walkingstick, we focused our summer outreach on Native American youth to develop their art and writing and participation in the Awards this Fall. The Alliance traveled to Crazy Horse, SD to lead workshops at the Crazy Horse Memorial, the Circle of Nations School in Wahpeton, ND, as well as led workshops at the 2014 UNITY conference in Portland, OR.
24. Borrow an old typewriter from your grandparents and write poetry in public, in exchange for donations to the Alliance.
25. Inspire your network to give to the Alliance on #GivingTuesday on December 2. What is GivingTuesday? In response to mainstream consumerism on Black Friday and Cyber Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday, Giving Tuesday exists to promote charitable giving on December 2.
26. Match your donations! Choose which donation is comfortable for you to match (for example, up to $50 for an individual donation) or enlist a major supporter to match donations for you.
27. Host an Alumni Movie-thon night! Watch Boyhood (Awards alum and Director, Richard Linklater), Beasts of the Southern Wild (Awards alum and producer, Michael Raisler), and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Awards alum and actor, Robert Redford).
28. $1500 sends a Gold Key-winning low-income artist or writer to a top tier summer program!
29. Fact: The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards defend freedom of expression and remain blindly adjudicated since 1923.
30. Alums: For flashback Friday, share your award-winning art or writing from high school.
31. Lasting encouragement: alumni of the Scholastic Awards go on to receive residency, internship, editorial experience and career development opportunities through the Alliance.
32. The Awards remain adjudicated by three core criteria: originality, technical skill and the emergence of a personal voice or vision.
33. This.
34. And this.
35. Write personal emails to your network, encouraging your friends, family, educators, neighbors and community to join you in donating to the Alliance.
36. In a short video clip, share why the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are important to you and teenagers today and tag it with #myAWaward.
37. For more than 90 years it has been the mission of the Alliance and the Awards to encourage young people to share their unique voices! #myAWaward
38. $25 underwrites five entry fees for low-income students to participate in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards!
39. National Celebration: In addition to our first-ever MAKER PROM last year – an interactive dance party where students had hands – on access to robotics, 3-D printers, and other connected learning projects -and a College Admissions and Arts Careers symposium- the Alliance hosted evening receptions, workshops, and readings for each night of the National Exhibition at two gallery spaces in New York City.
40. Alums: In a short video clip, share what your Scholastic Award meant to you as a teenager. Don’t forget to tag it with #myAWaward and a link to the campaign!
41. Create short-term fundraising goals within your personal network to achieve throughout the week. For example, can we make $100 by TOMORROW?
42. Alums: For throwback Thursday, post a photograph of yourself in high school and why you needed the Scholastic Awards then. #myAWaward
43. Generosity is infectious! Update your friends and family on the success of your personal fundraising campaign at the end of each day or week.
44. Dress up as awards alum Andy Warhol for your Outfit of the Day #ootd
45. Share your favorite alum artwork or writing from the Awards online galleries as a reason to support recognizing teenagers for their creative work today.
46. For Man Crush Monday, share your favorite Awards alumnus. Hello, Zac Posen!
47. Night out! Take friends to visit Steven Paul’s Lost Time mural in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Or be a virtual hipster by using it as your wallpaper!
48. Make a friend or family member feel special by donating in his or her name for their birthday….or just because you want their Monday morning to cheer up. #happyMonday #myAWaward
49. The Alliance honors the incredible educators who challenge and inspire their students by awarding Portfolio Gold Medal educators with $1,000. Donate in honor of the educator who inspired you!
50. “To give those high school students who demonstrate superior talent and achievement in things of the spirit and of the mind at least a fraction of the honors and rewards accorded to their athletic classmates for demonstrating their bodily skills.” – M. R. Robinson, 1923, Founder of Scholastic Inc and the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.