The annual BRAFFLE – the Outrageous Restaurant Raffle – began during the pandemic as a way for the Branford Rotary Club to help restaurants and those who’d lost income. Four years later, this original and unconventional fundraiser has been replicated by nonprofits nationwide.

Andy devised the raffle, the logo, the marketing campaign, including social media posts and videos, and set up the ticketing site. Ellen coordinated the numerous volunteers, the participating restaurants, and navigated the legal and logistical hurdles. Every one of the four Braffles has sold out (2,500 tickets at just $20 apiece), and so far they’ve raised more than $200,000 for the community.

How does it work? We brought together 50 restaurants and came up with the ‘Absurd Grand Prize,’ where the winner gets $100 gift cards to each of the 50. Yes, that’s $5,000 in gift cards. Absurd, right? But absurd works. Antonym knows how to run these unique raffles and can help your community do the same.

Connecting nonprofits to volunteers is an ever-present and frustrating challenge. There are national websites that purport to match the two, but volunteerism, like charity or your commute, begins at home. Antonym has developed an exclusive and powerful software application called LocalVol, and, working with the Branford Community Foundation, is rolling out its first site, BranfordVolunteers.org.

The site does just what the name says: it lets local residents quickly and easily search for volunteer opportunities in their town, and gives nonprofits the outreach they’ve always wanted. On the marketing side, Antonym has worked with town government to declare a local Volunteer Month upon the site’s launch, and allow permanent signage throughout town so that everyone from high school students to retirees will know where to look. Antonym can install and tailor LocalVol for any town or region, and even help with marketing and site administration. Send a note to ellen@antonympartners.com to learn more.

It’s hard to hate with your mouth full.

That’s the simple yet powerful idea behind ‘Meals for the Mind,’ a groundbreaking new series of bi-monthly evenings where 10 people from different backgrounds – whether cultural, racial, ideological, or generational – share a meal, talk, and simply get to know each other. Launched by the MLK Heritage Foundation, the goal is to break down the barriers that have increasingly come to separate us. No judgment. No agenda. From the first dinner, people who arrived as strangers left as friends. “I met people that I would not have met on a daily basis,” said one attendee. “That was probably one of the most magical elements of it, to hear the diverse mindsets and perspectives that all these different people have.”

The idea for ‘Meals for the Mind’ came from a retreat conducted by Antonym Partners. The Foundation was looking for a new way to reach out to the community. As uniting people is part of their mission, and society’s increasing polarity was an obstacle, we eventually created a way to match mission to project. Antonym Partners even designed the logo!

Several years ago, Orchard House, a shoreline medical adult day facility, hired Ellen to be its Development Director. The facility had, the year before, run a comedy event, but it fell short in donors and ticket sales. Ellen brought in Andy.

Together, they rebranded the evening as Comedy on the Sound, complete with a logo. They promoted it on social media, in print, and an extensive, colorful poster campaign. On the same small budget, they brought in a professional MC and four emerging comics from New York City, all of whom had been on television, and one of whom had been on ‘The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’ just the evening before. Tickets for Comedy on the Sound sold out in four days. Revenues and sponsorships doubled over the previous year. And during the pandemic, when people were stuck at home, Andy also produced Comedy for Rotary, a virtual comedy night featuring comedian Sam Morril.

Working at Orchard House, a shoreline medical adult day center, Ellen knew that capturing the recollections and stories of aging adults would mean so much to their families. She created “Lest We Forget,” an oral history initiative based on the StoryCorps model.

Orchard House clients, talking to a loved one, became the storytellers, creating a lasting video memory of their lives; from first loves and childhood exploits to cultural flashpoints and wartime loss. These interviews became meaningful bonding and learning experiences for both the families and their aging loved ones. And they allowed Orchard House staff to connect with and understand clients in new and meaningful ways.