It's that time of year again... fundraisers!

We've come to that time of year as a mother of schoolage kids that I just dread... the time to organize fundraisers.

I'm on fundraising commitees for the basketball team, swim team and the kid's schools. Every year the groups want to do the same old candy, cookie dough, pie sale routine. I just hate approaching friends and family every year to help with fundraisers when I know they have their own that they have to support.

I also have a hard time promoting the products we sell because they are so overpriced, I feel like we aren't giving our supporters a good value in return for supporting our cause.

What I'm wondering is, does anybody have any fundraising success stories or ideas they can share, to get away from the "same old" fundraisers?

Thanks,
Sandra

heh heh

we havent even SEEN any halloween decorations, or thanksgiving for that matter...

christmas is all ready HERE...


sure you will get a lot of good ideas from these folks...

was thinking that something different would be :
customized christmas decorations...balls and stuff...

or

maybe....

YOU decorate their home ...or get the kids to do it ....
or

YOU cook some cakes and pies...

or
teach the kids to do it ......

or

??????

thanks
bob

ps....there is always the old reliable coupon book....200 dollars worth of stuff from local biznesses....

Hi Sandra,
Here are 2 that we have always done.

Spaghetti Feed.
Get local host to donate space
church, VFW, lions club etc.
Need kitchen though

Parents cook spaghetti and garlic bread,
The kids act at the servers and serve the food to tables
All you can eat tickets are sold for $5.00 through local retailers, and various other methods.

Costs are cheap and can many times get items donated.

This is one that will grow year after year.


Another is delivering phone books,
Kids and drivers meet at a drop point and collect the books.
2-3 kids per driver(parent) and they canvas the area delivering the books to the specified area.

We did it on a Saturday afternoon and if I recall the pay was about $1500-$2000 for the org.
Pay may be more now as I did it in the late 80's and early 90's
read the paper and call the number that is given to sign up for an area.
They will tell you when and where ( we always went a few miles from our own town as ours was booked by other distributing individuals and orgs)
Jason

Jason

Yes, thanks Bob, we thought of doing something for Christmas for my daughter's dance team - we're going to offer a Christmas kid sitting service. Parents can drop off their kids and go shopping without them for a change. Our girls will entertain their kids with carnival type games and movies for $5/hour.

Thanks for your suggestions Jason,

I should have mentioned last year for the dance team, we did our first ziti dinner and that went well so we'll do it again.

Doing phone book deliveries is a great idea, thanks for passing that along. I'll have to call up all the books and publications that we receive and find out if we can sign up to deliver them....

hmmmm, here's a thought, maybe we could offer to do a door hanger service for local busineses? Kids could be driven around and they go door to door delivering flyers or door hangers, staying in packs for safety? Any thoughts on this?

Please keep the ideas coming folks, with three organizations, I need all the help I can get to ensure that no kids get left behind on any trips for lack of funds ;>)

Thanks,
Sandra

Hi Sandra,

Great question. Thanks.

Here's an idea...offer custom designed T-shirts for a fundraiser.

My wife recently created a nifty youth girls sport T-shirt design that can be customized with the colors and nickname of the sports team. And each girl can further personalize the T-shirt with the sport name, their initials and number.

Our daughters junior class president is interested in putting together a fundraiser for the class using the T-shirts.

Might be a more appealing item to offer supporters than candy or holiday wrapping.

JohnP

Originally Posted by Sandra B

We've come to that time of year as a mother of schoolage kids that I just dread... the time to organize fundraisers.

I'm on fundraising commitees for the basketball team, swim team and the kid's schools. Every year the groups want to do the same old candy, cookie dough, pie sale routine. I just hate approaching friends and family every year to help with fundraisers when I know they have their own that they have to support.

I also have a hard time promoting the products we sell because they are so overpriced, I feel like we aren't giving our supporters a good value in return for supporting our cause.

What I'm wondering is, does anybody have any fundraising success stories or ideas they can share, to get away from the "same old" fundraisers?

Thanks,
Sandra

Originally Posted by Sandra B

We've come to that time of year as a mother of schoolage kids that I just dread... the time to organize fundraisers.

I'm on fundraising commitees for the basketball team, swim team and the kid's schools. Every year the groups want to do the same old candy, cookie dough, pie sale routine. I just hate approaching friends and family every year to help with fundraisers when I know they have their own that they have to support.

I also have a hard time promoting the products we sell because they are so overpriced, I feel like we aren't giving our supporters a good value in return for supporting our cause.

What I'm wondering is, does anybody have any fundraising success stories or ideas they can share, to get away from the "same old" fundraisers?

Thanks,
Sandra

Greetings Sandra,

This is right up my alley. I do fundraisers for the local schools. The biggest mistake I see, from parents and teachers, is thinking they have to reduce prices just to get people to support the different teams or clubs. So to combat that mindset, I point my clients in the direction of being different and having better products to sell.

This is how you can get more dollars, from those who don't mind showing their support. When an alumni member sees a high quality product, that the clubs or teams are selling, they will always opt to buy it. A great product from a club member or team member is always a worthy cause to support.

For example, last year the high school swim team wanted to generate $1000 and thought a Swim-A-Thon could help. But when they sat down and crunched the numbers, they concluded that they couldn't reach the goal.

So I was contacted by the coach and asked for some ideas. I immediately pointed him to selling hugh umbrellas, that could be sold at home swim meets AND home games of the Varsity Football team.

My reasoning behind that is that at either sporting event, the crowd could get rained on, because none of the games or swim meets are indoors.

So he commissioned me to design the school's cat paw logo and have it imprinted on 100 umbrellas. I had the umbrella order put on a rush status, so they could arrive before the first football game of the year.

In the mean time I got on the phone and started calling business owners, that were alumni and supported the children's fundraisers. I informed them what was coming and began taking their orders.

I had two payment options:

• 1 umbrella for $30 each
• 2 umbrellas for $25 each

Because I know that customers like choices, when they buy, I knew that most would go for the 2 for $25. Before the unbrellas arrived, 25 of them were already sold.

I also contacted the local newspaper, which gives school fundraisers a free ad placement, but you have to provide a letter from the coach, to place an ad and whom to contact at the high school.

I had Linda, one of the high school office workers, in place and she would take orders for the swim team, when people called. Linda was able to pre-sell 20 umbrellas before they arrived also.

The umbrella's arrived on a thursday, which just happened to be one of our home swim meets and the day before the first home football game. With 45 umbrellas already bought and paid for, all that was left to sell were 55. That night 11 sold at our home swim meet.

So with only 34 left, I had to make sure that I was at the football game the next day, set up and ready to promote. Well that night came, and it was hot, humid, not a cloud in the sky and our stadium was packed and overflowing.

I was positioned across from the concession stand and standing next to me was the chorus group selling personalized license plates for $5 and next to them was a small table set up to paint cat paws on peoples faces for a $1.

The man who ran the concession, Mr. Winter, mocked me from across the breezeway and taunted me by saying, "It's not raining out and there's not a cloud in the sky, how do you think you are going to sell umbrellas on a day like this? You won't sell a single one!"

That was the worst thing he should have said. Now with 34 umbrellas left I had to take some drastic steps to get the crowds attention. So while standing and looking at my umbrella display, I even had one opended up to show how large they were, people still did not stop to buy.

Well as the crowd grew, I noticed that my umbrella display couldn't be seen very well. That's when I picked up my open umbrella and held it above the crowd and started twirling it around and tossing it up in the air.

Within a few moments people started making their way over to me. When asked how much, I gave them the same two options.

• 1 umbrella for $30 each
• 2 umbrellas for $25 each

For two solid hours I twirled, tossed and flipped that umbrella, while pitching my prices. All along Mr. Winters occassionally poking his head out and yelling out some snide remark.

When the game was over and the crowd left, I checked my inventory and I only had 4 umbrellas left, which sold later as I was walking out to my vehicle.

But the best part was when Mr. Winters came over, with cigarette in hand, and asked, "So did ya sell any?"

Looking at him, I came back with, "I didn't do very good. I started off with 34 umbrellas 2 hours ago. I still have 4 left."

With is mouth on the ground and fumbling with his cancer stick, he wanted to know how I did it.

My only comment was this, "It's not what you sell that gets people to spend, it's how you present it!"

His only come back to that was, "I wouldn't have believed it, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I guess it is possible to sell ice to eskimos."

When all the monies were counted, the swim team netted around $1600 after expenses.

That is just one of my success stories.

Woody Quiñones
Want Forget Proof Customers?

Great idea on the umbrellas.

Parents and other relatives are much more likely to order products with the children's school name and mascot on them.

A local Christian school was looking for non-traditional fund raisers. We put the school name and mascot on one side, with a scripture printed on the other. The school sold them for $5 each and ran out in less than the typical 3-4 week fundraiser schedule. And instead of a 50% profit, the mug netted them over 70% profit.

The most unique item I did for a school has to have been yardsticks. It was a boarding school. All the HS students took 10 yardsticks home with them over the Thanksgiving vacation. Of course, the yardsticks were imprinted with the school name, etc.

The presentation was a little different - The students were instructed to take them to family and neighbors asking for a $3 donation for one or $5 for 2
It worked very wel - every student came back with cash and no yardsticks.

Business owners get hit up frequently for every school in their town or area of a larger city. Consider printing up caps in the school's color scheme. Use the primary color scheme with either gold fabric or gold imprint and offer them for a $25 dollar donation. The business can display the cap, and let everyone know he is supporting the school. In some cases, you may be able to do two color combos for gold and silver sponsors - Set the prices your market will bear - $25 and $15 or even $50 for Gold and $25 for Silver.

Just remember - imprinted products can't be returned the way unsold chocolate bars can.

Dennis

Wow Woody -what a great story! Don't you just love to prove nay sayers wrong ... good for you. Thanks for the ideas.

Thanks for the ideas Dennis. as you reminded me, once we commit to imprinted items, we own them. I've suggested imprinted items before but the groups are too worried about not selling the inventory so that won't work for us at this time.

Thanks everyone, one thing we added was a Poinsetta sale. We found a wholesaler that is giving us 5.00 off his normal price so we're going to sell them to offices for holiday decorations.

I haven't been able to find any publications that we can deliver yet so we're still looking for some more plans, thanks everyone for sharing

Sandra

1) I put together a "2 for 1" coupon booklet called, "The MONEY Book". We got restaurants to offer "buy 1 meal get 2nd free". Didn't cost them anything until someone came INTO their restaurant. And got special deals on Oil Changes...etc.
Sold the book for $20. Kids got $15. Next edition we priced at $10 and sold 2,000 of em. Kids got $8.

2) Got a Video Store to offer a "VIDEO DISCOUNT CARD" with 10 small squares that could be punched out or x'ed out. Rent a Video and get 1 Free. Sold Card for $10.

3) Made "Unique Wooden Crosses" that sold like Hotcakes for $10 each. Materials cost $1 each. email me if you'd like the website.

4) Made and sold CHRISTMAS WREATHES for $20. Got the frames and materials from a local Tree Farmer.

Don Alm

My UPDATED "Midas Report" with 25 Unique Ways to make money from home.
http://www.donalm.com

Greetings Again Sandra,

Originally Posted by Sandra B

I've suggested imprinted items before but the groups are too worried about not selling the inventory so that won't work for us at this time.

In the future, presell your imprinted items before you order them. This approach has people prepaying for their product and you won't be stuck with any unsold inventory.

Also the capital you need to make the imprinted products will come from all the presold orders. That means your group will not be out any pocket money or have to come up with any down payment.

Woody Quiñones
Want Forget Proof Customers?