Fundraising Ideas That Work!

All fundraisers are not created equal, and every fundraiser will not work for every group or community. For example, more high end products will not sell as well in a low income area. Knowing the group or community you are asking to participate will ensure that you are bringing them an item or service that they will find valuable, and will make your fundraiser a success!

Cookie dough sales have become popular in school group fundraising and there is a good reason for that, Food sells! When the economy is struggling and people are spending less it is harder to justify spending money on a trinket or bauble, but something that your family can eat and enjoy seems more justifiable. Especially when many main fundraisers are held in the fall, food items can be purchased with the upcoming holidays and entertaining in mind. Get your cookie dough now and save some time on your holiday baking!

The trick here is finding a good one that tastes like home made. Some are very flat and thin. The fundraiser companies will happily get you some samples of their product. Do your homework and make sure you are selling a quality product to your group. If you find a cookie dough program that includes other food items even better! Again, pay attention to the quality and the cost of the products.

One downside of a cookie dough sale is that you are working with frozen product so you will need to be very strict about the pick up date of the product when it is delivered unless you have a grocery store sized freezer to store any product that is not picked up. We used to hold a raffle that everyone who picked up their product by a certain time was entered into. The prize was usually a gift card to Starbuck's or something like that. Some grocery stores will allow you to store left over product in their freezers if you run into a lot left over.

As long as there have been fundraisers it seems there has been the gift wrap and catalog sale. Again, capitalizing on the upcoming holidays, the gift wrap, and potential gift ideas in a catalog can be a successful fundraiser.

Gift wrap by itself is not necessarily a wise choice because although the quality is usually terrific, when you compare prices to places like Costco it is hard to complete. Having gift wrap as part of your catalog, but not the main product, will still provide it for those that love their fancy wrapping paper, but you won't be putting all of your eggs in one risky basket.

When it comes to the catalog there are a few things to consider. First, the price and quality of the items in it. I don't care how wonderful the items are, if your families cannot afford them they will not sell. Second, are they items that can easily be found cheaper at local stores? People may want to help support the school but that doesn't mean they will pay more for an item they can run to Target and get themselves cheaper. Third, is the catalog appealing? Look through it like a customer. Is it easy to browse through? Does it display the items in a way that makes you want to purchase them? Are the descriptions clear and complete? If you don't enjoy browsing through it neither will your customers. Fourth, is there an online ordering option and is it easy and enjoyable to use? Grandma in Florida may want to help Granddaughter in Washington reach her goal. Will she be able to easily access the website and order for herself? We used a company once, that offered online sales but the website was so user unfriendly that it didn't generate many sales. Lesson learned!

Just use common sense and make sure what you are selling will be valuable to the customers you will be selling to.

I have a soft spot for auctions because while they are an enormous amount of work to coordinate, they are also so much fun to pull off! You can run an auction for relatively low expense and add other little fundraising events into the evening for more fun and more revenue possibilities.

First, be sure that you are not spending money on auction items. We asked each class to sponsor a basket and had them choose from a list of themes. For example, Mrs. Smith's class is sponsoring the Gardener's Basket. Donation ideas would be a wheel barrow, flower pots, bulbs, gardening tools, flowers, soil, gloves, etc. you get the idea. Put suggestions on their class flyer to get what you want to make a great basket! In our school we had 30 classrooms. That is 30 baskets right out of the gate! Be sure you put a good variety of basket themes for them to choose from so you have a nice variety to offer at the event.

Ask your local businesses. We had an 18 page list of businesses that we would fax, mail, and visit and ask for donations for our auction. The business would donate an item or service for us to include in the auction and we would include their name in the catalog and on any other publication or poster that was put out. They get some advertising, and a tax deduction for helping to support the school! The most important thing I can stress is to follow up on your donation requests. Managers are busy. A lot of times donation requests get put in a stack and forgotten about. I quick phone call to introduce yourself and follow up, often times serves as a reminder and they will sometimes agree right then to help you. Businesses get a lot of requests and if your follow up call comes in before someone else then you will be the one rewarded with the donation.

Take all of the donations and compile them into appealing baskets or packages to be auctioned off at the event.

Create a detailed catalog of all auction items, and send it out at least a week before the event so people can preview and get excited about the baskets they want to purchase. The catalog should also include any and all rules that apply such as:

• times each table will close
• must be 18 to bid
• acceptable forms of payment
• no bidding after closing has been announced
• bidding increments and valid bids

Don't forget to include any businesses that donated items, and thank all of your volunteers!

If you want to increase attendance, hold the auction during another event such as a Spaghetti Feed and Talent Show. We had a local restaurant that donated complete spaghetti dinners including salad, and breadsticks. We sold them for $5.00 a plate, pure profit. Families who may not have been excited about the auction couldn't resist getting a full spaghetti dinner, catered by a favorite restaurant for their family for only $5! Once they were there and saw all the beautiful baskets, maybe they decided to bid. Holding a talent show during the silent auction bidding gets parents there that want to see their kids perform, and since they are already there, might as well check out the baskets!

Hold a few of the really good baskets for a live auction at the end! If you have a few teachers who are known as favorites of the kids and are willing, see if they will auction off a handful of baskets. All they have to do is get up there and get people excited about the basket, ask for bids, and entertain the crowd. It is SO much fun and people get competitive especially when they don't have time to think too much about it.

We had a $500 budget to spend on the auction. These were the expenses:

• different colored table cloths to designate closing times,(dollar store)
• silk flowers to make flower pens that were color coordinated to each table,(dollar store) You need one pen per auction item to keep bidding fair so no one holds a pen to prevent bidding.
• printer cartridge. You will use a lot of ink printing out tags and bid sheets for each item. not to mention table top posters for gift card items.
• cellophane. The best rolls we found were at Michael's Craft store. They need to be big rolls to fit around some of the bigger baskets.
• ribbon, to tie off the cellophane. Color coordinate to which colored table that basket will be placed on.
• Tape to close up the cellophane on the baskets.
• balloons and helium for the balloon pop. You can get a small tank including balloons at most party stores.
• baskets. When at all possible we used what came in with the donations, but we did occasionally have to run to the dollar store for some sort of container to use as a basket.
• Catalogs were included in our publications budget so we didn't have to take that from the auction budget

As you can see, the auction is an incredible amount of work and preparation starts months in advance. Do not tackle this project unless you really have the time to do it right or it can easily become a disaster. You will also need to have good reliable volunteers.

When it is done right, it can become one of the favorite events of the year!

Hold a small side event at a family night, the carnival or even at the auction. We took some random donations that came in late, or did not fit into another basket theme for the auction, and baked goods donated by volunteers and used them as prizes in our Balloon Pop! Each balloon had a piece of paper rolled up with a number inside that corresponded to a specific prize that was listed by # on a big colorful poster. Each balloon sold for $10. Prizes ranged in value from $10 to $100 so each person who bought one knew that they would be getting a prize worth at least the cost of the balloon. At a certain point in the evening, after all the balloons were sold, everyone popped their balloons to see which prize they won! The balloons sold out the first 20 minutes of the auction and everyone had a blast with that simple event! you can use donations from local businesses or use baked goods donated by your volunteers and hold this event at really any activity of your choice since it is so quick and simple!

There are many, many other fundraising ideas out there, some that work and some that don't. In the end, you need to think like a customer. What would you want to spend your money on? What could you afford? What would be of value to you? Know your customers! Do you live in an affluent area where your customers can afford to spend a little more? Or do you live in an area where families are struggling to get by and their purchases need to have purpose to their lives, and benefit their families?

Also, balance the amount of work with the potential for profit. You don't want to work your butt off for very little benefit. It all boils down to what will make the most money for the kids! What will allow you to provide your school or program with what it needs?

Thank you for volunteering your time to make things better for your community. People who are willing to do that are the people that make things happen! We appreciate you!

Sincerely,

Heidi Ihler

PTA Mom of 13 years