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One of the most common things that our customers ask us for is help with picking the right fundraising ideas for their group. There are just so many ways to compare fundraisers – by profit, minimum order levels, shipping costs, product costs, start up costs, overall sales potential, etc. – that it can be very overwhelming to even know where to start. But don’t worry. In fact, you can even relax. We are help to give you help choosing fundraising ideas.
The main thing to do is sort through all of the different ways to look at fundraisers. Most groups will do some sort of product sale and we are going to assume that that is what you will be doing as well. Within the category of product sales comes direct sell fund raising ideas and pre sell fund raising programs. You can probably guess what each is – direct sell is where you sell items directly to customers and pre sell has you using brochures. Typically, a direct sell program has you buy products up front and offers higher profits while presell fundraisers are free to start and therefore have less risk.
Since you are looking for help choosing fundraising ideas, you have probably run across a number of different ways that fundraising companies can explain profit. Profit can either be shown as the percentage of a dollar that your group keeps (this is how we do it), or it can be shown as markup where the percentage is how much more than your cost that you keep. For example, if you sell an item for $1 and your cost is 50 cents (like with our Smencils or Flower Bulb fundraisers), the PROFIT is 50% (selling price of $1 minus your cost of 50 cents = 50 cents divided by $1 = 50%) but the markup is 100% (you earn 50 cents which is 100% of your cost). Showing markup vs. profit is an easy way for fundraising programs to look much better than they actually are. Watch out for this and pay lots of attention because it can become confusing very quickly.
Another profit related topic that you will want to pay attention to as you choose your fundraising ideas is whether or not a prize program is offered. One thing to remember is that nothing is free and that means that, in the end, you are paying for the prizes out of the profits that you would otherwise be keeping for the group. Our experience has been that prize programs very rarely lead to increases in sales and that most groups would rather keep the extra dollars than by cheap prizes.
If you are looking for school fundraisers or ideas for any other groups with some sort of governing body, you should definitely check with the people in charge to see if there are any restrictions on the types of fundraising ideas that you can use. There are a lot of areas that have started limiting the sale of unhealthy foods and it would be terrible to put in the work to find the perfect program only to find out that it isn’t allowed.
Fundraising can seem overwhelming but it really doesn’t have to be that way. Maybe the best advice we can give you is to simply call a representative at a fundraising company. We work with people every day to help them find the best programs for their group to raise the most money possible and we would love the chance to do the same for you. To speak with one of our experts on eco friendly fundraisers, simply call us at 877-448-9746.
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