Choosing a fundraiser is a bit tougher these days. With everything going on in the fundraising industry along with budget cuts in schools and a flailing economy, schools have some tough decisions to make now that will determine their fundraising success in the fall.
Here is a list of considerations that will help you in choosing your next fundraiser:
1) Consider fundraisers based on profitability.
Most schools have a main fundraiser that is their heavy-hitter. This year, focusing more effort on this fundraiser is your best bet. Promoting a number of small fundraisers this year will detract from the one that is responsible for the largest revenue.
The biggest fundraisers for fall 2010 will be a fall gift & wrap catalog, frozen cookie dough and well-promoted events such as auctions or a-thons. Stay consistent - if you have been building a successful fall auction for 3 years for instance, stick with it! This fall is not the year to take a chance on something new or un-tested.
• Fall Catalog - A gift catalog includes gifts, magazines, jewelry, candles and a bunch more all designed to have a high participation rate and sell-through rate. A fall catalog is preferable to any single item fundraiser because it offers options. All-in-all, anyone opening the catalog can find something they can use or give as a gift.
• Cookie Dough - Frozen cookie dough has been a top-seller because it is a commodity - food. Food is always in demand so it is easy to make top-dollar. With a cookie dough fundraiser, there are some concerns on delivery day - you will need volunteers to help sort and distribute the product. Make sure to make parents aware of the delivery day anyway you can so they come and pickup the frozen product. With a reminder, the vast majority of parents will be there to get the goods. You may need just a bit of frozen storage for just a few parent orders.
• Large Events - auctions, carnivals and a-thons (walk-a-thon, jog-a-thon, read-a-thon) offer the opportunity to raise large amounts of money. The most successful groups have a repeatable event that they host year after year. This way, the fundraiser offers consistency and improves a groups chances of getting folks out to the event. Be careful when starting a new event because you may have a difficult time judging the outcome. In general, marketing the event becomes critical. The downside of hosting an event is that it requires a ton of volunteer hours.
There are a number of other fundraising ideas out there including single product fundraisers such as trash bags, batteries, candles and if you are considering one of these fundraisers for a school-wide fundraiser, you will really want to compare. It's very likely the sales for these little fundraisers, will not be what you expect.
2) Choose based on ease of use - volunteerism
Some schools have a lot of volunteer support and some struggle a bit with getting help. If it helps you to think of fundraising in terms of ease of use, the easiest is a catalog sale which needs no volunteers, next is cookie dough where help is needed on delivery day and finally any event in which case planning and execution both need volunteers. I know it sounds pretty obvious, but if you know you won't have proper support, don't launch a new event.
3) Choose based on timing
When it comes to timing, fall is where it's at. The fall fundraising season extends roughly from September - November and is responsible for the vast majority of fundraising revenue. Any of the fundraisers will work well during this period of time but there are a few things to consider where timing is concerned.
Are there any competing fundraising efforts around the same time? Consider this... If you promote something right before your big fall fundraising effort, you will likely have less of a response on your fall fundraising efforts. Understanding how this works is simple.
By way of example, let's take a movie night - if 100 people were to show up on a Friday night and you added a viewing on Saturday night as well would you expect 200 people? Unfortunately, you'll really have the same pool of interested folks perhaps with the addition of just one or two that couldn't make the Friday. So, you'd be looking more like 52 per night.
Point is, even though you may get a few more participants, you'll also lose some who will just wait for the next fundraiser. Without writing a book here, let me just point out that the less fundraising you do around the time of your big fall fundraiser, the better!
4) Choose based on benefit to the community.
This one is a bit more challenging to explain. You may want to occasionally offer a fundraiser that benefits the community at large instead of purely being focused on the financial rewards.
There are times where supporting a foreign country in distress (such as Haiti), a local firehouse fundraiser, cancer awareness, perhaps you get to hold a safety fair or something like that and finances are not the main consideration, don't make visitors feel like you have a hand out. Try not to make it seem like the school is doing the fundraiser wherever possible. There is a difference between the school raising money and a donation drive being done at the school if you catch my drift.
If it is a local event, hold it for fun and educational sake in support of the cause. Leave the fundraising to the larger fundraisers wherever possible. This is your chance to strengthen the sense of community and they will be more willing to help you when the main fundraiser comes along.
Tread lightly here only with respect to item 3 above. If you are focusing on a community event around the time of your fall fundraiser, you will likely hurt the sale you are counting on for the majority of the years income.
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