What's with door-door fundraisers anyway?

So, what's with door-to-door selling?

A common fear for parents and schools is door-to-door selling.  What is the truth of the matter?

30 years ago, parents would let their children loose on neighborhoods and would regularly drop them off in unfamiliar neighborhoods in the dark to promote various fundraisers. Times were indeed different but something changed in 1982.

Parents became afraid.

The thing is, I remember this vividly.  At 12 years old, my parents got very paranoid along with everyone else.  On Halloween night, my parent made me go through my candy with them and throw away anything that was loosely wrapped or was made by hand or was a fruit that could contain a razor blade and they inspected every packet, bar and bag. 

All of a sudden, there were random people out there that wanted to get us.

The Tylenol Murders (link) and a bunch of other stuff like the cold war (link) really scared the pants off everyone.  I'm not saying that bad things didn't happen, it's just that we became really paranoid as a nation.

So, what happened to school fundraising?

School fundraising companies began to suggest that people not go door to door.


Today, no professionally run fundraiser is a door-to-door fundraiser.  That person who spread the rumor of the razor blade in the Halloween apple put a stop to it.  No company will tell you to go door-to-door to sell.

But people still like to think product fundraisers are sold door-to-door.  They can be, but they are also sold in a number of other ways, including the ability to sell to out-of-state family and friends with an online component.

So, do door-to-door fundraisers still exist?

Up next What's with door-door fundraisers anyway? PT. 2


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