When your youth group needs to raise money quickly, you need a fast free fundraiser that you can rely on to generate the necessary revenue. The amount you make on these free easy fundraisers will depend on how much time you have to prepare and how well you execute your plan.
Here are three time-tested projects to raise some fast cash:
1 – Car Wash
2 – Yard Cleanup
3 – Community Cleanup
Car Wash Fundraiser
Car washes have proven to be great fundraisers in virtually every community. All you need are willing volunteers, a high-traffic location with good visibility, and some attention getting signs. You can put your car wash fundraiser together on short notice.
Here’s what you need to do:
1 – Line up a location with good main road frontage
2 – Ensure it has water access
3 – Assemble supplies list – hoses, buckets, wash towels, dry towels, squeegees
4 – Assign each volunteer an item from the supplies list
5 – Make 8-10 poster board signs in high-contrast colors
6 – Arrange your volunteers in 2-hour shifts
7 – Wash cars for six hours (Saturday preferred)
8 – Have dual lines so you can wash two at once
Your car wash fundraiser’s success will of course depend on the weather. If you can wash 12 cars an hour (one every 10 minutes in each line), you can easily raise more than $500 in one day.
Remember to put together a quick flyer that includes the reason why you’re raising funds and clearly states the price. You can even offer some extra services such as Armor-All tire treatment or interior vacuuming for an additional fee.
Alternatively, you can advertise a free car wash and just ask for donations for your cause. Often, this can raise more cash than stating a specific price, because people will see a group of volunteers working hard and having a good time, and may pay more than you would hav asked.
Keeping safety in mind, be sure to get volunteers to hold and wave signs toward passing traffic, not just volunteers to wash cars. If you have time, advertise your car wash event in the local newspaper, and post signs a day or two in advance.
Yard Cleanup
A yard cleanup fundraiser is extremely fast and easy to put together. Simply create a set of instructions for your group detailing what to offer, what to say, and how much to charge.
Like most fundraisers, the target market is family, friends, and neighbors. Depending on the age of your participants, your offerings can range from simple lawn care all the way up to mulching flower beds or pruning tree limbs. In many climates, autumn is a great time to do this fundraiser, because leaf clearing is always a needed service during those months.
Create a flyer describing your fundraiser and clearly list your prices for the various cleanup options. Assign a fundraising quota to each participant.
Offer some individual and group performance bonuses. There’s nothing like a team pizza party or movie passes to motivate a youth sports group.
Community Cleanup
A community cleanup, also known as a trash bag fundraiser, performs a valuable community service while also providing a significant revenue opportunity. Organizing a community cleanup project is a way to raise funds and send a positive message about your group at the same time.
This type of one day or weekend fundraising event is very similar to the Athlet-A-Thon or Fun-A-Thon concept. Here your group’s participants solicit pledges from the usual suspects – family, friends, and neighbors. Have local businesses donate trash bags and recruit parents and relatives with trucks to haul what you collect.
Pledges are tied to a specific attainment goal such as the number of pounds of trash collected or the number of road miles cleaned of debris. You’ll need to create a one-page overview of your cleanup program and a pledge signup sheet.
It works best if your overview specifies a suggested range for donations, say anywhere from a penny to a dime a pound for a large project. An amazing amount of garbage can be collected from a local stream or illegal dumping area, so it’s not a bad idea to also put a maximum limit on pledge amounts of $20.
Have local businesses donate trash bags. Recruit parents and relatives with trucks to haul what you collect.
Do the math. You’ll be surprised at how much money you can generate. Assuming 50 participants, each of whom has five pledges of a penny a pound, if you collect a ton of garbage, your group will raise $100 per participant or $5,000.
That’s not bad money for a free fundraiser! You’d be surprised at how easy it is to collect a ton of garbage.
Each of these fundraisers is fast, easy to put together, and a reliable revenue generator for your group. As with any youth group event, an adult should be in attendance at all times for safety purposes. Get started on your free easy fundraisers today!
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Organizations everywhere are starting to see the benefits of staging certain types of fundraisers. As you may have discovered through trial-and-error, some fundraisers are simply more successful than others. We all want to raise as much money as we can for our respective organizations, but there are times when we ought to give pause to other considerations.
Coffee fundraisers have been massively successful in the United States and beyond. It should come as no surprise, mind you. Everyone loves coffee, especially really good coffee. It is estimated that over 200 million people in the United States alone drink coffee on a daily basis. At approximately one dollar per cup, you can imagine how staggering the profits can be. Organizations have an excellent opportunity to tap into this market, and to brew up massive revenues for their respective ventures.
The difficult part of doing coffee fundraisers, is convincing people to compromise their morning coffee routines. It may sound absurd, but many people feel very passionately about the coffee they drink. From what I have been told by some of our readers, Canadians are absolutely fanatic about Tim Horton’s coffee. The challenge for people involved in fundraising, is to convince people to try something new. We have to appeal to their thoughtful side. It is for charity, after all.
One of our friends has had tremendous success by putting a new twist on the traditional coffee fundraiser. Instead of offering people unimpressive gift boxes of coffee, why not consider selling bags of Fair Trade Coffee? If you are not aware of the Fair Trade movement, you should be. It is essentially an effort to ensure that farmers in developing countries are properly compensated for their labor and their products. The movement also tries to address issues regarding the environmental impact of certain farming practices, as well as local economic sustainability.
There is a significant percentage of the population in America that truly cares about what is happening in the world today. The environmental movement has been going strong for decades now, and people have become both active and aware of the issues that affect citizens in America and beyond. These conditions create a wonderful opportunity for fundraisers, as we can give people an opportunity to support two wonderful causes; the Fair Trade movement and your organization! Let your conscience guide you in your fundraising efforts, and help make trade fair.
Perhaps nothing matches the enthusiasm and zeal of elementary school children. This carries over to elementary school fundraising events where young students strive to complete every assigned fundraising chore with determination and dedication. Teachers and parents participate and guide the children to ensure their hard work is successful and raises a lot of money.
Candy is a favorite of children, and candy makes a great fundraiser for elementary schools. Gourmet, Hershey, Maredy Candy are a few companies that provide excellent fundraising programs. You can find out more about the companies and the programs on the Internet or by calling the company.
Selling perfumed candles is a traditional way for children to raise school funds and the returns are quite good. Companies offer attractive brochures for customers to browse through and place orders. The company, in turn, gives a percentage back to the school. Avia Candles, Botika Candles, and Christ’s Light Candles are some of the companies who offer a variety of attractive candles for fundraising.
Book fairs and carnivals are excellent ways to raise funds for elementary schools. School carnivals could include game booths, talent shows and bake sales. Sporting events with parent/child participation have also proven to be successful fundraisers for elementary schools.
An important point to remember with any elementary school fundraiser is the children participating need close supervision throughout the event – safety comes first above everything else.
One thing to keep in mind is that if elementary students want to fundraise door to door, a parent or guardian should accompany them.
Did you know that school fund raising brings big business to many companies? This is because schools purchase the supplies they need for fund raising in large quantities. The company can easily give a discount because they sell a lot of products at one time. School fund raising is also becoming an important part of school life because it offers schools different ways of fundraising the money they need for the equipment and trips.
Schools are constantly on the lookout for fundraising ideas for their next school fund raiser. They have to be creative to come up with unique ideas so that people will attend the fund raiser and contribute to the cause. Every season of the year brings school fund raising events and some are easier for coming up with fundraising ideas than others.
Halloween, for example, provides schools with fund raising ideas in the form of a haunted house or a costume ball. This type of school fund raiser needs a lot of volunteers and is best for middle schools and high schools. An idea for an elementary school fund raiser for Halloween could include a Halloween party where the children have an opportunity to take part in games where they win prizes.
Quite often school fund raising takes the form of selling items that people need or want to buy. Selling chocolate at Easter, for example, always goes over well as a school fund raiser. Instead of purchasing large amounts of chocolate in hopes it will sell, most schools take orders. The company supplying the chocolate for the fund raiser offers a discounted price along with specials for orders of a certain quantity. They also supply prizes if the school wishes to award prizes for the person who sells the most.
Read-a-thons are a specialty for school fund raising. Parents avidly support this type of school fund raiser as it does promote a school activity while raising funds for other programs. Students really get into this type of fund raiser as they compete with the other classes in the school. The principal sometimes sweetens the pot by offering an incentive for the success of the fund raiser, such as offering to shave his beard or come to school dressed in pyjamas.
School fund raising is a competitive field, and needs some good ideas.
Looking for good school fundraiser? Cookie dough sales are an easy moneymaker. What is a cookie dough fundraiser? The basic concept is the same as all order taker fundraisers. You equip your sellers with a brochure, an order form, and a basic sales script.
Your group does catalog sales of a three-pound tub of cookie dough. Average retail price is $10 per three-pound tub. The dough comes in a wide variety of flavors, including some that are sugar free.
Some suppliers are now offering the dough in pre-sliced packages to further simplify the baking process.
Others are offering it in a dry mix that doesn’t need to be refrigerated. All you do is add water, mix by hand, and you have your cookie dough ready for baking.
Profitability
Most fundraising companies offer the three-pound tubs of cookie dough at a 40%-50% discount. Some suppliers also offer a larger four-pond tub for slightly more.
Cookie dough needs to be refrigerated, so this fundraiser requires a little more delivery preparation. Kids like selling this because it’s something that they enjoy themselves.
The average seller makes ten sales or approximately $100 in revenue. That translates to roughly $50 in profit per seller, which is quite good.
Factors affecting your cookie dough fundraiser profitability include freight charges, quantity discounts, quality of the brochure, number of available cookie dough choices, and the need to keep the dough refrigerated.
This product works well for both elementary school and high school fundraising.
Larger groups can easily earn a quantity discount above 50%. As always, do an RFQ fax quote to the supplier list and get your best possible discount up front.
Sales Tips
Here’s what they need to do to sell:
1 – Smile, use their name in greeting, and introduce yourself
2 – Use the power of “because” (give a reason why)
3 – Ask for their help (ask for the order)
4 – Make eye contact and suggest a favorite
Example sales script: (Keep it short & sweet)
Hi, Mrs. Johnson! (Smile & make eye contact)
I’m Jimmy Roberts from down the street. (Hand over sales flyer with large bold print)
Our school is doing a cookie dough fundraiser because we need new computers.
Can you help us out with a $10 contribution? That gets you a three-pound tub of cookie dough. My favorite is the chocolate chip, but peanut butter is real popular too!
(Pause and wait for a response)
The important points are to smile, use a sales flyer, use the word because, ask for their help, and suggest an order size, then wait for a response.
Each prospect has a potential dollar value to your organization. Don’t waste prospects by not being prepared. Make sure all your sellers know what to say and how to say it.