Beyond Product Fundraising
Product fundraisers seem to be the obvious choice for new fundraising boards. To be sure, product fundraisers do have a lot of ease and convenience to offer, and potential for profitability because the companies offering product-based fundraisers have done as much of the work for their customers as possible. But product fundraisers can become stale and repetitive, and sometimes it can be difficult to find enough supporters in want or need of the products offered to turn a respectable profit.
Volunteers new to fundraising may not always realize that they have many options beyond product fundraising. And often non-product based fundraisers enjoy greater success because they give supporters fun, easy ways to support an organization at a variety of affordable price-points, without purchasing product they don’t really want or need.
One option for staging a non-product based fundraiser is to hold an event of some sort. If well organized and well-run, event fundraisers are great successes because they provide affordable, fun, community-based entertainment and/or education. Some event-based fundraising options include:
- Community carnivals or fairs
- Craft sales, bake sales, flea markets, or fairs where table space is sold (rented) to vendors
- ‘Taste of’ your town events – sell table space to local restaurants and caterers, bakeries, etc. and invite the town for samples for a small ticket fee
- Car washes
- Plays/theater/dance recitals
- Petting zoos
- Child-centered educational events like bike safety days, child safety awareness programs, youth-group events
Event-based fundraisers are lots of fun and can be hugely successful, but they do have a downside: event-based fundraisers require a lot of planning, man-hours, and initial monetary investment for supplies.
There are several other non-product based fundraiser options that can be completed in record fundraising time, and be very appealing to supporters, such as the following:
- Discount cards – sold for 5 or 10 dollars, worth percentage discounts at partnering local businesses
- Scratch cards – supporters scratch one or more circles on a card and donate the amount of money that is shown (donations are no more than $5 per circle)
- Lotto calendars - calendars are sold for 10 to 15 dollars, and buyers have the potential to win each day for a month (cash prizes are given for each day’s drawing)
- Raffles – sell tickets, draw a winner for the prize; 50-50 raffles are especially easy and popular (winner gets half the money collected from ticket sales)
- Brick fundraisers – sell bricks engraved with donors’ names and use them to build a garden, walkway, or partial building
- Spare-a-dollar campaigns – print letters explaining the campaign and simply ask supporters for donations
Product-based fundraisers give supporters something tangible for their money, but with multiple fundraisers being run in every locale several times per year, product fundraisers can be met with diminishing demand and support. Non-product based fundraisers and fundraising events are better options when the product fundraising pool is overflowing.
For discount cards and scratch cards, try FastTrackFundraising.com.
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