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Posts Tagged ‘fundraising’

Hopefully, you’ve already read Part One of these tips for organizing your school fundraiser. A smart plan can make your school fundraiser much easier. Here are some other considerations:

Using a consultant
Consider using a fundraising consultant to assist your organization with larger fundraisers, first-time events, or mission critical efforts. Among the benefits of using professional help are the following: increased market penetration, increased sales per client, higher average sales volume per participant, and smoother logistical flow.

Use a fundraising consultant to take the hassle out of organizing your event and put the “fun” back in fundraising again.

Protect your reputation
Offer only high quality products. Remember that no one feels good about overpaying for something or getting shoddy merchandise in return for a contribution. Take the high road and build loyalty within your customer base.

Profit percentage
Place less emphasis on the percentage profit offered by the supplier and focus more on the total net profit generated. Higher unit prices will mean higher total sales revenue and often, higher profits per customer.

That’s not to say that percentage isn’t important, but consider other factors as well. Look at whether sales incentives are included, hidden costs that may arise, sales brochures that cost extra, poor quality merchandise that can hurt future sales, and so on.

Incentives
Rewards will increase participation and that can positively effect the net proceeds from your efforts. The quality of the incentives is an important motivator. If appropriate, consider rewards from among the products you’re offering. Look to local merchants for supplemental prizes.

Insist on best value
People will be more inclined to buy if you’re offering quality goods at the right price. Higher-priced goods will actually generate more net from each sales transaction to your organization than the cheap stuff that offers a higher percentage profit to your group.

Price points
Many times, different organizations conduct similar fundraisers at coincidental times. Make sure that the prices asked are comparable to other fundraisers in your community. Check prices ranges via the Internet and with other nearby organizations. Look at other catalogs, retail merchant pricing for similar goods, and trust your gut instincts.

Beware of perfuming the pig
There’s an old saying about making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. It means that someone is trying to assign a higher value to an item than it is worth. Another phrase often used to reference the deceptive selling of overpriced goods is “perfuming the pig.”

If you overcharge your customers for common items, they’ll resent it, consciously or subconsciously. Compare results with records from past fundraisers to check what price points were offered before on similar items. Be certain to give fair market value for the items your group is offering. You want those customers back the next time, don’t you?

Setup calling trees
Once your fundraiser has begun, don’t forget to utilize your calling tree for immediate feedback. Ask if there are any problems, check on initial reaction from participants and their families, keep the enthusiasm level high, and don’t let your initial positive momentum slip away. Regular polling of team leaders and participants will keep you informed.

Doubling Up
Double check all order forms and check payments to be sure they’re correctly filled out. Double-team all money handling facets of the fundraising process. Have double dates (makeup days) planned in advance in case of inclement weather or other unforeseen delays on delivery day.

Use co-chairs for each mission critical function. Cross train on all tasks. Keep duplicate records of important details in a different location as part of your backup plan. In the world of technology, this is called disaster recovery or disaster prevention. Double count all deliveries coming in and going out.

Record Keeping
Accurate records are a lifesaver and a source of information for future fundraisers. Follow audit guidelines just as if you were a small business. As a non-profit organization, you have to be able to document the source of your funding as well as how those funds were spent.
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Talk about your hard workers! Band groups are awesome when it comes to putting forth the effort it takes for fundraising success. The key is making sure they have the right fundraiser that will leverage all that energy.

In this article, we’ll consider three band fundraisers that:

Take some effort
Are perfect for medium-sized groups
Produce excellent results

Citrus Fruit
One band fundraiser that fits the easy fundraiser formula is selling cases of citrus fruit shipped direct from the Florida groves.

Here, the band members use an order-taker brochure to explain the offering to prospective supporters.

You really need to go door-to-door or sell from a merchant table to achieve the kind of numbers where you’ll raise substantial funds. This is perfect for a band group with enough members to canvass entire neighborhoods by working in pairs.

Customers can choose from Navel Oranges, Tangelos, Tangerines, Red Grapefruits, and mixed cartons. Order sizes range from ten pounds all the way up to forty pounds.

A common size is 2/5 of a bushel or 20 pounds. Generally, you can expect to pay roughly $8 for this size and make a profit of $4 each. These are rough prices because citrus fruit can vary in price based on weather patterns and availability.

Citrus fruit is a wintertime offering with availability best between mid-November through mid-April. There are discounts for large orders and bonuses for ordering a whole truckload.

Christmas Wreaths
Another band fundraiser that’s a good fit is selling Christmas wreaths via an order-taker brochure.
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Looking for low cost political fundraising tips? It’s obvious that the campaign fund raising system is badly in need of reform. This article covers a dozen ways political candidates can raise money quickly and easily online.

Getting elected to any type of local, state, or national office is hugely expensive. As a result, most politicians are beholden to special interest groups who contribute heavily to fund their election and reelection campaigns.

There are plenty of ways that political candidates could raise money the right way, but that requires work and quite frankly, a lot of them take the easy way instead.

If they’d only use their brains and build grass roots fundraising organizations, leverage the power of the internet, and avoid wasting money on ineffective advertising, they could get elected without compromising their beliefs.

Remember how Howard Dean shocked everyone in 2003 with his fundraising prowess? Well, that success is a huge arrow pointing at new ways to raise funds online.

12 tips for online political fundraising:

Website name capture
Your candidate website should be designed to capture the names and email addresses of as many visitors as possible. Use the technique known as name capture that presents a special page to visitors asking them to be added to your mailing list. That way, you can add as many as 50% of your site visitors to your follow-up autoresponder messages.

Offer RSS feeds
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) distributes new website postings to everyone who’ve signed up to receive your info. This is great for getting media coverage, creating a lot of links back to your website, and keeping supporters updated.

Blogging
Add a blog to your website explaining your positions on the issues. Blogs are all the rage these days and having one will get you additional exposure within the political community. Be passionate in your postings! Allow visitors to add comments, but set them to be approved.

Podcasts
Doing podcasts explaining your positions on important issues is another great way to push information out to the public. Create multimedia presentations for others to view such as speeches, hot topics, requests for donations, etc. You can get setup to podcast for under $100.

Position papers
Post detailed position statements on your website on how your views contrast with opponents. This will attract people searching for information on the issues.

Press kits
Provide summary info on your website in PDF document format for press kits to increase media coverage.
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Looking for tips on planning a charity golf tournament? There are many factors to consider, so I’ll stick to the four main ones for this article. The success of your charity golf event revolves around maximizing player turnout, increasing pledge sizes, obtaining sponsored prizes, and planning tips.

Player Turnout
Your success depends on how many players your golf event draws and how actively you have your players solicit sponsors for their own rounds.

To maximize turnout, you need to get major publicity for your event. That means putting out multiple press releases, getting local media coverage from newspapers and television stations, and placing ads in the sports section of the local paper.

For the best results, put your press releases out through PR Web. Appoint a spokesperson to handle all media contacts and follow-up. For more tips, read my article on fundraising publicity.

Charity Pledges
The key is getting each player to collect a certain amount of pledges. I recommend a minimum of $100 per player in pledges. I’ve also played in tournaments where that number was $250 per player.

Obviously, you want to motivate the participants to raise as much money as possible. Some groups offer incentives for the top pledge getters. Others seek corporate sponsorships for that firm’s players.

Pledge amounts determine the success of your charity golf event, so get input from experienced golfers and golf pros in your area.

Top Golfer Prizes
Generally speaking, you’ll draw more golfers if you have great prizes for longest drive, closest to the hole, hole in one, lowest team score, lowest actual score, and best adjusted score (handicap).
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