I have a question about Fundraisers?

i personally never have but i hope you make alot of money in your fundraising!

I never have had to do one but good luck to you! How about a bowling night? You could do like 25.00 for 3 games of no taps-do raffles and 50/50 stuff like that! I used to work at a bowling alley and they loved doing those fundraisers to help out!

Have you looked into implimenting a "scrip" program? I'm not sure if they are just for schools or if other orginizations can do them or not. Basically, you sell gift cards for face value, but get to keep a percentage of the sale. Our kids school does this and they have LOTS of different cards available for places most people visit regularly, anyway- grocery stores, gas stations, specialty stores, even some to car repair places. Different companies give different amounts back- for instance, Walmart might give 3% back, where as Kroger might give back 5%. Since it's places most people visit now and then, it's an easy sale. People are just paying for their groceries or gas up front.

http://www.glscrip.com/index.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrip
http://www.simplifiedscrip.com/

I did a Longaberger basket bingo once it was for raising money for my daughters cheerleading squad.

We did a bowling coupon with a local lane. $10 for 3 games and shoe rental with up to a year to use the coupon. The group got $4.00 per ticket.

We're holding a "Friendly Fun-Raiser" at a local Friendly's this Tuesday night. We get 20% of the proceeds from 5-8 pm, whether we got the people into the restaurant or they just drifted in on their own. I'll let you know how much we make.

Our big one is our annual horse show, but you probably don't want to try that one (though it really IS a unique horse show - open to riders of ALL abilities. Some classes are the same as regular horse shows, some are for riders needing various levels of support.). We also run a silent acution at another local "horsey" event.

Our school sends out a form once a month. The orders are placed, and paid for upfront, then a few weeks later, your card arrives. I would recommend setting a table up every Sunday after all the services, and have 2-3 of the kids going on the trip man the table each time (alternating between kids) to sell them. Place an order once or twice a month for the cards, and give written receipts to anyone ordering them with a date that the order will be placed, and an estimate of when the card will arrive.

Make sure to let people know they'll be able to place orders weekly, and have a print out available to take home if they want to look it over and see what stores are available.

After my brother's accident I did a raffle fundraiser for him to help with medical expenses. He lives in a small town, less than $600 and the raffle raised $888 in 3 weeks!

I made up 3 different baskets - 1st, 2nd and 3rd place - so there were 3 chances of winning. We sold tickets for $1 each or 6 for $5.

The 1st place basket was a basket geared towards adults: a phone, golf balls, books, vase, etc.

The 2nd place was geared towards children!

The 3rd was a bath and body basket!

I didn't have tp buy a single thing, it was brand new items that I had bought on clearance and already had at home to use towards gifts.

GOOD LUCK!

First you need to know all the laws in your state. We just did one for Toys for tots in Dec. with our business and a local bar. We had a great turn out. There is alot of differernt things you can do.

Talk to your local restruants and see if any of the do a night where they donate a % of then nights profits. I know Buffalo Wild Wings does it alot in my area. Not sure if you have one down there or not.

Talk to your big retail stores. See if any of them will donate items for a raffle. Some of them take upto 6 weeks notice, because they have to go through there corp. office, so the sooner you contact them, the better.

How about a fair? You could rent out tables for arts and crafts or other items. Have small games for the kids, food, ect. They normally bring in good money.

The bowling idea is a good one. All the bowling alleys in my area, love to do things like this and help out. If its 3 games and shoes, they might say they will charge you $7.50 a head and you charge the bowlers $10-$15. The bowling alley gets there cut and you get the other.

If you have a place you can do it have a sun. breakfast. Get other members of the church to help do the cooking and charge per person. Or do a dinner the same way.

There is so much you can do, you just have to know who to contact to get it done. We have dont this for years with our old employee and doing things for CMN. You might try to contact someone in your area that does alot of stuff like this and see if they might have a list that they would be willing to share with names and numbers of people that donate items for things like this. I wish you the best of luck and I hope you all raise alot of money for your trip.

The supermarket "scrip" program, if it is in your area, is a real winner. It is the only fundraiser that we run year round. It's a no brainer. You are going to shop anyway. They write a check for $100 to your group and you give them $100 gift card for their supermarket. You are only charged $95 for that card. Those $5 bills add up.

We have done magazine subscriptions, cheese cake sales, frozen pizza sales. Heck, we have done everything. Get local merchants to donate stuff and make up your own baskets. I think we have tried over the years 20 different things. We keep trying some things and dropping others.

The group was the local high school band program and since my kids have graduated I am not as involved but if you are interested in any contact info, shoot me an email and I'll see what I can get.

I used to work for a publisher in Tennesse called Funcraft Publishing. Their main business was producing fundraising cookbooks. About 95% of their customers were churches. Check out their website http://www.fundcraft.com

You gather recipes at your church, send everything in with a picture of your church or information or whatever you want and the publish it all into a cookbook that you then sell to raise money. They are very well made.

I no longer work for them because we moved back to Louisiana, but they have quality products and it's something that's very useful.....almost a keepsake.

Hope this helps!

good luck i hope you raise all the money you need

Sounds like you've got some good fundraisers there.

Good ideas!! Thanks for all your help!

I have never started one. But have helped after someone else got them started.

Thanks for leaving a comment on my article.

I am not good at that sort of thing

A lot of the churches in our area do cookbooks as fund raisers. I've helped with a couple when my children were in elementary school. We did candy bars, doughnuts and a pizza sale. Now I know they sell cookie dough. Best of luck.

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Thanks again for all your comments!

I thought about the candy bars too Joan, thanks again everyone.

I am working on actually our first real fundraiser for the foundation. Its harder then I thought. Biggest problem with me is our board is all over the united states so makes it harder to organize.

I have never done a fundraiser, so I am of no help. I wish you all the best of luck though. Did you look into getting group discount as well?

Renee I agree it's harder than I thought too!

Yes, J, we're looking into group rates on hotel and ticket prices, we have AAA which will help us on both.

Thanks for the comments.

I have a teenager in highschool. They have fundraisers for everything. It seems that is always costs me something any way. Either I pay for what ever the fundraiser is for or I pay in gas getting candy orders and then I have to deliver. For the most part the school just sell candy. You can do a search on google and you will find a lot of different fundraisers. I think tupperware and avon offer a type of fundraiser program too. Good luck

No, I have never done this unless you include my participation for MADD but the only fundraising that involves is participating in the MADD Walk and trying to get donations for that. It does sound like you've put a lot of thought into it and you have lots of things planned. Hope it works out well for you, good luck! :)

Our church did a Krispy Kreme doughnut sale to raise funds for the Women's Ministries. We also had a member donate a porcelain doll that we raffled off. Between the two we made about $300.00.