Best / Worst Fundraiser you have participated in

[golfgal]

Some more I thought of--the volleyball team in our old town had one farm girl on the team. They grew pumpkins on their farm each year and spent a weekend driving around town with the pumpkins on a flatbed truck and sold pumpkins. They advertised in the newspaper so people knew to look for them. It was SO nice and easy. I think they charged $3-5/pumpkin.

The local water softener company would let groups buy bags of salt at cost and deliver them-that was really nice.

They sell gift cards to the local florist here. You pay full price for the gift card and the group selling gets a 20% cut. We are going to buy flowers anyway so you aren't out anything and the group makes a TON of money off these.

Basically, if you can find a way to sell things people already buy you will do well. Our kids' old school had a script fundraiser where you buy gift cards to various local and national businesses and the school gets a percentage of the sale. We used them for groceries and gas all the time.

 

[jen0610]

Around here, the best fundraisers we have found are:

Nelsons Chicken - YUM!!!!! And it doesn't matter how many sales there are, last year there was a different group selling in the Walgreens parking lot 6 weeks in a row, each sale was always busy. I can smell a Nelsons fundraiser from a mile away.

50/50 raffles - we do these every night at the ball diamonds. With 4 fields, 2 games each field, it's a lot of parents. It can range from making 80.00 a night up to 200.00 a night. And during tourney time, it can double.

Car Washes - Like someone else said, if you pick the rainy Saturday, it's not a good one, but it you are on a hot day, you can make good money.

 

[Acklander]

During 4th grade there are numerous fundraisers to raise money for the 5th grade Washington DC trip. It's relentless (spaghetti dinners, car washes, monthly bake sales, raffles, calendars and so on) Best fundraiser is the first one where all the parents buy raffle tickets and whoever's name is drawn doesn't have to participate in anymore fundraisers for the year. I didn't win, but I bought like $100.00 worth of raffle tickets (and so did a lot of other parents LOL)

 

[TaylorsDoDisney]

I hate selling anything especially the "junk" from a catalog.

My brother coaches high school fast pitch softball and they have the best fundraiser. They park cars at Talladega Speedway twice a year. They get $100 per person per day and they also get in the races for free. They usually take about 40 people and will make $8000.00 a weekend.

 

[pjb0216]

Our best was the pine needle fund raiser. We sold and delivered pine needles in the spring. We always make a ton off that.

The worst was wrapping paper, I can't sell that to anyone (including myself)

 

[golfgal]

During 4th grade there are numerous fundraisers to raise money for the 5th grade Washington DC trip. It's relentless (spaghetti dinners, car washes, monthly bake sales, raffles, calendars and so on) Best fundraiser is the first one where all the parents buy raffle tickets and whoever's name is drawn doesn't have to participate in anymore fundraisers for the year. I didn't win, but I bought like $100.00 worth of raffle tickets (and so did a lot of other parents LOL)

That has to be the BEST idea EVER.

 

[dawson5]

We are not allowed to sell candy for school fundraisers anymore "its not healthy"....nor can we sell cookie dough, pies etc...
Our best fundraiser and the one I enjoying working on and the ones I enjoy going to the best are the chinese auctions- they are the most fun and make the most money. I usually work with a friend running the one for our school and we have a blast running it.
Another one that did good was the one where you buy a ticket that had three numbers on it and whatever number comes out in the evening pick three state drawing that number is the winner, it runs for a whole month and is only 5.00 a tickets.

Our schools are doing away with the candy next year also, for the same reason. They did not say anything about the cookie dough.

For 8th grade trip to DC, they had three separate sales: cookie dough, poinsettias, candy. Quite honestly, not a fan of any of them. PTO now just puts out a pamphlet asking for a donation of $20/child in the school instead of the catalog/gift wrap sales. This has worked out great for two years now.

In grade school they did the catalog sales, gift wrap, etc. Not the greatest value for the money.

For baseball we've done the Nelson's port-a-pit chicken. That is nice fundraiser. It is expensive but most don't seem to mind. We've done the M&M's, still not a huge fan of candy fundraisers, especially during warmer months. You could buy out on that one though. They also did a frozen pizza catalog thing, those looked disgusting and I didn't hear a lot of great reviews on it.

My old neighbor is a rep for Home Interiors, I know that they offer a candle sale and I think you get half of the profits. I passed along the info to the PTO, I don't know if it was ever discussed or if it wasn't profitable enough.

We've done the BS popcorn sales, wreaths and we did a Papa Murphy pizza sale. Those always did well.

The high school and the travel ball teams always do a "peeler" card. I think this is probably the easiest with a good return. The card has peelable coupons for various places and restaurants, cost to buy is $10. I think they probably pay for the cards to be printed (or it's donated or discounted) but the rest is pure profit. Quick and cheap.

Also our rec league 13 yr old baseball team made it to the LLWS and they held a "family day" at the ball park. Sold hot dogs, hamburgers and had a lot of games to play. You bought tickets to eat and play.

 

[tinatark]

From an administrative/parent side :

An easy fund raiser is scrip - if you can get the school families involved and in the habit of planning - you buy your shopping cards (grocery cards - Kroger, etc.) and the school gets a portion - I think 5% - doesn't seem like a lot, but it really adds up.

School coupon books are a great deal - the school gets up to $7.50 for each book sold. When Home Depot had a 10% coupon in there, local builders would buy them by the box just for that coupon, matchable at Lowe's and worth up to $200. My favorite is the one for Bed Bath and Beyond - $5 off $15 purchase - better than the 20% one if I'm just making a small purchase. I have a TON of coupon books - will be taking that one out when the rest of them expire!

 

[golfgal]

From an administrative/parent side :

An easy fund raiser is scrip - if you can get the school families involved and in the habit of planning - you buy your shopping cards (grocery cards - Kroger, etc.) and the school gets a portion - I think 5% - doesn't seem like a lot, but it really adds up.

School coupon books are a great deal - the school gets up to $7.50 for each book sold. When Home Depot had a 10% coupon in there, local builders would buy them by the box just for that coupon, matchable at Lowe's and worth up to $200. My favorite is the one for Bed Bath and Beyond - $5 off $15 purchase - better than the 20% one if I'm just making a small purchase. I have a TON of coupon books - will be taking that one out when the rest of them expire!

The percentage from Scrip depends on the company-some places gave our school as high as 33% and a lot of them were in the 10-15% range. It is a lot of paperwork for those that do the administration work but easy for everyone else.

 

[FireDancer]

We do a lot of fund raisers for our Relay for Life team but the most successful was a golf outing we have had the last two years. It is $150 per person for 18 holes plus dinner and we cleared $8,000 the both years.

The most fun though has been setting up a booth at a local rib & rock in which we sold rootbeer floats. We just had a lot of fun and since it was so hot last year we made a lot of money. We went through a full keg of rootbeer in the first 6 hours. Hopefully we will have nice weather again this year. In 2008 it rained the whole time and it really hurt the sale of the floats.

In both cases everything was donated (the food, rootbeer, ice cream, golf course, and all course workers) so we got to keep 100% of the donations. No overhead makes for a better fundraiser.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

The best fundraiser I have participated in was our elementary school walk a thon last year. The pto was doing the frankenmuth catalog sales every year, because they said it made the most money, but the walk a thon topped it.

The kids just asked for donations to sponser them in the walk a thon. The school earned 100% of the money. They went way over the goal. We had prizes for the kids. Each child got his name entered for a prize drawing 1 time for every $20.00 they brought in. All the prizes were donated from the local community businesses. The top prize was a Wii donated by a doctor in town. There were also tons of other prizes too.

It took place on a school day, and we even had local news coverage. I think everyone was so relieved not to have to buy anything. I'm sure we will be doing this again.

The worst for me as a parent is selling any product. In this economy people are trying to save money. Even if you explain that that product costs so much because it is a fundraiser people still don't want to pay 2 X the value of the product.

Oh wait, maybe the worst is the cake auction. We spend all the time and money making a really great cake, and then my boys insist on buying back their own cakes at the auction. There is always someone bidding against us, so we end up paying way too much for the cake we made in the first place.

 

[Normangirls]

We just had our reverse raffle event this last weekend for our 4-H group. It was mainly adults who handled the organization, then the kids did the menial labor!

Tickets were $50 a piece, and included a steak dinner. Everyone's ticket went in the bin, then we started drawing them out one at a time. The last one drawn won $2000.

We had a lot of other things going on throughout the evening, including a few $50 tickets we auctioned off (toward the end we got $200+ for those -- since there were fewer tickets left in the bin they had a higher chance of winning). We had some silent auction items (gift baskets, etc.), and also ran a 50/50 raffle.

It was a lot of work, but we raised about $8000.

 

[Pooh's Pixie]

For those that did Yankee Candle, how does that work? They are already expensive to begin with, do they raise the price significantly or do you not get as much of a percent back as other fundraisers? I am on my PTO's Leadership Team for next year and I am curious about new fundraisers.

 

[walkerag]

The best fundraiser I have participated in was our elementary school walk a thon last year. The pto was doing the frankenmuth catalog sales every year, because they said it made the most money, but the walk a thon topped it.

The kids just asked for donations to sponser them in the walk a thon. The school earned 100% of the money. They went way over the goal. We had prizes for the kids. Each child got his name entered for a prize drawing 1 time for every $20.00 they brought in. All the prizes were donated from the local community businesses. The top prize was a Wii donated by a doctor in town. There were also tons of other prizes too.

It took place on a school day, and we even had local news coverage. I think everyone was so relieved not to have to buy anything. I'm sure we will be doing this again.

The worst for me as a parent is selling any product. In this economy people are trying to save money. Even if you explain that that product costs so much because it is a fundraiser people still don't want to pay 2 X the value of the product.

Oh wait, maybe the worst is the cake auction. We spend all the time and money making a really great cake, and then my boys insist on buying back their own cakes at the auction. There is always someone bidding against us, so we end up paying way too much for the cake we made in the first place.

My DD's school does this every year. People can either sponser the child per lap or a flat donation. I always do the flat donation because once DD ran/walked 23 laps and my supervisor sponsored her $5 per lap

We're doing a cookie dough fundraiser right now for softball..

 

[cybrkitn]

For those that did Yankee Candle, how does that work? They are already expensive to begin with, do they raise the price significantly or do you not get as much of a percent back as other fundraisers? I am on my PTO's Leadership Team for next year and I am curious about new fundraisers.

DS7 is in the process of doing this right now for Cub Scouts, so I just pulled the info out. The sheet for the Scouts says "We earn over 40% profit." I don't know if that is the norm or if it changes depending on who'se doing it.

The jars that are sold are the medium size (14.5 ounces) and sell for $23 each. He did this fundraiser during the the holidays and was one of the top three sellers for his Pack. This time with Spring right around the corner, we haven't really put that much of an effort into it (and it's due back by the 28th). But we are going to change that this week.

 

[luvsJack]

The best fundraisers I ever participated in were selling candy that could be sold at school to the kids. In hs we did two different kinds. One was patty type chocolates, 1 with nuts, 1 with coconut and 1 with caramel. They sold X$ each patty or X$ for a box of 4. The other sale was stick candy, like peppermint sticks but in different flavors and we sold them for X$ each. We sold at breaks, after school or whenever we could legally sell (not before lunch) and they sold like hot cakes. The clubs we were selling for made a huge amount of money.

Another good one has been spaghetti suppers (or other dish that can be made in large quantities). Parents donated the ingredients, students (junior high) cooked the food with the help of parents and it was sold by take out plates. Very little cost so almost all profit and done and over with in one night.


The worst is raffle tickets. One organization that dd was a part of has done the same raffle for 10 years (a $1000 walmart gift card). The kids have to sell for months to make the amount of money needed, part of the time they are standing in front of Walmart selling tickets and it has been noticed that no one ever knows who sold the winning ticket or knows anyone who won. Fewer and fewer people are buying the tickets.

 

[clutter]

What's the size of the group you're fundraising for?

For our schools, even though everyone hates them, I think the magazine and wrapping paper sales were the most successful.

For our soccer team (16 families), we've had the most success with Krispy Kreme sales and scrip. (Which isn't tough to administer with a small group.) We're especially successful for an out of town tournament because we buy the gift cards for the hotel through the scrip (usually an 8% to 12% rebate) and have the parents pay the team. We've also raised some money by doing a night at Let's Dish or one of the supper places. They will give back a percentage of their receipts.

As for other sales, STAY AWAY from anything that requires refrigeration. I've not done it, but I've seen disasters at work when you bring the product in. (I also refuse to participate because I don't have refrigerated storage.)

As for buying, I don't really like most of the products. I got annoyed at the Boy Scouts because they no longer sell unpopped popcorn. Girl Scouts dropped their two best products. Someone at work brought in a cake sale, you could buy a mini- carrot cake or sticky bun for $4.00. Those were really good and I wished I'd bought more to bring to my father!

 

[Rainwater]

Best fundraiser(s): Free carwash and parents just write a check so they don't have to do the fund raiser.

Worst fundraiser: Selling donuts.

 

[dawson5]

What's the size of the group you're fundraising for?

For our schools, even though everyone hates them, I think the magazine and wrapping paper sales were the most successful.

For our soccer team (16 families), we've had the most success with Krispy Kreme sales and scrip. (Which isn't tough to administer with a small group.) We're especially successful for an out of town tournament because we buy the gift cards for the hotel through the scrip (usually an 8% to 12% rebate) and have the parents pay the team. We've also raised some money by doing a night at Let's Dish or one of the supper places. They will give back a percentage of their receipts.

As for other sales, STAY AWAY from anything that requires refrigeration. I've not done it, but I've seen disasters at work when you bring the product in. (I also refuse to participate because I don't have refrigerated storage.)

As for buying, I don't really like most of the products. I got annoyed at the Boy Scouts because they no longer sell unpopped popcorn. Girl Scouts dropped their two best products. Someone at work brought in a cake sale, you could buy a mini- carrot cake or sticky bun for $4.00. Those were really good and I wished I'd bought more to bring to my father!

Scouts still sell unpopped popcorn. Ours sell the microwave ones. It's what the troop orders, is what you see. We could sell by sign-up or at our booths. For the booths they ordered tins and microwave popcorn. We always sold out of the microwave stuff very quickly.

http://www.trails-end.com/estore/ca...n=jump&navCount=0&sort_field=name&id=cat50004

A few years back I had to go in the scout store, they were sell the bags of unpopped popcorn too. It's in the center of that link in the bucket.

 

[golfgal]

Scouts still sell unpopped popcorn. Ours sell the microwave ones. It's what the troop orders, is what you see. We could sell by sign-up or at our booths. For the booths they ordered tins and microwave popcorn. We always sold out of the microwave stuff very quickly.

http://www.trails-end.com/estore/ca...n=jump&navCount=0&sort_field=name&id=cat50004

A few years back I had to go in the scout store, they were sell the bags of unpopped popcorn too. It's in the center of that link in the bucket.

I was thinking the same thing, our boy scouts around here were selling the unpopped stuff. Also, girls scouts still sell Thin Mints so I don't know what you mean there