Best / Worst Fundraiser you have participated in

[AshleyW]

The best fundraiser that I do is Dance Marathon at the University of Iowa. They raise money for cancer patients at the U of I Children's Hospital, and it's exactly what it sounds like - a 24 hour dance marathon. Last year it raised $1,058,568.16!!

 

[Kirby]

The worst fundraiser that my daughter participated in was when she was in drill team. They were to sell eight posters of the drill team for $10 each. No one, absolutely no one, wanted a poster, not even us because it was not a good picture. And it was one of those where you either sold or bought the product. Bet you can't guess who ended up with those eight posters.

For my daughter, the best fundraisers were pansies/begonias, Christmas wreaths, Yankee Candles, Girl Scout cookies and Butter Braids.

For my son, the best were Boy Scout popcorn and poinsettas. His worst was the catalogues of assorted items and giftwrap.

 

[clutter]

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.

That's what I meant, bags of just corn, not the microwave bags. They used to have the best corn around. In our area, the preprinted forms do not have those bags. It probably wasn't a big seller. But I prefer homemade to the microwave bags.

 

[dawson5]

That's what I meant, bags of just corn, not the microwave bags. They used to have the best corn around. In our area, the preprinted forms do not have those bags. It probably wasn't a big seller. But I prefer homemade to the microwave bags.

If you don't mind the trip, try the scout store. I had never tried BS popcorn before my boys. It really is very good popcorn. I could use some right now too. I am babysitting a neighbor girl and she loves popcorn, I have a small supply in the pantry. It doesn't stack up to BS stuff.

 

[jen0610]

The best fundraiser that I do is Dance Marathon at the University of Iowa. They raise money for cancer patients at the U of I Children's Hospital, and it's exactly what it sounds like - a 24 hour dance marathon. Last year it raised $1,058,568.16!!

It's been years since anyone around here has done a dance or rock marathon. We did them back in the 80's for show choir. I always like the rock marathon better, but that was because I was a reader and reading was a great way to kill the time sitting in the rocking chair. Also easier to get something to eat, without using one of your 10 minute breaks.

 

[kc10family]

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)

I do not understand selling pine needles? Is this for growing a pin tree?

 

[scrapquitler]

Best one: PIES.

A local orchard has a store (anyone in CT will recognize it: Lyman Orchards in Middlefield). They do a fundraiser where you can have your organization take orders for pies of various flavors, and you get them frozen. Our local elementary school does the pie sale and times it so that the pies are delivered frozen the week before Thanksgiving (smart timing!)...the school gets like $5 or something from each pie sold. My Mom also runs this same fundraiser for the local Elks Club (their pies will be delivered the week before Easter) and she is raising a fair amount for just a few afternoons of work taking orders and one afternoon of distributing them.

 

[scrapquitler]

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.

They were like $2.00 more per item (but sales tax is not charged or was included, I'm not sure which), but the organization gets like 50% of the sales price if I remember it right from when my children participated in this.

 

[amez]

Our cub scouts sell straw. This is a close-knit farming community -one farmer bales it for free - another guy stores it and handles the money. Since he knows so many people in the area it is often done on the honor system as well- put your money in a box and get the straw you need from the barn.

A large company bought 800 bales and I thanked them in on monthly newspaper write up and we had a flood of new people buy more straw. People will drive quite a ways because they know it is going for a good cause and it is a good price because we have no overhead. They can buy as little or as much as they need.

 

[kc10family]

DD last school did a penny war and they made 7k in one week.

I don't care for frozen cookies and pizza so we never did those.

 

[golfgal]

I do not understand selling pine needles? Is this for growing a pin tree?

Some areas of the country use it for mulch around plants, trees, etc.

 

[Pig Pen]

Best - Harlem Wizards. We hosted them about 15 years ago and made $10,000 profit in one day. All we had to do is provide the school gym and do the advertising. The place was mobbed!

Worst - Casino Night. We did this on a night during a blizzard and only made about $700 profit (and it was a lot of work).

 

[jlewisinsyr]

The best one I've worked on was the 10th Anniversary Celebration for On Point for College. The anniversary celebration had a tight budget during the worst financial period in history. We had hoped to raise, net of expenses $15,000 - $20,000; instead we netted, with a great team at the helms, over $60,000 far surpassing any expectation. We had an amazing 200 item silent auction with no item having a retail value less then $50.00 and the maximum one being over $1,500.

The worst, hm...I tend to donate to just about any kid who asks me to buy something, but my least favorite are probably the wrapping paper sales as although we wrap a ton of gifts, we buy are wrapping paper every year right around the holidays, so if we need more of a specific pattern we can usually get it (we have theme wrapping).

 

[cybrkitn]

Best - Harlem Wizards. We hosted them about 15 years ago and made $10,000 profit in one day. All we had to do is provide the school gym and do the advertising. The place was mobbed!

We just saw the Harlem Wizards about a month ago with the Cub Scouts. DS7 loved it. $10k profit in one day ? WOW!

 

[BernardandMissBianca]

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

It depends on the rules set forth by the Board of Ed but here we can sell the dough or any other food but it can't be delivered to the students to take home. We have pick up by parents from 1-4 and we try to do pick ups during times parents will be in the building, like parent teacher conferences.

Best one: PIES.

A local orchard has a store (anyone in CT will recognize it: Lyman Orchards in Middlefield). They do a fundraiser where you can have your organization take orders for pies of various flavors, and you get them frozen. Our local elementary school does the pie sale and times it so that the pies are delivered frozen the week before Thanksgiving (smart timing!)...the school gets like $5 or something from each pie sold. My Mom also runs this same fundraiser for the local Elks Club (their pies will be delivered the week before Easter) and she is raising a fair amount for just a few afternoons of work taking orders and one afternoon of distributing them.

We did this in the fall. We did pretty well too. I love Lyman Orchards!
We did the butter braids and cookie dough last week, and we actually did better with this one.
We found that the key to the fundraising is attach a project to it. We blindly raised the money for the pies and didn't get a huge response. Maybe 40 out out of 140 families. With the butter braids, we are using the money for the inflatables for field day. We've got about 100 orders back. It was a much better response.

we try to avoid wrapping paper, candles, etc. But we've found the best things are raising money while providing a service, like the butter braids. We promoted them for easy holiday baking for Easter.
And also rotate your ideas. We did traditional catalog fundraisers for 3 or 4 years but the product rarely changes so we had to mix things up.


Best fundraiser: penny drives and selling tickets to our minor league baseball team home games.

worst: not really sure. They all kind of stink but they are all needed.

 

[kc10family]

started a list of best and worst on first post

 

[Sgt Mickey]

Gorl scout cookies fall into both categories
They start off great everyone loves a good girl scout cookies BUT they are everywhere selling

For my kids football/cheerleading they sell sports cups every year. They are cool and we LOVE them and sue them all the time BUT EVERY year you can only use so many cups and when you sell to the same people