Fundraising help & ideas

[Tiffer]

I'm sure there are some pros here on the DIS.

My DD just joined a newly formed softball travel team and we need some fundraising ideas.

I know we can do candy bars, any great companies that give us the most $$ back?

I already checked into doing a breakfast at Applebees.

We don't have a Krispy Kremes around here, but I would do that one if we did.

If you make a suggestion, could you include the company name to work with?

Any suggestions are appreciated.


Thanks!

 

[The Mystery Machine]

It is a little late however we did sign up with a Fantasy Football fundraiser for my nieces soccer team.

Pretty awesome actually. It is thru YAHOO groups.

I don't have to buy anything, eat anything, or wrap anything. I get to have fun picking a football winner.

It is a "survivor league" in that you only pick one team a week and you cannot pick that team again. If you lose, you are out.

Last man standing gets cash. Not sure how it is going to work out, but I am having fun.

 

[paintnolish]

We were garage saling and happened upon one that was a fundraiser! Everything was donated, so the organizer (family with a sick child) got to keep the profits. They also had bronies and lemonade for sale. Gotta' keep your energy up when doing serious shopping, right? Anyway, maybe all of the girls' families could donate stuff.

 

[AustinTink]

Try Chick-fil-a and CiCi's.

 

[kidzmom3]

first you need to find out if you are a non-profit or not. If you are not, some restaurants will not do a fundraiser for you. Yankee Candles gives you a good percent profit and many people want them anyway. Call soon, as Christmas delivery is the most popular.

try a pie company, or local farm that does pies for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Joe Corbi frozen cookie dough has no minimum order which is not true of some fundraising companies.

car wash, sponsors (sell spaces on t-shirt or bag)

reusable grocery bags, but sometimes have a high minimum.

 

[dsny1mom]

We used a corp picnic company called the Fun Company for a huge portion of our fundraising. It's not easy work but it pays really well. When we had a large picnic to work and had 30 or 40 volunteers we could easily make several thousand dollars for a six hour day.

We also worked for Kohls for fundraising. The workers had to be 16 and up and they paid minimum wage for however many hours we all worked that went directly to our organization. It was usually between Thanksgiving and Christmas on weekends or their one day sales that they offered the ability to work for our organization.

Also how about selling consession stand food and drink for their home games? There is decent money to be made with selling water, soda, candy and individual bags of chips.


The kids (these were HS girls) did smaller stuff like car washes, a Prom dress resale, etc.

We avoided selling anything to friends and family as every other day some organization is selling one thing or another and we wanted to make big money. One year we raised over 20K.

dsny1mom

 

[Feralpeg]

I was part of a fundraiser awhile back. We had a used book, CD & DVD sale. We put flyers in mailboxes around different neighborhoods. On the following Saturday, we asked that people put out any used books, CDs and/or DVDs they wanted to donate. We had them put a little piece of the flyer on top of them on their porch to identify that they were for our pickup. We just walked around the neighborhood with a wagon and picked them up. We had a nice sale and people got rid of things they didn't want.

 

[clh2]

The Kohl's department stores do not utilize volunteers in the Milwaukee are any more...too bad...but - your mileage may vary on that. Ours used to do this, but have not done this for years.

If there is any gas station that lets you do car washes - that is a great fundraiser.

The pro-sports teams in our are have not-for-profit groups run the concession stands. Downside - this is a parent activity, as the minimum age is 18.

Getting closer to Christmas time, some malls in our area will allow not-for-profits do a gift-wrap station. I think somebook stores (Barnes and Noble and Borders) do the same type of thing.

 

[LaraK]

If you have parents with pick up trucks, see if you can do a dump run to raise money. Check with your local dump to make sure it's free from their end and then offer to haul away unwanted items to the dump. Charge per load. It's labor intensive, but a great service in the neighborhood and a great money maker.

 

[lovetoscrap]

Uno's Pizza and Tropical Smoothie here do a fundraiser day-- you hand out the coupons and get people to go and they donate a portion of the total from those that came in with the coupons.

Joe Corbi is a good company with cookie dough, candy bars, pizzas and other things. Little Ceaser's also has a fundraising sales program.

Another option that I am using this year is a Community Discount Card-- we have 20 local buisnesses that are offering discounts on the card. We keep $6 of the $10 charged for the card. You order the cards, give some to each team member to sell. Let me know if you want the rep information for that. I love this fundraiser because it is quick and easy. No taking orders and then going back to collect money and deliver product. No bulky boxes of candy to keep in someone's house. No junk food to be pushing to the kids and their families.

 

[etoiles]

I have been at schools before that did a day or two at a grocery store bagging and put out jars for tips and that would be their fund raising efforts. I also see a lot of people at stoplights with various jars. I'm sure you need a permit probably for that but it is something to look into.

 

[lovetoscrap]

Oh Tiff, just thought of another one. We are thinking about doing a Dog Wash (instead of a car wash). We have a company that sells Dog Wash kits, basically sponge with soap in it so all you need is the water. I am too lazy to go get the information right now, but let me know if you are interested and I can get you the supplier for that.

 

[r3ngels]

I sell Tastefully Simple and we do fundraising... It is great because there is such a wide variety of food that is a healthy alternative to eating out fundraiser cards. www.tastefullysimple.com/web/lcooper1

We have also done a Walk a thon at school and it was very sucessful and fun for the kids... loud music playing while th ekids walked for an hour and we got flat donations or pledge per lap. Great because not a lot of overhead...

 

[Katie]

Contact your local Bingo hall, and ask if they offer anything.

My son's travel baseball team is working Bingo once a week. Four parents work a 4 hour shift and the team recieves a "donation" for 200.00 weekly!

I just spoke with Bingo hall, and now our Post Prom committee is going to do it once a week also.

Our hall pays 50.00 per person, limit of 4 per shift.

 

[5 'LIL *TWINKERS*]

Our dd12 softball travel team is doing a jam/jelly sale with the teams logo on the jars and a steak dinner. Someone is donating the meat.

dd9 and dd6 are doing a carwash for cheerleading and selling candy bars.

For volleyball, the local mcd's, bk, and subway donate coupons and put them together in a booklet and the booklet is sold.

How bout cleaning up peoples yards...racking, weeding, mowing, etc.

 

[5 'LIL *TWINKERS*]

Contact your local Bingo hall, and ask if they offer anything.

My son's travel baseball team is working Bingo once a week. Four parents work a 4 hour shift and the team recieves a "donation" for 200.00 weekly!

I just spoke with Bingo hall, and now our Post Prom committee is going to do it once a week also.

Our hall pays 50.00 per person, limit of 4 per shift.

WOW, thats great! Can I have a job

 

[santa's surpriz]

Our PTO is doing sonething different this year, instead of selling stuff they are doing a walk a thon. This way 100% of the money comes back to us...we are giving the kids the incentive of earning a t-shirt for $x dollars collected.

 

[svioli]

My DD is on select soccer. This year we have:
1. sold local coupon books - they cost $20, we keep $10
2. Sold concessions at a college soccer game - we keep 10% of the total take - it happens to be their homecoming game.
3. we're holding a golf tournament - $75 per golfer, $300 per team, $500 presenting sponsor, $250 hole sponsor. Actual cost of golf is approx $55 per person. We also hold a raffle during the tournament - gc's to restaurants, sports stores, logo clothes, etc. Raffle tickets are 1 for $10, 3 for $20. We also sell mulligans 1 for $5, 3 for $10; and have a hole in one contest ($5 per try). this is alot of work, but really can pay off.

Good Luck

 

[olena]

Jroger grocery stores does a fundraising program with their store gift cards. People get Korger cards from your charity and they put money on them to spend in the store. Kroger gives your group a percentage.

There is also www.benevolink.org, where people shop at online retailers and link to them from your group's Benevolink page. Your group get s a cut of all the purchases.

 

[clutter]

We've had a couple of successful fundraisers. Our parents are fairly well off, and hate selling stuff, so we've adapted to that (except for our annual Krispy Kreme sale).

One thing that's been successful is Let's Dish. We get 10% of the proceeds from anyone using our code during a period of time. We'll usually do one night for teammembers. And we all end up with prepared meals for those practice and game nights!

Another moneymaker for us has been scrip. When we go to an out-of -town tournament (usually 2x/year), we will stay at one of the hotels in our program (usually Best Western) and the parents are required to buy giftcards to pay for the rooms (which we do under one contract where possible). That's made hundreds of dollars for us each tournament.