If you are a parent, chances are you have been faced with either helping your child with a fundraiser or chairing a fundraiser committee for a sport, club, or other activity. Fundraising is seen as a relatively easy way to raise money for uniforms, equipment, costumes, sets, or anything else that the club or sport needs and is not provided by a school or the state. However, fundraising can be difficult and complicated. To keep it as simple as possible, here are two free fundraising tips and thoughts.
Fundraising Tip One: Do What You Know!
The key to having your fundraiser go off without a hitch is to do what you know best. If you have countless paperwork and forms to fill out for each student and each item ordered, chances are that something is going to go wrong. When you have countless opportunities for something to go wrong, it usually will. Instead, a useful fundraising tip is to keep your fundraiser within your comfort zone. The Girl Scouts use the same fundraiser every year: cookies. And because they use the same fundraiser, they have people who wait every year for their cookies. If you keep the same fundraiser every year, it is possible that people will begin to expect and plan for your fundraiser. Keeping the same fundraiser means that you will already know what you are doing and you will not have to learn any new complicated procedures every year.
Fundraising Tip Two: Keep It Simple!
The second fundraising tip is to keep it simple. Like the previous fundraising tip states, countless paperwork and forms are just a recipe for disaster. Instead, make sure that you choose a fundraiser that is not difficult to understand. Most of the places where you order trinkets, candy, or other food require a form to order the order forms, each student must fill out the order forms, then you have to send the order forms in, receive the shipment, distribute it to students, and then the students have to distribute it to their customers. If that seems like a lot of hassle, it is! Instead use a simple fundraising tip. Try holding a 50/50 raffle at your event. Or you could spend a little and purchase some scratch cards. These scratch cards have dollar values from zero to $2.50. Students get people to scratch off a spot, and then the people donate whatever their spot says.
If you stick to these two crucial fundraising tips, your fundraiser will be a success!