| by Howard Gottlieb, President, Easy
Fundraising Ideas
Raising Money with Fundraising Products: Pre-Sell
Brochure Fundraising
Part Six
I'd like to take time now to discuss some of the different
fundraising products that you might consider for your group
as you search for the right fundraising ideas.
One of the fastest growing programs in the product fundraising
category is the frozen
cookie dough fundraiser. There are a few theories about
why it continues to grow year after year. The most compelling
reason is that people simply love freshly baked cookies and
are more than willing to buy frozen dough instead of baking
from scratch. The other reason is that the price is still
reasonable.
Cookie dough is sold in either boxes or tubs. The customer
gets the same volume of cookie dough either way. The industry
initially offered tubs that made 96 half ounce cookies and
this became the standard. A few years ago, companies decided
to offer pre-portioned cookies packed in boxes as an alternative.
The selling point for the new product is that customers can
simply grab a couple of cookies from the box, throw them
in the oven and place the remainder back in the freezer.
It is a little more difficult to scoop out dough from a tub.
Groups holding a cookie dough fundraiser give each participant
a color brochure and order form. The brochure shows attractive
photos of the different flavors of cookie dough being offered.
Typically, a good cookie dough program will offer ten or
more different flavors. Participants show the brochures to
friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, and other potential
customers and ask them to purchase one or more tubs or boxes.
Payment is made then. At the end of the sale, the orders
and collected funds are tallied together. A bulk cookie order
is placed with the fundraising company and the order is paid
for with a portion of the money collected.
Groups wanting to sell fundraising cookie dough should allow
five weeks minimum from the beginning to the end of their
fundraiser. The fundraiser itself should last two weeks.
Longer fundraisers drag on too long and participants feel
no sense of urgency to make sales. Shorter time frames do
not allow for maximizing sales results. Leave a week or so
for tallying orders and reconciling cash collected and then
two more weeks for delivery of the cookie dough.
The most popular cookie dough fundraisers are those that
sell frozen cookie dough. But delivery day can be a little
stressful when a truck backs up with frozen product that
needs to be distributed within eight to ten hours. There
is a dry
cookie dough mix program that can make delivery days
less stressful. Results have been good but not as spectacular
as fundraisers with frozen product. It may be that people
are more accustomed to seeing frozen cookie dough, but both
kinds work well.
Environmentally-Sensitive Fundraising Products
Many groups have decided it's time to stop selling
sugar to kids and do something else. While candy fundraising
sales have actually regained strength lately, holding flower
bulb fundraisers have also become extremely popular.
Fundraising with flower bulbs may be one of the best new
ideas to hit the product fundraising arena in years. The
bulbs are easy to sell, easy to handle, inexpensive to ship,
guaranteed to grow, and offer profit margins equal to or
greater than other product fundraising programs.
Programs are available that are designed for both spring
and fall planting, so you can hold a flower bulb fundraiser
any time of year. The bulbs you sell in the spring bloom
in the fall and the bulbs you sell in the fall will bloom
in the spring. The fundraiser works much like the cookie
dough fundraiser in that it would be considered a pre-sell
brochure fundraiser and no upfront money is needed from your
organization to start the fundraiser.
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