A popular way to raise funds is to offer patrons of a store or restaurant the opportunity to purchase ‘cards’ for a minimum donation (usually one dollar) that are then placed on display. Usually the cards are in color and in the shape of something related to the organization, or a symbol such as a four leaf clover if the promotion is around St. Patrick’s Day.The person who makes the donation is usually asked to sign the card before it’s put on display. However, there may be people who would be more motivated to make a donation if they were able or encouraged to do so in someone else’s name. There could be a place on the card that says “In Honor of” and this could be circled and the donor could then write the honoree’s name.

Placing the emphasis on honoring and memorializing others can also play a part in increasing the number of donations received. If when the cashier asks the customer if they “would like to donate in honor or memory of someone”, the customer will naturally think outside themselves. Placing the emphasis on the honorees also reinforces what the donations go for.

This honoree option for gift cards is especially applicable to causes that affect a large number of people, such as cancer, heart disease, or military “support our troops” type organizations. I can personally think of several people in each of those categories that I could honor with a donation. Many other groups could adapt this strategy as well. For example, a humane society could sell “paws” and the honoree could be the donor’s pet.

The gift card displays are excellent ways to raise additional money and create awareness of your fundraising event at the same time. For example, if you are holding a 5K run, ask an area business or restaurant to solicit the card donations on your behalf and have brochures to sign up runners and walkers at a cashier stand display. The more cards are sold, the more aware other patrons will be of the event. When an entire wall is filled with little running shoes, everyone will notice!

One organization that has created their own card program and been very successful with it is Homes for Our Troops. This organization builds or modifies homes for service men and women who have been wounded in military service. The group has partnered with the Texas Roadhouse Restaurant for this and several other fundraisers.

Homes for Our Troops provides a great example of a card fundraiser. First, you don’t have to get cards at many locations to raise a lot of money. Just find one business who’s really excited about helping your cause!

Secondly, combine the card promotion with another fundraiser. One of the Texas Roadhouse locations celebrated their one year anniversary with a concert and outdoor BBQ with all ticket sales benefiting Homes for Our Troops. The card donations combined with the concert and a raffle raised $37,000.

With a little creativity and the right business partner, your organization can hold its own card fundraiser program.

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One of the aspects of publishing this site that has continually amazed me is the number of readers from countries outside the USA. I’ve spoken with many activists, fundraisers and volunteers dedicated to a variety of causes from all over the world. Many of the same fundraising strategies that I write about apply to groups regardless of type or border.

There are some times when I’m a bit hesitant to offer specific advice without knowing more about a NGO/NPO’s situation. For example, groups working in developing countries or those with struggling economies will also struggle with most forms of event or product fundraising. But the foundational priciple of fundraising as relationship building is universal.

For those raising funds causes around the world, I’d love to hear from you. I’d also like to add to the list of links for specific countries. If you know of any good websites for non USA fundraising help, just let me know.

Canadian Fundraisers
International Fundraising (Outside the USA)

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Cookie dough fundraising has long been a staple of school fundraising programs. Cookie dough fundraising programs involve selling large tubs or boxes of cookie dough, which can be refrigerated or frozen for later use. The organization takes advance orders and/or prebuys a certain number of cases of the cookie dough and then sells it.

There are many ways to boost the sales of your cookie dough fundraising program.

1. Let your sellers and supporters know ahead of time about the sale. Make sure they know how much their support is appreciated.
2. Create specific goals for the fundraiser. How much money needs to be raised? How many tubs does this equal? How many tubs per person will need to be sold?
3. Set a reasonable time limit for getting all the orders in from participants.
4. Offer prizes for participants who sell the mimimum amount.
5. Create a “challenge” of some kind to motivate your sellers. Examples of challenges:
   • Rooftop Campout
   • Head Shave Challenge
   • Kiss a Pig
6. Take the catalogs to work.
7. If your organization is short the minimum order, the organization can fund the difference and sell them later.
8. Use extra cookie dough supply or buy extra to make cookies. Sell cookies at a bake sale, sports game, at school, or anywhere there are people! If your baking oven is near your selling table it’s even better — people can’t resist when they smell the warm aroma of cookies baking.

The pre-portioned cookie dough fundraising program provides full color catalogs to sell from. The group uses catalogs to take orders of the cookie dough, which comes in several varieties. Each box of cookie dough contains 48 pre-portioned 10 oz. cookies.

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Last Christmas season I noticed just how popular gift cards had become.

Our grocery store even had a kiosk of cards from a variety of other stores and restaurants like Home Depot, Chili’s and many more.

With the great popularity of gift card programs so opens up a great opportunity for fundraising! By using a program called “scrip” your group gets to sell gift cards and make a commission on each and every one.

Here’s a basic idea of how it works:

1. A non profit group or school works with local retailers directly or through a scrip company to purchase gift certificates or gift cards (referred to as scrip) at a discount.
2. Parents purchase the gift cards from the organization at face value. The difference in price is kept by the organization.
3. Parents use the scrip at the retailer just like cash.

It’s that easy.

This fundraiser provides something that your supporters already want and need. Most scrip programs offer cards from places that you already shop from, such as grocery stores, video stores, restaurants, and many more.

How much can your group raise?

Most scrip programs offer between 2.5 and 10% cash back to the school or group,. The terms may vary by scrip company and/or by retailer. The profits from scrip can really add up, especially when you have many families participating over the course of a year.

Here’s an example: If a family spends $100 per week on groceries and other scrip purchases, that adds up to $5,200 per year. At an average of 5% profit the sponsoring group receives $260. And that’s just one family! What happens when you get most of your families to sign up? Imagine…with 50 families that would equal $13,000 per year. All on something that the families need anyway - groceries! With the popularity of gift cards, it would be easy for families to stock up on gift cards for birthday and holiday gifts too.

A Fundraising Program That Grows Each Year

One of the things that I have heard from schools that use scrip is that it can be difficult to get people to get on board with it the first year.

It may be a new concept to some people and they may wonder if there’s some kind of catch. Assure your supporters that the retail companies offer the cards at a discount in order to gain customers and support the community. The family pays and redeems the scrip at full face value while a portion of the card value goes back to the sponsoring organization.

Scrip works even with just a handfull of people participating. The first year you may just have a few families participating, but that’s okay. Once your supporters realize how easy it is and what the fundraising potential may be, it will make it easier to get more participation in the future.

Scrip Companies

Companies that provide management for scrip programs may focus on a particular country, region or state/province. Here are a few of the most popular scrip companies for various areas:

Great Lakes Scrip Center works with groups in the United States

FundScrip helps groups in Canada

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National and Global Youth Service Day is this weekend, April 21-23. Don’t be surprised if you see young people in your city doing trash pick-up, volunteering to help the elderly or going door to door collecting items for a food pantry. On Youth Service Day kids volunteer for a wide variety of service activities.

This event is sponsored by Youth Service America and is part of the Global Youth Service Day initiative.

Local agencies partner with YSA to organize events in their communities. Patrick Washington, founder of NVSF, a lead service agency in Fort Worth, Texas said that early estimates for the area were “60,000 youth pledged to provide community service or engage in service-learning activities that enhance their education and benefit their respective communities.”

While YSA seeks to get youth interested in service through a one weekend experience, City Year hopes to expand the desire for community service to a one year commitment. City Year participants engage in long term service such as tutoring and after school programs. They also work with schools and community leaders to organize one day events and service opportunities for others.

This year the City Year New York team is helping plan the 3rd Annual One Harlem Service Celebration. This event will unite more than 200 Harlem community members in a day of community service, celebration and family entertainment on May 6th. Jewan Garner, City Year Program Manager said, “It is our vision that this day will inspire volunteers to continually serve their community, create relationships within the Harlem community, and promote a stronger vision of “One Harlem.”

Whether it’s a large urban area or a rural township, volunteers are always in need to help the community. It’s inspiring to see young people take the lead in helping make a difference.

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I recently received the following question that probably many fundraisers may have wondered about…

Hi Sandra…

Can you answer a question? Do most fundraisers collect money when the order is taken or when it is picked up/delivered?
Please advise.

Thanks,
Don

Answer: That is a great question. My experience has been with catalogs or order taker fundraisers i.e. candy, candles, popcorn, etc. that taking the money at time of delivery promotes more sales. Especially since today many people use debit or credit cards and may not carry as much cash/checks around.

But I didn’t wish Don to just take my word for it. So I posted a poll online to see what YOU think.

Update: This poll ended on May 31, 2006. Here’s the results…

As you can see over half of those who responded said that they collect money when the order is taken. Perhaps part of the reason is that many companies require payment before merchandise is shipped.

Hi Sandra,

My company has never done catalog fundraising but I know of people that have. Most times they need it prior to the order coming in. So it may not be actually due at the time you place the order but a few days prior to the order coming in. I am sure there are possibly others that work differently.

Pam

Yes it may depend on the requirements of the company that you’re working with when payments from customers are taken and payment to the company needs to be received. Thanks for your comments Pam!

Find out more about catalog fundraisers

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Attending an in person training event can really help your organization - its staff, volunteers and board members - learn more about thier role in fundraising. It can also help develop skills and confidence in non profit management in general and various funding strategies.

Because of my role as Development Coordinator with Christian Women’s Job Corps and my personal interest in social justice I will be attending the Social Justice Fundraising conference this summer. I’m really looking forward to this chance to learn more and connect with similar organizations.

Below is a list of several workshops that I’m aware of happening across the US. If you’d like to find a training session in other areas of the country, contact your local resource center. Most large cities have a Non Profit Management Center or Non Profit Resource Center that offers workshops. If you’re not sure if there’s one near you just Google those terms plus your city.

Raising Change: A Social Justice Fundraising Conference
August 4-5, 2006
Berkeley, California

Fundraising workshops for organizations that support social justice programs. Topics include politics of funding, US tax policy, grassroots fundraising, building an individual donor base and more.

Craigslist Foundation Non Profit Bootcamp

New York
June 10, 2006
NYU Stern School of Business

San Francisco Bay Area
August 19, 2006
UC Berkeley Haas School of Business

For Impact
Workshops are planned for Annapolis, MD June 15, San Francisco, CA June 27 and Atlanta, GA TBA. Teleseminars and other services also available.

Richard Male & Associates
Offers a variety of workshops in Denver Colorado.

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Is it ever too early to start promoting a fundraising event? Nope…

Pet Peeves, Inc., an animal rescue support group on Long Island, NY, has a fundraising event set for September 13, 2006, still five months away. But they know that advance planning and promotion will payoff big when the event rolls around.

On the Pet Peeves website there’s a banner with “Save the Date” prominently displayed on every page. When you clickthrough to the event details page you’ll see that their top sponsorship is already spoken for. This simple advance promotion helps to let attendees know about the event and to really “save the date” as the banner says. Already having the top sponsorship establishes credibility and should help them get the rest of the slots filled.

How can your organization benefit from just a little advance planning and publicity? When at all possible set the date and location 6 months to 1 year ahead of time. You don’t have to worry about the little things like decorations, catering, door prizes, etc. yet — all of that can wait. The most important aspects are the event concept, date and location. Then you can start promoting the event date on your organization’s calendar and website.

If your plans include corporate sponsorships that would be next on your list. If you can focus on getting the headlining sponsor first, as Pet Peeves did, the rest of the sponsorships can be gained later on in the year.

Even if you don’t have the exact date yet, but know you’ll be having an event publishing this information on your organization’s website still helps with publicity. Each year the Arthritis Foundation sponsors the Jingle Bell Run - an event during the holiday season of November and December, held in various cities across the US. As of this writing the event dates are not yet decided, but they already have information about the event posted on their website.

Take a few minutes and add your fundraising events to your organization’s calendar and website. It’s never too early to start.

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Spring is in the air and so it is charity golf tournament season. Perhaps your group is in the process of getting ready for your own tournament, or maybe considering one for the future. (Fall is also a good time for
tournaments as well!)

Here’s some resources for charity golf tournaments that may be of help to you.

Hole In One International offers golf contest insurance, plus you can get 2 free how-to guides from their website: “Run a Successful Tournament”and “Run a Million Dollar Shoot Out”

Sample Fundraising Letters contains a sample golf tournament sponsorship letter and how to guide for getting corporate donations

Make A Wish Golf Fundraiser Success Story

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