Need a fundraising idea? Look here

During elementary school, we would have to sell chocolate bars to raise money for children who needed clothing, food and other essentials.

There was a lot of pressure to sell the candy. The class that sold the most would receive a free pizza party, which was a coveted prize at the small, private, parochial elementary school, Good Counsel Academy in White Plains, N.Y.

I hated that time of year because students at nearby St. John Evangelist School were also selling candy and their goods were more marketable. We had two types of candy bars: a no-name brand milk chocolate and a no-name brand milk chocolate with almonds. The St. John’s kids had name-brand candy bars.

If I had a dime for all the times I knocked on a door and heard,” Sorry little girl, I already bought some Hershey bars from St. John’s students.”

Now, student fundraising is much more than just chocolate. Kids are selling magazine subscriptions, gift wrapping paper, calendars, greeting cards, books, gift certificates, even toys. My 16-year-old cousin, who is a class officer, was brainstorming over the holidays on different fundraising events he and his classmates could do. He didn’t want to sell the “same old, tired stuff” every other student is pushing.

So, we turned to the Internet and found a fundraising clearinghouse of ideas at www.fund-raising-ideas-center.com.

The site lists some of the more popular fundraising ideas, such as selling tubs of cookie dough, coupon books, beef jerky, cookbooks and candles. One of the most popular fundraising ideas on the site is inkjet/laser cartridge recycling. The concept is to collect empty inkjet or laser cartridges and turn them in to companies that purchase them to refill. Another version of this fundraising idea is collecting old cell phones.

Companies also pay for the old cell phones.

There is also a listing of the top picks — those fundraising ideas users of the site voted as the best ones. Among them are: 50/50 raffles; selling bricks engraved with messages or names that are used in a new building or path; dog walkathon; and affinity programs, where schools, clubs or groups shop at designated retailers or use a designated debit or credit card for purchases. The retailers then rebate a certain portion of the purchases to the group, school or organization.

The site has sample scripts to use to sell your products and recommendations on how to get sales. For example, when selling tubs of cookie dough, you can tell people that the biggest advantage is you can refreeze the cookie dough so you can remove only the portion of dough you want to use and save the rest for another time.

The best part of the site, however, are the fundraising ideas submitted blog-style by other users. There, you can read about what has worked and what has flopped. Other users also comment so you can really gauge how successful and profitable a fundraising idea truly is.

One of my favorites is from a user in South Carolina whose office needed to raise money for Toys for Tots. So, they came up with the idea of Blue Jean Fridays where workers who want to wear jeans on Fridays pay $2.50 a week or $10 a month. The company’s Human Resources department prints flyers that are given to employees who pay to wear jeans. The flyers are hung outside the employee’s cubicle or office.

Another is scratch cards that have several rows of silver dots, like those on an instant lottery ticket. The person agrees to donate whatever amount he or she scratches off; the amounts on the cards typically range from zero to $5.

Each participant receives a sheet with coupons for local businesses so even if the person scratches off the highest amount, he or she still gets something more valuable in return.

The site also has links for Web sites of companies where you can buy the products for your fundraiser, including the scratch cards which you can custom-design.

Jessica Matthews writes a weekly Web column for The Times-Tribune in Scranton. Write to her at jmatthews@timesshamrock.com. © The Times-Tribune 2010.

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