Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

One of the most reliable types of school fundraisers is the product sale. A product sale is an event in which a school hooks up with a company that provides an item that students try to sell to friends, families, and others in their social networks. Each company has their own formula to split the revenue between themselves and the school.

Some common examples of items used in product sales are: cookie dough, chocolate, wrapping paper, magazines, and popcorn, although virtually anything, as long as it’s sellable, can be used to make a profit for the school.

Product sales are popular for four main reasons:

1. They are simple to plan and execute. The companies have really made these things fool-proof for both the school administration and the parents.
2. Over the years, people have grown to develop an expectation that they will have to sell something to raise money for their kid’s school, so they are already pre-disposed to participate.
3. School administrators generally don’t like to spend too much time thinking about creative fundraising ideas, so product sales have become “no-brainers”.
4. Product sales are very reliable financially. You can take the number of students participating in the sale and get a fairly accurate estimate of what you can expect to bring in.

Even though the actual planning and executing of a product sale are relatively easy to navigate, there are still a number of questions that you should ask either yourself, your product sale representative, or the people in your community before making a commitment to one particular product or company. Failure to ask these questions or questions like these put you at risk of having a substandard fundraising event.

1. Is a product sale the right course of action at this time?
The first series of questions I would recommend you ask yourself or those close to you in the school administration is “Have you already relied too heavily on product sales for your fundraisers?” Also, “Are we risking alienating parents, because they have too many product sales in their lives?” Remember that you are not the only organization that is attempting to raise money in your area. Many other groups are competing for donations with you, and you can only hit up Grandma and Uncle Louie so many times.

The real downside to product sales is the “eye roll” factor. When students bring home the paperwork, are parents rolling their eyes and saying “Oh no, not another one…”

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pursue a product sale. As I mentioned above, they can be very helpful. But, you can’t just whip one out every time you need to raise some cash. You’re going to lose a lot of potential support if you do.

2. Do you have an opt-out option?
In recent years, many schools have begun to offer an opt-out option for their fundraisers. This is a great idea. Basically, you advertise to parents that if they do not want to participate in the product sale but still wish to help the school, they can simply write a check. You can suggest a dollar figure that is close to what you hope each student will actually sell.

The greatest advantage to an opt-out option is that you are offering an avenue of giving that didn’t exist before. In the past, a family who was really turned off by product sales would just pitch the information you sent home into the trash. Zero donation. However, by really playing up this opt-out option, you are offering to remove the perceived headache from people’s lives. Some parents may actually feel so thankful that they will write a check and skip all the things associated to selling products.

For a much more in-depth discussion of the increasingly popular opt-out option, please click here.

3. Is the company reputable?
If you decide that the time and the circumstances are right for you to go ahead with a product sale, make sure you put in some research into the company you are thinking about working with. A simple search on the web will likely yield many reviews of the proposed company. It is also wise to ask the customer service folks at that company to provide you with phone numbers of past clients. When talking to these past clients, ask them about their overall experience, how the customer support was, if they were prompt in returning your calls and thorough in answering your questions. If there were problems with the order, were they helpful in resolving them? Also ask how the parents responded to the item itself? Was it high quality, was it a big seller? Or was is a flop? Would they use the same company again next year?

4. Are you getting a high percentage of the profit?
It is also very important to be extremely clear about what percentage of the profit you will receive. There are so many groups out there offering to help non-profits raise money, that it’s tough to tell who is really on your side. One way you can tell is how generous they are with their percentage split.

Granted, they are providing the item(s) for sale and they do have expenses of their own to cover, but you are asking people in your community to spend their own time, money, and connections to help your school. That counts for a lot. Therefore, you shouldn’t be taken advantage of.

I believe that the absolute minimum you should accept is 40% of the overall profit. And that would only be if it were a truly great product that was sure to make a lot of money for you and the amount of effort you had to put in on your side was very low. Otherwise, it is just not worth your group’s time and effort.

There are plenty of great fundraisers out there that will split the profit with you at 50-50 or even 60-40 in favor of the school. Find those groups instead.

5. Will your group actually buy the product?
The next question you should ask yourself and the people in your community is “Will they actually buy the product?” It’s very easy to make decisions on your own, but that is not always the best thing to do. Something that might sound wonderful to you could be a real disaster to everyone else. Then, you’d be stuck with a product no one wanted to buy or sell. Your fundraiser would be ruined.

Talk to the company, as well, to find out how well a particular item you are interested in sells.

6. Is the item good quality?
Along this same line, you need to make sure that the item you will be selling is high quality. If you go with a product that is cheaply made or of low-quality, that will reflect badly upon you and the school. While you may reach your sales goal this time, people may not trust your judgment again and not participate.

Ask the company for a sample of the product first, before you commit.

7. Is the product in keeping with a focus on good health or environmental awareness?
While not everything we do in life has to be good for us or good for the environment, it is important to show that you are concerned about our kids’ well-being and the well-being of our planet. So, if you do elect to have a product sale fundraiser that is based around sweets, like chocolate or cookie dough, you should balance that out later with an active event like a walk-a-thon or a recycling drive.

If you don’t strike this kind of balance, parents will start to wonder about who’s making the decisions.

8. Is anyone else in your town selling that particular product?
As I mentioned earlier, your school is not the only organization in town raising money through product sales. Just this past fall, I was asked to do the exact same fundraiser for my daughters’ elementary school and her cheerleading team, back to back. I couldn’t believe it. I loved my daughters’ cheerleading class, but there was no way I was going to go BACK to my friends and family with the SAME fundraising scheme.

Groups in a small town need to work together so this kind of fiasco doesn’t happen.

Conclusion
Product sales can be excellent way to make money for your school. In the perfect situation, the school gets a terrific product that will sell wildly and provide them with a big percentage of the profit. However, that kind of scenario can only happen when you, as the fundraising leader, do your homework. It is very easy to skip the research and just trust that a company will have your best interests at heart. Sadly, that isn’t always the case, and many schools have experienced the downside to product sales. Don’t let that be you.

Photo By: Caroline Middlebrook

2 Comments »

Comments RSS