Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

By now, many of you will have heard about the Red Paperclip Story. If, for some reason you haven’t, here’s the quick version. Back in 2005(ish) a 26 year old Canadian man wanted to buy a house, but he didn’t have the money. In a flash of inspiration, he decided to take an over-sized novelty red paperclip that he had been given and offer it up for trade, albeit for a somewhat higher-value item.

He put the paperclip on “craigslist” and within a few hours, he had his first taker. A person offered to trade him a pen in the shape of a fish for the paperclip. Then, the man immediately sought to trade the fish-pen for something else. And so on. Finally, after fourteen months and twelve items, he made a trade that brought him a house- free and clear. He started out with a trivial item that cost him nothing. He ended up with an asset that was valued near $100,000! What an ROI!

Since then, this man has become a folk legend. He’s been on almost every talk show in North America, and I think someone is actually making a movie about his adventure. He has even started to sell Red Paperclip merchandise on his website, so his little experiment is continuing to pay off for him.

I have been really inspired by this guy. I think his creativity and drive have lessons that we, as school fundraisers, can learn from.

In fact, I have incorporated the red paperclip experiment into a class that I have taught for the past two years. My local Chamber of Commerce offers an adult education series called “Leadership Otsego County”. The class stretches over nine months and covers all sorts of business-related topics. I teach the unit on creativity.

Both times I have taught the class, I have given the red paperclip experiment as homework. I’ve gone to the dollar store and purchased something silly and cheap and given it to the class. I then explained the concept of the red paperclip and told them to take the starter item I gave them and trade it for the greatest value they can.

Honestly, the assignment has met with mixed reviews. There have been many of the adult students who felt uncomfortable asking others to trade for things. I guess these folks lack the bartering gene. Anyway, some people have become quite upset that they have had to put themselves out in this manner.

However, there have been a few people who have done some remarkable things with the assignment.

One woman was eventually able to trade the ink pen shaped like a cheerleader (that I gave her) for a rusted out car from the 1950s, which had the original chrome on it. She took the chrome off, polished it up, and put it on eBay. A bidding war broke out for it and she ultimately collected $1,300! She had a few steps between the pen and the car, but she worked at it, used her knowledge about car restoration, and made one heck of a profit.

I wonder if this formula would work as a school fundraiser. If you issued a challenge to your community to begin with something trivial, like a red paperclip, and just make a series of trades, each time raising the value level a little higher, would it work? At the end of the trial, the final item could be sold for cash or even traded for a service the school needed.

In my experience with teaching the class, our local newspaper picked up on the story and created a buzz in the community about it. You could use this as an advantage in your school fundraiser, as well. The more people who hear about your creative fundraiser, the more will get involved.

If anyone has actually tried this in their school or any non-profit organization, I would love to hear your results to share with our readers. Please let us know.

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