Fundraising Fun

What good will a penny do for a fundraising campaign? If you’re asking that question, you’ve probably never held a penny drive, and you don’t know what your organization is missing!

A penny drive is an easy fundraiser and wonderful way to involve all members of your organization. Everyone will feel like a valuable member of the team, and with very little investment, you will be able to raise some much needed funds.

Museums, sports teams, churches and schools have all used penny drives. They lend themselves especially well to churches and schools, or any organization where there are a lot of children.

Here’s how it works: Each participant is asked to collect pennies. It’s that simple, and there are several ways to do this. You will find a few ideas below.

You can purchase cards with holes that will hold a certain dollar amount worth of pennies. When participants fill a card, they turn in the full card and get a new one. Perhaps you can offer a small prize to the person who turns in the most cards. Tying a fundraiser to a contest is always a good idea, especially when kids are involved. It’s also a good idea to chart the progress of the biggest contributors in a very visible way. This fuels the competition among participants.

Place large containers in key locations at your church or school. Encourage people to fill the jars with their pennies. Make sure the jars are placed where the most people will pass them. By the doors is the most obvious choice. Another option is by the restrooms. Many people will end up dropping in all of their change, not just the pennies. This, obviously, will increase the amount of money collected. An unusual see-through container works best since it draws interest and people can see the progress.

Ask people to collect their pennies over a set period of time. Then ask participants to bring the pennies, rolled and ready to deposit, on a set date. If you opt for this method, you may want to offer a small prize to the person who brings the most pennies.

Penny drives are a good way to get even the youngest children involved in your organization’s fundraising efforts. People who may be reluctant to part with a few dollars will often be more than happy to donate their pennies. Groups who have held penny drives in the past will testify that those pennies add up quickly.

In addition to helping raise money, this event allows many people to volunteer their time. Once the penny drive is over, you will need several volunteers to help count and roll the pennies and other change that has been collected.

While you aren’t likely to raise money with this as quickly as the more-popular cookie dough fundraiser or a magazine fundraiser, a penny drive is a good way to supplement your other efforts. As you know, every little bit helps!

Surely you’ve noticed how hard it is to resist the offer of a big creamy chocolate bar. That is exactly what makes a fundraiser using candy from the World’s Finest Chocolate company such an easy way to raise money for your group.

The candy bars are large, and they sell for just $1.00 each. Because the price of each bar is so low relative to some other fundraiser products, they sell quickly and in great number. If you set up at the right location, such as a sporting event or other large school function, it’s easy to sell out of your entire inventory.

Unlike a cookie dough fundraiser, which requires pre-ordering, chocolate bars are usually sold on the spot. And since they’re so inexpensive, they go like hotcakes.

Your group orders the candy from the company for $25 per case of 50 chocolate and almond bars. The bars sell for $1.00, so your group makes $25 per case. They also offer a case of assorted bars that include almond bars, plain milk chocolate, crisp bars and caramel bars. A case of 50 is $27.50, so you’ll still make a great profit.

Another option is a bar that is double in size and sells for $2.00. A case of 50 is $50, so your profit per case is $50. While the profit per case is double with the bigger bars, keep in mind that some people will be willing to part with $1.00 faster than they will with $2.00. Purchase a variety, some $1.00 bars and some $2.00 in order to maximize your profit.

One of the best features of the World’s Finest Chocolates is that the wrappers can be personalized – without charge – with your group’s name, logo and even photo. This helps you not only raise money, but also raise awareness about your organization.

Obviously, the more cases you sell the more your group will make, so get as many people involved as you can. For extra motivation, you may want to offer a prize to the group member who sells the most cases.

The prize doesn’t have to cost a lot. In fact, some groups have found prizes that don’t cost a dime. Some schools offer a week with no homework to the student who sells the most. Another option is to check with local merchants to see if any would be willing to donate a prize. Some local stores will even be willing to sell you candy. That can greatly increase your profit.

What you’ll need:

• The candy – for information about ordering this candy visit World’s Finest Chocolate.
• Lots of salespeople – recruit as many group members as you can to sell. The candy is so delicious that it practically sells itself, but the more of it that is out there, the more you can sell.

This really is one of the world’s finest fundraisers – IF you can keep from eating all of the candy yourself!

Open a free checking account at Washington Mutual, and they’ll give you a free debit card that you can buy things with and pay your bills. The debit card also entitles you to enroll in their school fundraising program, which they call WaMoola for Schools. After you enroll and you use your debit card for any purchases or payments, you accumulate “points”, which then translate into dollars for your school of choice. Every transaction (except ATM transactions) earns one point and each point is worth five cents. At the end of each year, if the school accumulates $50 dollars or more, the bank donates the equivalent dollar amount.

If the school does not accumulate at least $50 dollars by the end of the year, your donations go bye-bye, but still benefit organizations supporting education.

The school you choose has to be an IRS recognized tax-exempt school (lots and lots of them). You can view a list of schools on the WaMoola for Schools site.

This is fundraising on autopilot. Imagine how much money your school will get over the course of a couple of years if every student’s family (plus the grandparents) uses a card like this for all of their shopping and bill paying. Obviously, the more people who sign up for this program and choose your school, the more money your school will get.

Of course, at five cents per transaction, this won’t raise a lot of money quickly like some fundraisers. But, like magazine fundraising and chocolate candy bar fundraisers, if you’re trying to raise money for your school, you’d be foolish not to do this one anyway just because it’s free and requires very little effort.

Raising money is not always easy and coming up with new fundraising ideas to keep your supporters interested is definitely a challenge. We’ll provide some fundraising ideas that you may not have thought of or heard about; some easy, some not. All cool.