Don’t ever question whether or not Candy Fundraisers Can Raise Lots of Money. They can, they do and they will continue to be a great fundraising product.

We just came across an article in the Statesmen Journal. A group of people really had a passion for their library. In fact they needed to raise around $800,000 to build a new library. Now that’s a lot of money and few people would consider candy fundraising as an option.

But here is a snippet of their story from the newspaper:

“Many might have doubted it could be done. But many Bunco games, flower sales and candy fundraisers later, members of the Friends of the Jefferson Public Library have raised $100,000 in a little more than a year to build the town a new $800,000 library. And this dedicated group of volunteers is committed to raising the total amount due without subjecting the town’s residents to tax increases.

“So how did a dozen committed volunteers raise so much money in a small community for a library with an annual operating budget of $76,250? “Begging,” said Karen Barr, Friends of the Library vice president. “Literally, we beg,” grant writer Linda Baker added, smiling but absolutely earnest in her resolve.”

There are lots of lessons for us all in this story. The most obvious is that people who believe in a cause can raise lots of money. In fact they can raise more money than many of can imagine. And they can do it the old fashioned way. They can do it with product fundraising.

The real story is that a group of people identified a need they believed in. They formulated a game plan on how to satisfy their need. They were committed to their goal and they had pride in their effort.

Does that describe your fundraising group? Do you have that passion? That focus? That determination? If not then maybe that explains why many groups produce lackluster fundraising results.

Looking for Fundraisers for Small Groups? Let’s explore some options along with the pros and cons of each.

1. Lollipop Fundraising: Fundraising lollipops are great fundraising products for any sized group needing to raise a small to moderate amount of money. By that I mean someone needing to raise $500 or less. The reason lollipop fundraisers are great Fundraisers for Small Groups is the small minimum order requirement.

You can purchase lollipops one case at a time. A case typically costs around $150 each and you double your money on every lollipop you sell. There are lollipops in seasonal shapes that make selling extremely easy. For those reasons we consider lollipops one of the best Fundraisers for Small Groups.

2. Scratch Card Fundraisers: Scratch card fundraisers are especially good for small motivated groups. Each member of your group is given a card that has 50 concealed dots. Under the dots are amounts of money ranging from $.50 to $3. You ask people to scratch 2 or more dots and donate the revealed amount of money. When all 50 dots are scratched off you will have raised $100. You are given coupon sheets as thank you gifts for donors.

You can purchase as little as 1 card at a time. Prices are dependent on volume however. The more cards you purchase the lower your price. The good news, though, is that you would make 70% profit purchasing even 1 card. This is a perfect fundraiser for groups that need to raise around $100 per member.

3. Candle Fundraisers: You might not think about candle fundraising when you think about Fundraisers for Small Groups but they are actually a perfect fit. It costs nothing to get started. That means any group can try this fundraiser. There is no minimum order requirement. There is typically a shipping charge for smaller orders so ideally a group would want to sell 150 or more candles but it is not a requirement for the fundraiser.

There are lots of different candle fundraisers that are designed for different markets. There are all natural candles for earth friendly fundraising. There are faith based candle for church fundraisers for example.

We hope you will consider these Fundraisers for Small Groups and know that there are fundraising ideas out there for any group that needs to raise money.

Let’s talk about how to choose the best Lollipop Fundraising Companies. It is one of the easiest fundraising products to purchase so a quick discussion should tell you all that you need to know.

Fundraising lollipops are more or less a commodity in the fundraising industry. There are only a few manufacturers that produce lollipops for fundraising. However most manufacturers do not sell directly. Instead they sell through Lollipop Fundraising Companies or distributors of their products. So you are really choosing a distributor first and then the specific lollipop you would like to purchase.

When you buy fundraising lollipops you will be asked to purchase them by the case. Most lollipops come in cases containing 640 lollipops. That might sound like a lot but remember the lollipops sell for only $.50 and you pay half of that amount so a typical case will cost you $160.

One of the first things you should consider regardless of the shape or type of lollipop you purchase is whether the distributor includes free shipping in their price. A case of lollipops weighs around 40 pounds so you can imagine how expensive shipping would be if its not included.

The next decision is the type and shape lollipops you want to sell. There are lots of great shapes to choose from and we suggest you change shapes periodically to keep your sales fresh. But the fact of the matter is that the most popular fundraising lollipops are the 1 oz round confection lollipops that come in variety of flavors.

Here are the 3 Lollipop Fundraising Companies we suggest and links to their lollipop fundraising pages:

Easy Fundraising Ideas lollipops

Fast Track Fundraising lollipops

Buy for Charity Fundraising lollipops

There is obviously a need for school fundraising. There is no doubt about that. School budgets are being slashed more quickly than I ever remember.

Some towns and school districts have really identified that growing need for outside fundraising sources and are acting on those needs. I found this recent news article from the Milford Daily News:

“...“It’s not OK to use your language as an excuse. Show up. We’re going to have people here to support you,” he said. “At the end of the day, I’m going to hold those parents accountable.” Tremblay also said he wants to build off his Milford experience by forging new relationships between Framingham schools and local businesses and colleges.

He raised the idea of creating a fundraising board, for instance, to find funding opportunities in the area. He said one of his first moves in the district would be to get staff at all of the schools on the same page. “The one thing I’ve taken away (from yesterday’s visit) is the need to have everybody connecting across grade levels, vertically and horizontally,” he said. Tremblay would also get staff and residents’ ideas on budget priorities, he said. Asked about what he would do with Framingham’s School Choice program, Tremblay said he would look at the program before making a call and that, in general, he should avoid making hasty decisions on longstanding traditions in the district…”

It will be interesting as time passes and the need for school fundraisers becomes more and more pronouced how other towns and school districts will deal with those needs. Whether these initiatives are driven by politicians, school boards, school staff or parents, the one thing that is certain is towns and cities that aggressively meet their needs head on with strong plans of actions will be much better off than those that do not.

There was a time that Candy School Fundraisers were the most common way to raise money. But that’s changed over the past few years. There’s a few reasons why it is not as common. Some are valid and some not so much.

The biggest reason there’s been a reduction in candy school fundraisers has been school districts that determined youth obesity was caused in part because kids were eating too much candy. Part of their solution was to ban one of the easiest ways to raise money. After all candy fundraising offers products that are extremely affordable and well received. And even though only a small portion of candy sold during the fundraiser was actually consumed by the students many districts felt compelled to appear to be taking action.

Another reason that candy school fundraisers started shrinking was that the candy bars being sold were also shrinking. At first it was rather startling. Hershey fundraising candy was offering bars that were sold more inexpensively in vending machines. That is no longer the case. Hershey got smart and created a larger candy bar for their fundraising products line and it corrected the dilemna of discount stores selling candy cheaper than the school could purchase candy for.

Finally lots of schools chose to avoid candy fundraisers because they had to commit to a certain amount of candy. Pricing was based on the number of cases a school purchased so the tendency sometimes was to overbuy. The mistake was not intentional. It was just hard to accurately predict sales. And if you got a better price for buying a few more cases many people tended to error on the high side. But that meant that there was unsold candy which would seriously eat into profits.

Interestingly, though, now that there are few candy school fundraisers being held it might make more sense now to hold one. After all there is not the competition there once was and the fact of the matter is that most people eat candy bars now and then.

There are lots of school fundraising companies that you can choose from. We would like to review four of them for you.

Easy Fundraising Ideas: Easy Fundraising Ideas has been the leading online product fundraising website for the past 10 years. They were one of the first companies to bring fundraising to the internet. Their model is based on the fact that people are searching for fundraising and that outside sales reps can no longer call on small or medium sized groups.

Easy Fundraising Ideas offers a selection of pre sell and direct sale fundraisers. There are many no upfront options including cookie dough fundraisers and candle fundraisers. They have a secure online store to purchase candy fundraisers and lollipop fundraisers as well.

Fast Track Fundraising: Fast Track Fundraising offers many of the same products as Easy Fundraising Ideas. However they are for two programs. They are one of the leading providers of custom fundraising discount cards. They can sign up merchants for your group or you can sign them up and save money. The other program that has been promoted heavily on Fast Track is their silicone fundraising bracelets.

Besides those two programs Fast Track Fundraising has expanded into most of the tried and proven fundraising programs. They offer a good selection of no upfront cost fundraisers along with a complete candy fundraising line and lollipop fundraising line that you can purchase directly online.

Go Green Fundraising: Go Green Fundraising was started to offer fundraising groups a selection of fundraising products that are all earth friendly such as flower bulb fundraising. Their signature line is called Go Green and includes flower bulbs, bag gardens, organic products and other earth friendly items. There is no cost to start most of their fundraisers but they also offer some custom discount cards.

Buy for Charity Fundraising: Buy for Charity is another leading provider of fundraising products. The company has evolved over the past 15 years from a company that primarily offered cash back shopping as a fundraising tool. Now they offer a complete line of fundraising products and offer information and tip to more than 120 different types of fundraising groups.

All of these school fundraising companies help thousands of customers annually. They are dependable and we feel confident recommending any of them to you.

We’ve been asked about Flower Power Fundraising and decided to research the program and discuss our opinion.

It is an interesting program that offers a good selection of products that offers 50% profit. They offer online stores or customer direct shipping. At first glance it looks like a very attractive program. “But as we researched it in greater detail we kept hearing that this company entered fundraising to develop a list of potential customers that it could continue to market to after your fundraiser was complete.”

WE WOULD LIKE TO CORRECT THE ABOVE STATEMENT. WE HAVE HEARD DIRECTLY FROM THE COMPANY’S GENERAL MANAGER AND OFFER HIS RESPONSE BELOW IN OUR COMMENT SECTION.

There are lots of companies that do this. While some groups might not mind the practice or feel that it will affect their fundraising idea or its outcome we suggest you consider the annoyance factor. Would you want a fundraising group you support to turn over your contact information to their supplier? Most people receive more junk email than they’d like and would probably prefer to not have their info used in this fashion.

So if you are considering a flower bulb fundraiser we suggest you consider this flower bulb fundraising idea instead.

These flower fundraisers are free to start and you maintain control of your customer list. You use free brochures that are provided to each member of your group to pre sell an assortment of flower bulbs chosen seasonally. You sell using the brochure. People write down their information on your order form. At the end of your sale you place your bulk bulb order. Once you receive the bulbs you deliver them directly to your customer.

Flower bulbs are easy to sell. Personally we think it is wrong for companies to gather customer data through unsuspecting fundraising customers so we find it difficult to recommend company’s that market to your customers for this reason alone.

There are lots of people looking for ideas for church fundraisers and there are as many ideas as people looking.

So how do you choose the best fundraising ideas?

We believe there is one basic question that needs to be answered first and then you can choose the right fundraiser. Ask yourself if you or your group has money to purchase a fundraising product that you can sell or not. If you don’t there are as many options available to you but the concept is different in many ways.

Let’s assume you do not have any money to start. You should choose among the different pre sell fundraisers like candle fundraising, cookie dough fundraising or flower bulb fundraising. They all work basically the same way. You choose your program and order free brochures and order forms for each member of your group. They use those sales materials to pre sell products and collect the money during the selling process. At the end of your sale you can use the money to pay for your bulk order.

One of the top candle fundraisers is called Journey of Faith Candles fundraising. The candle labels are all based on well known scriptures and sell very well with faith-based groups.

If you have money to spend then there are other ideas for church fundraisers that offer higher profits.

Church groups with money will find they can make up to 90% profit with discount card fundraisers. There are tons of options here so we know you can find a product your audience will gravitate towards. There are pizza fundraising cards, portrait studio cards and other discount cards. These card are customized for your group, are easy to sell, offer great value to your supporters and extremely high profits to your group.

The other ideas for church fundraisers for groups with some money to spend are the old tried and proven candy fundraisers and lollipop fundraisers that are the easiest fundraising ideas as far as administration goes.

So before searching for church fundraising ideas we suggest you decide whether you have money to spend in advance and whether you are willing to spend it and then go from there.

The best Cookie Dough Fundraisers are usually held during the fall or spring when most fundraising groups are out selling their products. Customers seem to expect the bombarded with fundraisers so its no surprise that the best cookie dough fundraisers coincide with this peak selling season.

But what makes some fundraisers so successful while others fall short? Here are a few thoughts:

1. Successful cookie dough fundraising campaigns are promoted much more actively than others. These groups take advantage of any opportunity to advertise their upcoming sales. Some of the most agressive combine cookie tasting events with cookie dough sales. They figure out where their largest potential customer base gathers and set up tables where customers can nibble on their favorites and place their orders right there.

2. Successful groups set reasonable goals. What is a reasonable goal? That depends on how much money the group needs to make but most groups fail because they set no expectation on their sellers. If there is no goal does a seller feel they succeeded if that sell one tub? We suggest you set a goal of at least 10 tubs sold per person. People can easily sell that much cookie dough if they really try. You don’t want to set the goal so high that it is unattainable yet you don’t want to set it so low that it takes no effort to meet.

3. Successful groups usually raise money for a purpose that people can rally around. For example parents of elementary school kids would probably rally around a fundraiser that will update their kid’s playground more than they will rally around a fundraiser that goes to an unpurposed fund to be used for incidentals. If people directly benefit from the effort they will work harder to make sure its successful.

4. Watch price points. The lower the price the more likely people are to purchase your cookie dough.

So consider these points before you start your next cookie dough fundraiser and you results should skyrocket.

You probably already know that cookies for fundraisers are a great idea to help your group do the things it wants to do. But these days, there are so many cookie dough fundraisers out there, it can be difficult to know where to begin looking for the right one for your group.

A lot depends on what you think your supporters are likely to respond to, and of course you want to choose a fundraising idea that appeals to your and your team members, as well.

But, as with most fundraising ideas, choosing the right cookies for fundraisers has a lot to do with your gut feeling – let your intuition steer you in the right direction. Of course, this does not always mean doing the fundraiser you want or that you personally like the most. You make be thrilled about the idea of selling frozen cookie dough fundraisers, but practical restrictions may indicate that this is not the right idea for you and your group.

For groups that have issues about storing or distributing frozen dough, we have dry mix cookies for fundraisers that could work much better for you. It’s being able to assess and make decisions like that, that will determine how much stress you incur with your fundraising effort, and how much stress you have is often a good indicator of how well your team will perform. A relaxed team is a happy team, and happy teams will always perform more successfully.

Cookies for fundraisers don’t even have to be sent through you for the delivery phase of the fundraiser, if you anticipate that part to be too chaotic for you to deal with. There’s now home delivery cookie dough, that your supporters can order online. It’s delivered directly to them, cutting you out of that part of the loop entirely.