How has your fundraising season gone? Are donations up? Or down? Feedback we are hearing is that many nonprofits have seen declines in their donation base. But not The Salvation Army.

The Salvation Army reported record fundraising results from its 2011 Red Kettle. Reports are that they raised $147.6 million. Based on 2010 results that is a 3.4 percent increase in what would certainly be considered a season where people were worried about stretching their dollars as far as possible.

So how the Salvation Army raise record amounts of money? They developed the right strategic partners for their Red Kettle campaign. Reports show that nearly a third of their total came from Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores, where bell ringers collected $41.5 million

They also partnered with Square and with Sprint to accept donations by cell phone in some of the largest markets.

Essentially what the Salvation Army did was to identify better ways to reach people that would be inclined to offer support. They did not count on the way they had always done things and there is a good lesson there for all non profits. Fundraising ideas that made sense 10 years ago might not make as much sense now as they did in the past.

But it goes beyond fundraising ideas. It goes to methodology and implementation. Nonprofits that want to raise record amounts of money need to meet their supporters in the world in which their supporters live. Whether that’s in person, by phone, online or elsewhere, organizations need to stay in front of their potential supporters, create a message that compels people to donate and makes the donation process simple and fast.

The Salvation Army’s results should encourage all of us that even in hard economic times people will be there for organizations they believe in.

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.

Planned Parenthood found out recently that fundraising can be difficult and unpredictable.

Just recently the Susan G Komen Foundation announced it was ending its partnership with Planned Parenthood. Komen ended the relationship because Planned Parenthood is the largest provider of abortions in the country and the new director had a difficult time reconciling their organization with that practice.

But as it turned out the publicity Planned Parenthood received from the breakup has encouraged lots of pro choice people to step up and try to make up the different. Planned Parenthood reported on Wednesday raising $400,000 in the 24 hours following its announcement that Komen was ending its partnership with the group.

So why bring that up here in our fundraising blog?

When we stopped and thought about what was going on we realized that the most important lesson from this was that you want to keep your organization and its needs in front of the public in general and your supporters specifically. That means sharing both the good and the bad news.

In this case the organization found itself in a difficult position and the cause of the problem was a political time bomb. But by having their situation made public they raised a lot of money that they would not have otherwise raised. It just goes to show you that remaining in the public eye is usually a good thing.

It remains to be seen what the long term affect will be on either organization but for now there are lessons to be learned.

Successful PTA Fundraisers don’t happen by accident. They happen for a reason.

Most successful PTA fundraisers begin and end with parents who are. So the fact of the matter is that it might make more sense to work on developing a group of parents who are involved with your school before you worry about fundraising ideas. The problem is that this is much easier said than done. Much.

The fact of the matter is that fewer parents have the time or desire to be as involved with their children’s schools as they once did. There are lots of contributing factors here but the one that stands out the most is that more and more households depend on two incomes now than ever before. That means there are far fewer stay at home parents who have the time to get involved at school.

The other sad fact is that there have always been a small percentage of people willing to volunteer. Where a well run PTA 10 years ago may have had a pool of a dozen dedicated parents who were the engine of the organization that has now become closer to 6 or 8 people. Those are the people who volunteer for lots of other things. They are probably also involved with their kid’s sports and their churches as well. There is only so much time these people have no matter how well intentioned.

So in order to have Successful PTA Fundraisers the PTA board needs to spend its time building its core of volunteers through all means possible. If you have a great core of parents not only will your school fundraising goals more likely be met but all aspects of your school will be improved.

That’s a certainty!

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.

Times have changed and there is more to consider with Fundraisers for Youth Groups. In fact the entire process has evolved over the years.

Ten years ago youth groups typically counted on the kids to raise money. The group would hand our fundraising brochures and each child was expected to sell fundraising products to friends, family and neighbors. It was expected that the youth would take their brochure and knock on doors around their neighborhood. But those days are done for the most part.

Now more parents take control of fundraising. If the group is holding a cookie dough fundraiser the parent most likely brings the brochure and order form to work and solicits sales there. The same for candy fundraisers. Parents take the carrier of candy to their workplace and count on coworkers to buy the candy.

In the old days youth groups would offer incentives to the kids to increase sales. Those incentives were obviously geared toward the kids. But how well do child-based incentives work when its the parent who sells?

If you are going to offer incentives for your fundraisers for youth groups we suggest you develop incentives that excite the parents if you believe that the parents will be the main force behind your youth group fundraiser. That might take a little more effort than it did choosing incentives for kids.

If you have not changed with the times do not be surprised if you see diminishing returns on your Fundraisers for Youth Groups.

I just got off the phone with someone asking for Unique Fundraising Ideas and it got me thinking about whether there really were unique fundraising ideas or had most every idea been done before.

I probably should have just answered the question but decided to pursue the conversation with the caller to see what they were really looking for. It turns out they were not so much looking for a unique fundraiser as they were looking for something different than what the believed every other fundraising group in their town was selling.

So we talked about that. At the time she know other groups holding cookie dough fundraisers and promoting candy fundraising so she knew she did not want to do those. So we talked about unique fundraising ideas that she had not considered.

Interestingly she had never considered something like a flower bulb fundraiser. In fact when we talk to people about good fundraisers for the spring and fall we oftentimes suggest flower bulbs because they are competitively priced, relatively inexpensive and attractive products. Besides, more and more people like the idea of healthier fundraising and there is certainly nothing unhealthy about flower bulbs.

We continued the conversation and discussed some online tools that sound good but rarely deliver the outcome one would expect. We talked about the different options of fundraising products that could be sold. In that conversation we touched on lollipop fundraisers using seasonal shapes that made them unique to the time of year.

At the end of the conversation the woman decided on a flower bulb fundraiser but I came to realize that there may not be many truly unique fundraising ideas left. If you have any to share I’d love to hear about them.

One of the best ways to insure spectacular attendance at fundraising events is to have a celebrity attend or even speak to your group.

The Restoration, a faith-based event sponsored by the New Hope Gospel Church youth ministry program Extreme Fire, has been holding a fundraising event for 5 years. This year they expect to break all records.

They are bringing in Tim Tebow to speak to their group.

So how do you go about attracting celebrities to your fundraiser? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Look for local celebrities that personally know your organization or group. Possibilities include local television personalities, radio deejays, athletes or actors that grew up in your town or city. Since those people have roots in your community they will most likely not be as difficult to contact. Tracking down friends or family members is a possibility. As for on air personalities, those people are easy to locate.

When you contact the celebrity make sure you let them know why they would personally impact support for your group. We all have egos. Let them know they can make the difference and why. Be as compelling as possible.

2. Contact a talent agency. Talent agencies represent potential speakers and other celebrities. While most have engagement fees many will help charitable efforts that line up with their personal beliefs. You should obviously weigh the impact your desired speaker will have on fundraising efforts. Will the appearance raise a substantially higher amount of money? If so would that more than cover the cost of the celebrity?

While its not possible for many groups to get nationally known people to attend their event you might be surprised at speakers and attendees that can impact your fundraising results.

There are different school fundraising cookie dough companies and different school fundraising cookie dough products you can choose as you probably already know. So how do you choose the best option?

Start with the easy decision. Do you want to sell frozen cookie dough or something that does not require refrigeration? Most large groups gravitate toward frozen cookie dough fundraisers because that’s what people expect. But there are dry cookie miz fundraisers you can choose from as well. The benefit of the latter is that there is no refrigeration needed which makes distribution a lot easier and less strict time wise.

The next decision is whether you want to sell tube of cookie dough or boxes of preportioned cookie dough. Historically more people have sold tubs. There is no definitive reason why other than its been around much longer. However more and more groups choose preportioned because its much easier on their customer. They can pull a few cookies out of the box, put them in the oven and bake only what they want without thawing the cookie dough or finding a scoop.

Now there is a new program where you can sell frozen cookie dough that is shipped directly to your customer. Many people call it home delivery cookie dough fundraising. Essentially you sell ecoupons that your customer use like gift cards to purchase tubs of cookie dough online. The price per tub is a little higher but it includes shipping. Many groups like the idea that there is really no delivery of products other than the e coupons.

So what is the best school fundraising cookie dough in our opinion?

There is a program where you offer the top selling cookie dough in slightly smaller tubs that sell for only $10 per tub. We believe this is the magic price point where people are more than happy to buy your product. Many of the name brand or national brands sell tubs of cookie dough for $15, $16 or more. Based on feedback we get that price is simply more than people care to spend.

There is an abundance of information available on fundraising ideas all throughout the internet yet people still wonder How to Have a Fundraiser. So let’s chat about that for a few moments.

We hear from lots of people wanting to know if they need to be part of a group to have a fundraiser. Most are surprised to find out that the same programs available to schools and sports teams are available to them. An individual can choose the same school fundraiser as an elementary school might. In fact there are now even cookie dough fundraisers designed for individuals and small groups.

The problem with some fundraising ideas, though, is the minimum order requirements. Many fundraisers require 100 or more items be sold. That’s obviously tough for a single person for a very small group. Other fundraising products are priced based on the number of units you sell. The more you sell the higher your profit on each item. Luckily there are programs like candle fundraisers and flower bulb fundraisers where you make 50% profit on each item regardess of the number of items you sell.

So How to Have a Fundraiser is a lot easier question than it used to be.

The first thing you should do is determine how much money you need to raise and whether you would rather sell a product or not. If you want to sell fundraising products the next question is whether you have money to spend on a product you have on hand or you need to a no upfront cost fundraiser.

Here are a few websites we recommend to help you research different fundraisers. They are also the best place to start your fundraiser:

1. Easy Fundraising Ideas

2. Fast Track Fundraising

3. Go Green Fundraising

4. Buy for Charity Fundraising