When starting a fundraising campaign, whether you are fundraising for a school, church or any other organization, an effective way to encourage people to donate is to provide incentives. Gaining support from local businesses and corporations through fundraising letters is a good way to bring in incentives such as prizes or exclusive discounts. It is possible to pay professional copywriters to produce fundraising letters for you, however this is not necessary. By writing and sending the fundraising letters yourself, you will save money and you will add a personal tone to the letter, which will allow you to outline the benefits of your cause with passion.

What are the benefits for the community AND the sponsor?
When writing a fundraising letter, it is important to emphasize the benefits that would come of the target company donating to your cause. Outline what you are raising money for. Why do you need this money? How will it benefit people in the community?

It is important not to forget that there are advantages for the company too, and it is your job to remind the recipient of this through the fundraising letter. Tell them how it will raise their profile in the community. Tell them how donating will align the company with the good cause for which you are raising money for. What will they receive for their sponsorship exactly? Where will you put their logo? Who will see this and what does that mean for them?

What? How? When?
It is important to be as clear and to the point in the fundraising letter. Be clear as to what you are asking from the company. This may be items which you would like to give out as prizes, exclusive discounts to include on a fundraising discount cards, or money. If you are asking for money, give a suggested donation size, and what that amount of money would provide. Give a tangible amount example if possible. An example of this can be found from charities such as water aid: “$3 a month, over a year, is as little as it could cost to help give a person safe, clean water for life”.

Make it clear how they should send the donation to you. Provide an address and a phone number. Make sure to include who they should make cheques payable to. Are you willing to pick up items that are donated in person? Make it as easy as possible for them to donate.

In order to stop the receiver throwing the letter in the to-do later pile, put a time restriction on the donation. Tell them when you are running your fundraising event. Tell them your goals. How much money do you aim to raise? When do you want to raise it by?

Increase the open rate and attention paid to your letter
It is likely that the person you are asking money from will receive other post a long with your fundraising letter. It is important to try and grab their attention from the start. By using a rubber stamp and an ink pad, stamp “IMPORTANT! Fundraising Discount Card enclosed” in red ink on the front of your letter. This should deter the recipient from throwing your letter straight in to the bin with promotional mail.

Make sure to use a P.S. In a single sentence reiterate what you are asking for and why, and thank them for reading your letter, and for any possible donation they can give, on behalf of your organization.

Make your letter easy to read
Break down the fundraising letter in to easy to read paragraphs. Separate different parts of the text with headings. Make sure to use easy to understand, positive language, but also appeal to the emotions of the recipient. Make it clear from the start who you are and what the aim of the letter is.

If you receive a donation…
Make sure to follow up donations with thank you letters and invitations to fundraising events! Send them a letter after the fundraising event to let them know how much you raised. Did you meet your target? Keep in touch with them and let them know what good comes out of their donation. This will encourage them to donate next time you are looking to raise funds!

Mark South

Fundraising discount cards are a great option for a close community, especially if you have specific, local merchants in mind. Most fundraising groups know where everyone in their area goes for oil changes, flowers, and pizza.

How Fundraising Discount Cards Work:

Groups sell the fundraising discount cards to their supporters, just like they would sell candy bars or pop corn. They sell typically for $10 and cost as little as $1.50 each. Each supporter can usually sell 10 – 20 cards. The fundraising discount cards can have one to a few offers from local and major chain merchants. The discount cards are the size of a credit card with the details of the offers written on them. Some cards have scratch off dots or some sort of counter to control the amount of times the card can be used. Merchants usually prefer a counter since they can calculate the exact cost to them.

Customized Fundraising Discount Cards:

A few companies offer this popular option with their fundraising discount cards. It allows you to pick the merchants in which the cards can be used. The offer with each merchant can be negotiated as well, but most merchants are ready with a standard offer. A typical offer is ” buy one get one free ” or ” get a free drink when you buy a sandwich ” and many more. If this is not the way you want to proceed, only a few companies offer to get the deals for you for a fee.

Fundraising Discount Cards Tip:

Since a discount card fundraiser is also a great opportunity for the merchant, most of them will stay with a group fundraiser year after year. That means that most of the setup work is done. For the next one, the merchants on the card just need to be asked if they want to change their offer for the following fundraiser. Some groups actually form waiting lists of merchants to get on their fundraising discount cards.

Things to look out For:

Quality Of Printing – Make sure the company will guarantee the printing on the card
Return policy – Some companies will offer returns for unsold cards, consider these first.
Watch for quality – Choose cards that can last so your supporter can benefit from the card offer for the entire period.
Offer Counter – Most merchants prefer a counter, so this option may work better in your area.
Free Shipping – Make sure you can get free shipping included so you don’t get surprised at delivery time.
Name & logo – Some companies will print both your group name & logo on each card free of charge, some will only print your name and some not at all. Try to get both as it will show your participants and donors you are serious about your fundraiser.

Reprinted from an extremely helpful site http://www.fundraisingideas.com/fundraising_discount_cards.htm , These guys offer great information about fundraising check them out!

Well, it’s actually quite simple once you break it down. Consider this math equation: Multiply number of motivated sellers x unit price point x high profit margin = successful school fundraiser.

So, you want all this:

1. Your sellers should be highly motivated and enthusiastic.
2. Your product should have a fairly high price point.
3. Your product should have a high profit margin that’s real, not inflated.

Those are the secrets to school fundraising success!

For elementary schools, I always recommend that you do at least two events a year and one product fundraiser. Do some sort of athletic-based event in the fall, a product fundraiser in the late October-early November timeframe, and a school carnival in the spring.

As far as the best product for elementary schools to sell, I recommend a catalog-based product sale, but it has to be the highest quality merchandise and not overpriced junk. And I always recommend offering a secondary product at the same time. My favorite profit booster is the two-for-one pizza discount card. Each $10 sale adds $8 in profit to your results.

Motivating Your Sellers

In school fundraisers, we often forget to follow basic selling techniques. Here are three things you can do to motivate your sellers:

1. At your kickoff meeting, have kids vote (by noise level) on which prizes they want
2. Offer multiple levels of rewards by seller, class, and grade
3. Don’t reward those who under perform or don’t participate at all

And don’t forget that you can do great business by offering products outside retail locations like grocery stores and Wal-Mart. Organize parent teams to supervise the sellers who are really motivated to be top producers and line up several weekend sales locations.

Obviously this works best for immediate sales products like pizza discount cards, food items or raffle tickets. You can still do a considerable sales volume for catalog sales if you are selling within your attendance area and you offer convenient delivery options.

Product Price Points

In general, you want products that are in the $7 and up range. Why? Because you have a limited number of prospects to sell to and you want maximum revenue.

If you’re selling silicone wristbands for $2 each and making a dollar on each one, then you have to make 5,000 sales to raise $5,000.

If you’re selling pizza discount cards for $10 each and making $8 on each one, then you only have to make 625 sales to raise $5,000. Would 625 sales be easier to make than 5,000? Most definitely!

Similarly, in December you can raise a lot of money selling Christmas trees, wreaths, citrus fruit, and poinsettias from a pre-order list. Each item produces significant revenue, has a high profit margin, and most people will order more than one item.

Sell smart and you’ll always do well. Sell cheap and you’ll always struggle to reach your goal.

Maximizing Profits

Many products offer profit margins of 50% or more such as cookie dough, gift wrap, gourmet candy, calendars, etc. The key is making sure that the price point offers a good value for your customers. If the product is overpriced, your customers will resent having to pay extra for something just to benefit the school.

That means selecting products whose profit margins are real, not inflated to make it a 50% margin. Think from the customer’s perspective. They will be much more willing to support your school’s fund raising effort if the product is a good deal.

For example, if you are offering a variety of gourmet cheesecakes for $17 each, make sure that similar items aren’t being offered in the supermarket for $9 each. People will gladly pay a higher price for something that’s truly exceptional, but not foe same thing they could have bought down the street.

Another easy way to maximize profits is t offer a supplemental item with a high profit margin. Most families eat a lot of pizza, so offer a two-for-one pizza card for $10 because it’s $8 or $9 of profit on every sale. It’s the prefect offering for people who don’t want to order something from your catalog, but would still like to support your effort.

Summary

The secret to school fundraising success is properly motivating your sellers, choosing products to sell that are in demand with prices above $7, and sell only products with profit margins of 50% or more.

If you don’t motivate your sellers, sales will be mediocre. If you sell inexpensive products, then revenue will be too low. If you don’t sell products with high profit margins, it will be difficult to meet your funding goals.

Sell products people really want, that offer good value, and that provide good profits. Do that and your school fundraiser will be a big success.

Reprinted from an extremely helpful site http://www.fundraiserhelp.com/school-fundraising-ideas.htm , These guys offer great information about fundraising