|
|
|
Weak Economy Isn't Hurting School Fundraising Industry
Dick Raddatz is convinced that after shelling out for candy bars, homemade pizza, cookie dough and other fundraising items, parents and other school boosters are ready for a nice drink of water.
Bottled water will be the Next Big Thing in school fundraising, he believes.
"People are buying more and more of it," said Mr. Raddatz, who runs a Web site called www.fundraising.com that suggests schools sell the $1 bottles by the 24-bottle caseload. "We can custom-print a picture of a group or a school logo right on the bottle. It's really been working out."
If bottled water isn't the school band's ticket to Disney World, maybe beef jerky is. Or fruit snacks. FundRaising.Com offers those products, too.
And if traditional fundraising items such as candy, magazine subscriptions and gift wrap are generating yawns, perhaps parents will get excited about a commemorative brick with their child's name permanently adorning a school sidewalk or wall.
The nearly $2 billion-a-year school fundraising industry is cruising along with a lot of long-held relationships between educators and business people, and many proven products. But that doesn't keep new ideas from entering the marketplace, where they can get at least a one-season tryout.
And the ailing economy doesn't seem to be hurting the suppliers and distributors of fundraising products, whose clientele includes church groups and other nonprofits but is dominated by school-related customers. In fact, the industry appears to be doing better than ever as schools face tighter budgets, the costs of activities go up, and parents raise more money for core classroom purposes.
According to the Association of Fundraising Distributors & Suppliers, candy leads all fundraising product categories, followed by magazine subscriptions, frozen entrees, cheese and meat products, decorative novelties and gift wrap.
The industry has scores of small, mom-and-pop companies that distribute products such as brand-name candy tailored for the fundraising market by manufacturers such as Hershey Foods Corp. and Mars Inc., maker of M&M's.
But some players are relatively big. One is Entertainment Publications Inc., based in Troy, Mich., which sells two-for-one coupon books as fundraising items and owns the Sally Foster line of gift wrap. In 2002, schools and other nonprofits earned more than $100 million selling the company's products.
Another big player is QSP Inc., a division of Reader's Digest Association Inc. QSP primarily offers magazine subscriptions, but it also has a close partnership with World's Finest Chocolate Inc., a Chicago-based confectioner that sells primarily in the fundraising market.
William C. Burton, the high school principal and overall fundraising coordinator at Greater Atlanta Christian School, said QSP's magazine sales have been a productive fundraiser for the school for 30 years.
"Last year, we grossed $583,000," he said. "That's a boatload of magazines." The school got to keep 40 percent of the take, or about $233,000.
Some products might not seem like natural candidates for school fundraising, but are nonetheless carving a niche. Commemorative bricks do nothing to satisfy a donor's sweet tooth, but they do offer potentially higher "profit" margins than most products, which typically allow schools to keep 40 percent to 50 percent of sales.
The company, Brick & Stone Graphics, offers standard-size bricks at $20 apiece, with larger volume discounts available. Schools then offer the bricks starting at $40, but sometimes for as much as $200.
This story appeared in EDUCATION WEEK - February 12, 2003.
|
|
|
|
|