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Making Sense of Product Fundraising
So Many Choices
The single biggest change in product fundraising — a once-simple category that was dominated by candy, catalogs and gift-wrap — is the tremendous increase in sales options available to parent groups.
A quick glance at the Website for a single provider — Fundraising.com — reveals the extent of the growth. The new site boasts of no fewer than 22 sales options, everything from lollipops and candy to first-aid kits and "static clings." The Association of Fund Raisers and Direct Sellers (AFRDS), the trade group for fundraising companies, lists more than 45 products offered for sale by its members - and their list doesn't even include first-aid kits and static clings. Obviously, the list is growing quickly.
"I wish you could just print a spreadsheet of all the options for us — products, profits, percentages — so we could figure out what to sell," opined Janet Hulseberg, PTO president at the Wilbraham Middle School in Wilbraham, Mass. expressing the frustrations of many PTOers. And she makes a good point. With so many products various percentage returns, different prices, the different tastes of different towns and new products coming out all the time, deciding on what to sell can be arduous.
"We've had an annual gift wrap sale for several years," notes Hulseberg. "And it works great. But there are other things out there, too. A new Mom came in from Colorado and suggested Cookie Dough. She said her old school made $30,000 last year. It's tough. (The gift wrap sale) works — and if it's not broken, don't fix it — but we're just not sure what to do. We also don't want to overwhelm our families."
The good news is that school groups can be successful selling just about anything that a) is of strong quality; and b) a good fit for their group.
"Choosing the right product for you at the right price range is so important," says Bill Greeley, a fundraising consultant based in Winthrop, Mass. He points out that conferring with an experienced representative (Bill's been at it for 14 years) — one who's worked with schools similar to yours — is the best way to make sure that your product selection is a good fit.
This story appeared in PTO Today, Franklin, MA - March/April, 2000.
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