Planning and managing a fundraising event can make you want to pull your hair out or perhaps start banging your head on the table out of frustration. Here are seven helpful tips that will help make your fundraiser a smooth and profitable success.

1.) Plan for a Huge Success

Efficient planning is an integral part to the success of not only your fundraising campaign but any project you might think of. Without a well thought out plan of action chaos will reign and your project will suffer as a result. In fact, you should have a primary plan as well as a secondary and tertiary as well.

2.) There can be Only One Person in Charge!

There can only be one captain of a ship and the same holds true for your fundraiser. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians is a recipe for failure.

3.) Delegate Authority

Give specific tasks to people that you have confidence and trust to get the job completed. When you do your planning create a list of tasks that have to be accomplished and choose the right personnel for each task. Ensure that each of your chosen staff understands that accountability for their assigned task and the buck stops with them.

4.) Promotion is the Key

Be sure that things are done to get the word out about your fundraiser. Promotion of your event will ensure that you reach your goal. Publish press releases to the local newspaper. Don’t forget your school web page is a great way to post your fundraiser and get the word directly to your parents. The type of fundraiser you are planning will determine if creating flyers and asking local business to place them in store windows would be helpful. There are lots of ways to promote a fundraising event and you should use as many of them as humanly possible.

5.) Pre-Sell for a Successful Fundraiser

This plan of action will work very well for any type of fundraiser. If your fundraising event is a dance, dinner, guest speaker, or other ticketed type of program that is a one night event, you can benifet greatly by pre-selling your tickets. Start selling tickets long before the actual fundraising night. When items such as cookie dough are your main product start mentioning it to friends, family, and neighbors before the fundraiser begins.

6.) Multiple Income Streams

Don’t put all of your hopes and plans into one fundraising event. Multiple streams of income have been a part of success in business for many years and you should be conducting your fundraiser just like a business. If all of your efforts are put into only one program, then you are taking a chance that nothing happens outside of your control which will mess things up for you. You might even have another nearby school start the same thing your were planning to do the week before your kick your fundraiser off. Planning several fundraising campaigns is an excellent way to reach your goal as quickly as possible and spread out some of the risk.

7.) Analysis After the Fundraiser

This is not part of the actual fundraiser, but this is something that you should not overlook. Analyze how each of your school fundraising efforts performed when it is finished. Which one raised your school the most money? Which one was the easiest to do? You can use your analysis of your current campaign to enhance future fundraising efforts. It is also helpful to make notes in a journal for the next board to view in case all the faces on the board change next year. This way they don’t have to re-invent the wheel like you did.

What you choose for your fundraising product is one of the most important items in determining the success or failure of your fundraising program. When it is time to choose your fundraising product you can be sure that you will be presented with many choices. However, to be successful you should pick one that has a proven track record of substantial earnings. Frozen cookie dough just might be the one to choose and Otis Spunkmeyer and Chippery brand cookie dough are the top two choices in that line.

Here are 5 distinct benefits of using Otis Spunkmeyer or Chippery cookie dough as your fundraising product for your next school fundraiser.

1.) Very Much In Demand

Otis Spunkmeyer and Chippery cookie dough is not only one of the most in popular products for fundraising events they are the best tasting. Everyone enjoys making and eating cookies. With the large assortment of flavors available you can be sure that you will appeal to everyone. It is a proven fact that most prefer cookie dough than any other fundraising product lines available.

2.) Easy to use

Making cookies can be a messy and time consuming kitchen duty and there is often little time left in our busy days for mixing up a batch of cookies by hand. Your Otis Spunkmeyer or Chippery cookie dough will arrive frozen and can be stored in the freezer for use when needed. With frozen cookie dough you can take the hard part out of making cookies for the family. Pre-formed cookie dough can go directly from the freezer to the oven.

3.) Very little out of pocket money involved

Otis Spunkmeyer and Chippery fundraisers require no money up front to do and therefore are a risk free method for school fundraising. Your sales people simply take their sales brochure , and a pen and off they go. All payments are made up front so you only order what has been paid for.

4.) Repeatable

Food products like cookie dough are consumed by your customers. This is a fact alone is a big factor to consider when determining which product you will use for a unique and profitable fundraising event. A tasty delicious product that is consumed by your client is an excellent way to promote repeat sales at your next fundraiser. In fact, when you use a well know product like Otis Spunkmeyer and Chippery cookie dough you will have many people double up on their order the next time you do your school fundraiser.

5.) Immediate Profit

Payment for your cookie dough sales is made at the time that the order is taken by your sellers. This reduces the risk to your group of purchasing a product and then collecting upon delivery. Collecting on delivery means you will always have a select few customers who are out of town or who do not want their product when it is delivered. Not so with cookie dough. jCollecting up front payment translates into fast cash for your organization with no huge out of pocket expense. In fact, you school or group will have your profit from the sale within 2 weeks of starting it.

Otis Spunkmeyer and Chippery cookie dough are the most popular brands available for school fundraising today. They are easy to use and require no upfront investment, promotes repeat customers, and generates cash quickly. Use it in your next fundraiser and enjoy all these benefits.

Because there are so many students in a typical elementary or middle school, the potential for huge sales and profit is great. However, because there are so many students at a school, it can be hard to motivate, organize and control a fundraising effort on that big of a scale. There are three key elements to a school fundraiser that if kept in mind while planning for it, will almost guarantee that your fundraiser will be a huge success.

Communication!

Long before your school fundraiser gets started, things should be in place and ready to go for the big fundraiser kick off day. One of the best things that a PTA or PTO can do before their fundraiser ever get started is make sure that all the parents of your school children know what is about to happen BEFORE it happens. At least once and it is even better to do this twice, send a letter home with the students that tells the parents a little about the upcoming school fundraiser and why the school needs the funds. In any communications you do in this manner never forget to ask explicitly for their help and participation.

Build Up The Excitement!

To kick off the sale, have an assembly or several assemblies so the fundraising chairperson can create excitement about the fundraiser. It is also great to discuss with the students what money is being raised for – where will the money they earn go? What are the positive results of their efforts?

Of course you really don’t have to cover all that in great detail with the students as doing that in any great detail would put them to sleep. We want them excited about the sale, not bored to tears about it. So unless you have a production equivalent to High School Musical 2 or the real Sponge Bob and Patrick to cover those details in song or antics, I would say, “Just mention it.” The bottom line is that the kids generally don’t have the interest or the memory tell their parents and potential customers about what the money is going to be used for. That is what the parent letter is there to do for them.

Motivation!

Besides, the product being sold and what the money is going to be used for are not what gets the students attention, It’s The Prizes! In fact, if your prizes are really good, you could actually forget about the communication stuff mentioned above. If your students are excited about the fundraiser and the prizes, you don’t have to worry about their parents not knowing about your fundraiser, believe me, the will know all about it. If the only thing you do for the kickoff is show the prizes and hold up the sales brochure that the prize program “goes with,” you will have a successful fundraising kickoff.

By organizing, building excitement and rewarding the students – your fundraiser can be successful no matter what fundraising product you choose. Now, in this article, I have over simplified the whole 3 step process: but not by much. There are a few things about each of these 3 elements of a school fundraiser that will require particular attention to some important details, but by and large, this is pretty simple. It is a good idea to seek the advice of an experienced fundraising consultant who understands the whole prize concept and accept their advice.

A Word to the Wise!

Most fundraising companies are more interested these days in “getting your business” than in actually coaching you in how to run a school fundraiser to get maximum results. Most will sell you on their product or their service or their profit percentage as the key point in a successful fundraiser. This is far from the truth, and if you spend a few minutes thinking about it, you know this is true. Prizes are what drive school fundraisers. If you do the average, everyday, run of the mill prizes, you will end up with average run of the mill results. This is why schools that make a change in the way they do their prizes double or more their previous sale. It is not the product, service or profit percentage that makes the difference it’s the prizes.