I just went through the same thing last month. I "googled" and got most of the companies on my list. We also could not do food items and I did find that the catalog sales were just about the only thing that would bring us what we needed in a "one-shot deal" a minimum $15,000 our share. We choose Magic Marketing (1-800-554-5692) because the company is located 4 miles from our school and they warehouse their products on site. They are also our Kids Korner (Santa Shop) reps. We are in central Florida so this would not be as beneficial to you. They gave us a choice of catalogs (they have 3 catalogs and 6 tags) and we deceided to split the catalogs by grade level. With mulitple kids in a family, kids would get different catalogs. Their incentive program was standard and we would receive 50% profit on catalog and 40% on tag.
We are going to give the parents 3 options this year. Catalog, cash donation or Home Interiors. The Home Interiors catalog will be at the front office for their asking. We do not officially tell parents they can "opt out", but they always have the choice of not participating. Every child gets a catalog unless parent tells us ahead of time. The board loved the scratch cards idea and we are going to buy those to have at Open House, Chili Bash, school plays, etc. I have personally spoken to other fundraiser companies if you want me to post their names and numbers, let me know.
Hi C. Brooks...I am not sure if I will be much help but i will try. WE are a young group so you can say we are still trying to find our nitch! We do a home interior candle sale that does pretty good, they actually have just come out with a new line just for fundrasiers. We do this in November so they can be used as gifts for the holidays. We have done this every year since we started and it goes up a little bit each year as compared to other things we have done. We did a catalog sale for two years the first year was great, the second year we made like $3500 less so we are skipping that this year. We are adding a flower bulb sale, our school has never had one so we are hoping. we are going to put in there that maybe you can considered donating a package to beautify our school!
Little Caesers pizza kits are good , we did it two years and skipped tow but are thinking of going back to it. You make $5,00 each kit, but they sell themselves, only thing is makings ure people pick them up as they are perishable. A easter candy sale always does good for us, you know parents buy it anyways why not help out the school.
We do not have a opt out program, knowing our location, economics conditions i think we would hurt ourselves with that. Some families really get into each fundraiser and we probaly earn in a year like 500.00 from them, there is no way they would give us that!!! We depend on our fundraisers to support our schedule as we don;t charge for anything we do!! That is like our cardinal rule...we would rather drop an event than charge for it!
"When you stop learning you stop growing."
I am taking the lazy way out here. I told my VP I would get her as many companies as I could to look at. Here is our deal as of now. There will be a selling fundraiser but no cookie dough, candy, or chocalate or any other kind of food. I am not used to this selling kind of stuff but it looks like we are looking mostly at catalog fundraisers. We are having other activities through out the year to raise money such as Spirit Sales, Fall Festival, Santa Shop, Spring Fling, Basketball tourney, and a few other events that are still in the wondering process. So if you could tell me one of your favorite companies so I can retrieve info from that company and give me a little personal input I would appreciate it. Also do you have an "opt out" choice for children/parents who do not want to sell?
