Give Back and Grow Your Business with Fundraisers
It’s the season of giving and what better way than to give back to the community while you build relationships and grow your business in a positive and rewarding light than doing so with fundraisers! Being passionate about your products and an organization (or two) is a great combination. People love donating to a cause that’s close to their heart while they shop for gifts – or themselves, let’s be honest! – which is why fundraisers are fantastic for direct sellers, multi-level marketers and small biz owners.* We have eight amazing types of fundraisers to share with you, so get excited because one is bound to be the perfect fit for you and your business. Heck, you may even like a bunch and go nuts!
*Of course your company’s policies and procedures trump any idea shared in this blog post. If you are not sure what your company does and does not permit, please check with your home office or Consultant manual prior to booking any fundraisers.
8 Types of Fundraisers for Your Business:
1. Company – Several direct sales and multi-level marketing companies offer a fundraising program that is set up by the company with pre-designed profit margins. Sometimes the fundraising products are exclusive to the company fundraiser program and other times it features regular line products. Be sure to check with your home office to see if there’s a company fundraiser this year that you can participate in!
2. Catalog – A catalog fundraiser is exactly that, a fundraiser using your company catalog. For example, you line up a group/team, let’s say they’re cheerleaders. Each one of them gets their own “hostess packet” and they go out selling as a catalog party! Now there are two ways to do this catalog party fundraiser, one is that each cheerleader is independently raising funds for herself, or you take all ten of the girls’ orders and combine them together for one large order. The hostess credits are then used to buy additional products they can use as raffle items, etc.
3. Party – Turn your in-home or Facebook party into a fundraiser! You have a hostess that holds a fundraiser party for the charity or organization of her choice and she invites people to attend. Then you donate a portion of your commission to the person or group hosting the party. This fundraiser is treated the same way you throw a normal party where you do your in-home presentation or Facebook party script, nothing changes except that you are donating a percentage of your commissions to the charity – so be sure to let your guests know in a pre-post or have the host tell them when she sends out the invites!
4. Gift-In-Kind – This type of fundraiser is where you offer a product or package for sale and customers purchase the product to DONATE to a group or organization on their behalf. For example, you could do an Adopt-a-Grandparent package for Seniors in a local nursing home. The package sells for $20 and when a customer purchases the package, she writes a nice note to include with the package she is donating. You take all the packages to the nursing home and hand deliver them to the residents. The great thing about a gift-in-kind fundraiser is that it does good in two ways, it donates a product to someone in need and raises funds for the organization of choice.
5. Personal – Personal Fundraisers are fundraisers for individuals who are not 501c3 non-profit organizations such as a student raising money for a mission trip, a couple raising money for an adoption, individuals raising money for a surgery or medical bills of a friend. Fundraising is a great benefit to these individuals to help them reach their goals.
6. Charity of the Month – This is where you choose a charity you are very passionate about and you fundraise for them on your own. For example, if you are passionate about animal welfare, you can host a fundraiser for your local humane society (catalog, party or gift-in-kind) and donate a percentage of your profits to the organization. If your company website allows you to set up online parties, you would set one up each month for the charity you are supporting. The great thing about a charity-of-the-month fundraiser is that you get to highlight a charity near and dear to you every month!
7. Party with a Purpose – This is a LIVE party where guests bring physical item donations from home to the party to donate to the charity. They earn raffle tickets for what they donate toward a prize that you offer and then a percentage of the sales from the party is also donated to the same charity. For example, you can ask guests to bring shoes to donate to Soles4Souls, personal care items for the local domestic violence shelter, or hats and gloves for the homeless shelter. Guests LOVE this kind of fundraiser and then they stay for the fundraiser party too. The Party with a Purpose fundraiser is great for two reasons, it is a physical needs donation and financial donation to the charity of choice. This one of our FAVORITE fundraisers to do and it gets amazing guest attendance too! People LOVE to help and are just looking for a way to be able to help and you are giving them that opportunity.
8. Power Product – Think of this fundraiser as something similar to the Girl Scout cookie order sheets. In this fundraiser, you would a offer a small selection of products to be sold, rather than the entire catalog. It would feature your most popular items, the products purchased most often by customers. The student or individuals sell these power products from the fundraiser sheets to friends and family. This fundraiser is easy for the seller and for the customer because it is a smaller product line to choose from and it is all on one page, with the products offered on the front and the order sheet on the back. Imagine sending the local cheerleaders out with a sheet of 5-10 product choices on a fundraiser sheet, how easy that would be to order from as a customer. This fundraiser is very effective and popular because of the simplicity of it.
