Here are some common ways people choose their group fundraiser. Where do you fit in?

Profit, Profit, Profit!

Some people are only interested in how much money they can make. They are happy to see profit percentages of 50% and higher. If the fundraising company can throw in some additional profit incentives, like signing bonuses, all the better!

Upside: If the fundraiser makes a high profit, you don’t have to do as much of it.

Downside: High profit percentage often doesn’t translate into high profit to the group. There are a lot of variables that make a fundraiser successful. High participation always trumps high profit.

Convenience

People are busy, so they are looking for the easiest fundraiser possible. If a fundraiser promises to be quick and easy, they are in.

Upside: When a fundraiser is easy, the volunteers catch a break.

Downside: Convenient doesn’t always mean successful. Some of the best selling and most profitable fundraising items, such as cookie dough, takes a little work to coordinate.

I Would Buy That

Many people will pick the group fundraiser based on their own tastes. So if they see a brochure they like, that is the one they will choose. These people tend to value quality over profit percentage.

Upside: It is easier to raise money by selling something you feel good about.

Downside: Your tastes may not line up with the tastes of your participants.

Service Please!

For these people, what is most important is great customer service. They want to be sure that there is someone on hand to help make the fundraiser easy and successful. They will take great service over fancy brochures or high profit percentage any day.

Upside: You will experience a smooth and professional fundraiser, and feel good about it all throughout the experience.

Downside: Great service makes it easy for the fundraising coordinators, but it is still important to sell a great product at a fair price if you want to raise any money.

So, do you know where you fit in? There is a good chance that you are a mix of these. And if you decide on your fundraisers as a committee, you most certainly experience these different viewpoints.

And where does Stevco come down on this scale? Well, we believe that high profits come from selling quality products that people actually want to buy, and which participants are happy to sell. High participation equals high profit. And we think convenience and customer service is very important, so we do more than any other fundraising company to make sure your fundraiser is easy.

If you are looking for high profits and a high level of customer service, you can confidently choose Stevco.

With summer ending and a new school year starting soon, it will be time for many groups to fundraise. In some communities, people will be inundated with fundraisers, with group after group asking for their support. If you don’t want your fundraiser to get lost in the mix, you should get clear on your fundraising goals.

Define a Goal

First of all, define your goals as a group. Make sure all active members are on board with budget goals, what money is being raised for, and how it will be raised.

Find Your Story

Next, pick out any high-emotion goals. These are the things that will be easiest for your community to get behind. If possible, tell a story of a need that your group is seeking to fill. Whether you are raising money for school books, playground equipment, sports fields, or whatever, be prepared to tell the story. Explain the need. Show where current funding is falling short. Then tell your group’s plans to fill the gap through fundraising.

Communicate Your Goal

After you identify a high-emotion story you can tell, you need to communicate it. When explaining the fundraiser to your participants, tell them the story. Use the fundraising letter to explain the goal. Also post the story on your website and in your newsletter. If you can effectively communicate the need and your goal to fill the need, you will have an easier time getting participants on board and they will have an easier time raising funds.

Track Your Goal

Finally, track your goal. Was your fundraiser successful, or did it fall short? Those who have bought in emotionally to your goal want to know if you succeeded. Share how you did in your newsletter and online. Get the word out to the participants that they did a good job. And, of course, be sure to say thank you, to each and every participant.

Getting clear on fundraising goals can help your group stand out from the crowd and raise funds, even when people are already being asked by many other groups and organizations. Get your community behind your goal, and you will have success.

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photo credit: woodleywonderworks

Read the new rules at Momsteam.com.

What do you think? Is this a good thing, or is Little League going too far?

Membership is a one-time fee of $29.95, but there are also lots of free articles that you can check out before deciding if this will be beneficial for you and your team.

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Need fundraising help for your sports league? Check out the rest of this site or call us at 1-800-359-7028.

8th Annual Greece Basketball Association Classic Tournament

When: February 19-21, 2010

Where: Greece High and Middle Schools

Info: This tournament provides multiple divisions at every level, certified refs, a 3 game guarantee, and awards. The entry deadline is February 8th. Sign up form available here.

Each program has a 2 month session that teaches kids the basics of the sport, along with developmental skills and team structure. TSE currently offers programs for soccer, baseball, basketball, and lacrosse.

According to their web site, the programs are designed to “introduce children to a variety of sports while building character and leadership skills.” Since the sessions run for six weeks, you can sample multiple sports or enroll your child without a long term commitment. Your child will learn about the sport and be able to discover which sport he or she likes the best.

Each micro-program costs $60 per 6 week session. To learn more, visit the TSE website.

We have always helped with this by bringing the product in on our own freezer truck right before hand out. However, this year we have added another service for leagues that do outside distributions.

That service is off the trailer delivery. We have a large freezer trailer that we can use to deliver product to your league. When we load, we set up the boxes alphabetically inside the trailer. This means that when we get to your location, all we have to do is open the ramp and start handing out orders. The boxes stay in the shade and coolness of the trailer, and there is no need for unloading and setting up the product under a pavilion or in a building. This allows us to deliver right to the field on a night when parents are likely to be there anyway.

Overall, this new service has been a great success. The biggest issue we run into is when we have a very large sale. In some cases, its just not possible to get everything set up on the trailer because there is so much product. This may mean we have to set some of the product outside temporarily. But for most of the fundraisers, we can fit all of the product in the trailer.

This service takes quite a bit of extra time and effort on our end, while making it much easier on your end. This is what we try do in making your fundraiser hassle free. If this is something that would make your fundraiser easier, let us know and we will try to make sure you have it for your delivery. There is a nominal charge for the service because of the extra time loading and staying at the delivery. The fee also includes us taking back any extra product and redelivering it if need be, so its really a bargain.

If you would like this service for your next fundraiser, be sure to mention it to your fundraising advisor.

One great way to achieve this is to create an email survey. The great thing it that it is very easy. The only thing you need is a list of emails for your parents. You have that, right?

Here are step by step instructions on how to create and send an email survey using Google.

Step 1: If you don’t already have a Google account, create one. They are free and very useful. For our purposes here, you can go to docs.google.com and click on the button to get a Google account.

Step 2: Go to docs.google.com and sign in with your Google account.

Step 3: Click on the Create New button near the top left of the page.

Step 4: Select Form from the drop down list.

Step 5: Give your form a title and description.

Step 6: You can modify the default question. To add more questions, click on Add Item near the top left of the screen.

Step 7: To edit a question, click on it and then click on the pencil. To duplicate the question click on the button with the 2 boxes. To delete a question, click on the trash can.

Step 8: Click on Save

Step 9: Go back to Google Docs main screen. You will see your form in the list of documents. When you open it, it will open as a spreadsheet. This is where you will view your survey responses. If you ever need to edit the form, simply click on Form and then Edit Form from the menu bar.

Step 10: You can send the form right from the spreadsheet view. From the menu bar, click on Form, and then from the drop down list, click on Send Form. Now, you just need to add your email addresses and click send. Once the form is sent and filled out, answers will instantly appear in your spreadsheet on Google Docs.

Chances are, you are relying heavily on the phone. If you have a last minute schedule change or other important news to get out, you can get your volunteers busy calling all of the parents. This takes time and energy from your coaches and other volunteers. What if you could develop a strong habit of communication using email and the internet? You could put out the info you need to put out just once, and all of the parents could be kept up to date.

If you want to move more of your communication online, it is important to plan ahead, be organized, and stick with it. Also, using the right tools will make it so much easier.

Plan Ahead

If you have always communicated one way, you can’t just throw the switch one day to a new form of communication and expect it to work out. If you are going to develop a strong communication strategy for your league, think it through first. For instance, email and web are a great way to stay in touch with the majority of people. However, there will be a few people who cannot access the internet regularly. Do you have a secondary plan for them?

You will also want to plan ahead so that you can alert your parents at the beginning of the season. If schedules and cancellations are going to be posted on your web site and notices are going to be delivered via email, make sure you let the parents know this at the beginning of the season. You will also need to collect everyone’s email address.

You are also going to have to find the right tools to communicate. These might include an easy to update website, an email service, or group organization tool. Below, I will tell you about MemberHub, an organization tool that can help in keeping communication strong.

Be Organized

To keep communication strong throughout the sports season, you are going to have to be organized. You need a way for information to move from various sources, including coaches and volunteers, to a main launching point. From there, it will have to go out to parents, and if you can do it on a regular basis that will be best.

Stick With It

You will want to commit to keeping the communication going regularly. Parents and volunteers will then develop habits of checking their email and your site for important information. If you don’t keep up with it regularly, everyone will fall back to old ways of communication.

MemberHub

We are big proponents of MemberHub because it is so easy. It is a organization and collaboration tool for larger groups. For your league, you would set up an organization that you would invite all parents and volunteers to join. Then, you would create individual hubs for each team and volunteer committee. This way, you can communicate to everyone at once, or you can communicate to particular people. If a coach wants to post stats for his team, he can do it on his hub and only the parents of those kids will get the information. This would also be very helpful for cancellations, volunteers needing to coordinate, and more.

MemberHub offers tools such as calendar, discussion, photo and file sharing, and whiteboards. Users can elect to receive notifications via email or even text message. As an overarching communication tool for your league, it can’t be beat!

Once you come up with a communication plan and stick with it, you will find that running things gets much easier. Using a tool like MemberHub will streamline the whole thing. Before long, you will wonder how you operated without a communication plan.