GoodShop

Hello! In September of this year, GoodSearch expanded its fundraising capability by adding GoodShop.

Description
GoodShop (http://www.goodsearch.com/goodshop.aspx) is an online shopping mall which contains an ever-growing list of stores which donates a portion of your supporters' purchases to your organization.

Generating Funds
All supporters need to do is have your organization selected as their GoodSearch charity, go to the GoodShop site, click on the link to the store where they want to shop, and then shop at the online store like they normally would.

Notes
Note that it may take some time before donations generated by your supporters' online purchases shows up in your GoodSearch totals. GoodSearch only posts GoodShop donations once a week; plus, it can take stores up to 8 weeks to report their donations to GoodShop so that they can give some time for returns and exchanges to take place.

Good Luck with your fundraising!
Kara

Fun Pasta Fundraiser

Hello! I wanted to tell you about the first traditional fundraiser that we did for my daughter's preschool. We worked with a company called the Pasta Shoppe, which sells their products through a fundraiser that they call Fun Pasta (http://www.funpastafundraising.com/).

Product
When you hear the words "fun pasta", you can probably imagine what this product is. Of course, it's pasta - 100% natural pasta, to be exact. And it's fun because of the wide variety of cute shapes that it comes in. There's purses, chickens, Xmas trees, spider webs, ABCs, music notes, ballet shoes, flamingos, footballs, catcher's mitts, and more - 25 different varieties in all! There is also pasta for 27 popular colleges - the pasta is in the shape of either the college's logo or mascot. Four gift sets, three pasta salads, and four pasta soups round out their offerings. Natural food coloring is used in all cases except for the collegiate pasta, which uses traditional food coloring in order to achieve more vibrant colors. Bags of pasta cost $6, pasta salad or soup kits cost $7, and gift sets cost $10. The pasta has a shelf life of 15 to 18 months.

Selling
This fundraiser is especially great for small or cash-strapped organizations because it does not require any money down and all of the selling materials (12 page brochures, envelopes, and 3 sample bags of pasta) are provided for free. The company also pays for all of the shipping costs. This pasta makes a great stocking stuffer or festive compliment to a holiday meal, so I would suggest that you perform this fundraiser before Xmas. For example, I bought some of the soup sets for the great-grandmothers on my Xmas list - since they live alone, these make easy, fast, nutrious meals that they will be able to get at least a couple of dinners out of. I also got 2 bags of the Penn State pasta for a friend of mine whose an alumna of the school.

I would suggest running this fundraiser for 2 weeks. At our preschool, we find that is the optimum amount of time - anything less is too rushed, anything more & parents tend to forget about it.

There is also an incentive program with this fundraiser - for every 12 bags of pasta sold, the seller receives a free bag of their choice. This incentive can actually work two ways. One way is for individual sellers to earn free bags of pasta for every 12 bags they sell. The other way is for the organization as a whole to get free bags. Because all of the individual order forms are summarized on a single group order form (which is faxed to the company at the end of your sales period), you are able to combine sales in order to generate additional free bags of pasta. For example, our preschool was able to get an additional 10 free bags of pasta once we combined all of the individual sales.

Profits
The profit margins for this fundraiser are fairly high, generating some good income for your organization. The profit schedule is as follows:

• Sales less than $2,000: 40% profits
• Sales of $2,000 or higher: 50% profits

Our preschool had great results with this fundraiser. We were able to get over $2,000 in sales, which qualified us for the 50% profit margin. In total, we generated $1,040 of profits with only 26 out of approximately 100 parents participating. When we combined all of the individual orders onto the group order form, we were able to get around 10 free bags of pasta, which we are using as part of the silent auction taking place during our spring festival (along with the 3 free bags we got as part of the selling packet from the company!). So, we'll even generate a little more income from this fundraiser!

I can't say enough about this fundraiser. If your organization is a school or some other group which deals with young children, this fundraiser could be a great fit for you!

Good luck fundraising!
Kara

Uno Dough Rai$ers

Another great passive fundraiser is to participate in one of the many fundraising programs offered by national restaurant chains. One such program is Uno Chicago Grill's Dough Rai$er program (http://www.unos.com/fund.html).

Requirements
In order to participate in the program, your organization must be a registered non-profit with tax-exempt status.

Funds
You can register to host your fundraising event during lunch, dinner, or both. You will get a donation equal to 20% of all revenue generated by your supporters (for both dine-in and take-out orders, including all food and drink - even alcoholic beverages!), who identify themselves by presenting a donation ticket to their waiter/waitress (more about this in Details). You should receive the check from the fundraiser within 14 business days. Of all of the restaurant fundraising programs that I've seen, this one is by far the most lucrative.

Details
Restaurant fundraisers are great because they require so little work to step up and execute. If you would like to hold a Dough Rai$er event, follow these steps:

1. Determine if you have an Uno Chicago Grill in your area by searching at: http://www.unos.com/location.html.
2. Select a few dates on which your organization would like to hold the Dough Rai$er. Note that the further in advance you register, the more likely it is that you will get the date that you want.
3. Print and fill out the registration form located at: http://www.unos.com/images/school_prog/applicationRed.pdf.
4. Go to your local Uno Chicago Grill and meet with the manager on duty. The manager will check your dates to see if they are still open for a Dough Rai$er. If so, the manager will mark your event in the store calendar and take your completed registration form. The manager will also give you a copy of the complete rules for the event, plus donation tickets to copy and distribute to your supporters.
5. One week prior to the event, photocopy the donation tickets on bright colored paper (so they won't get lost by your supporters or the Uno's staff) and distribute to your supporters, along with a flyer detailing the date and rules of the event. The tickets come four to a page, so I suggest giving one page to each of your supporters and asking them to keep one and distribute the other three to their friends and family.
6. Send out a reminder email the day before the event. Be sure to note that donation tickets must be presented to the Uno's waitstaff in order for your organization to be credited 20% of their purchases and that they cannot use any discounts or coupons when paying for their bill. Also ask that anyone coming with a party of 6 or more call ahead.
7. Wait for the check to come in!!

Uno Chicago Grill even allows you to sell fundraising items at a table inside the restaurant and to set up an information table in the waiting area.

The Dough Rai$er for our preschool will be held on October 24th - I will let you know how much money we raised from the event.

Good luck with your fundraising efforts!
Kara

GoodSearch

My favorite fundraisers are those that I group into a category that I call "passive fundraising". Passive fundraisers basically generate free money for your school or organization by having supporters do something that they already do. The first passive fundraiser I would like to talk about is GoodSearch (http://www.goodsearch.com/).

Description
GoodSearch is a search engine powered by Yahoo! which donates half of its profits to a wide range of causes registered with them. Once you have registered your organization with GoodSearch and your application is approved, your supporters designate your organization as their GoodSearch charity and then use the search engine provided by GoodSearch. Each time a support uses the search engine, at minimum of 1 cent is generated for your organization. During one fiscal year, GoodSearch actually had enough profits to donate 1.3 cents per search to all of its registered organizations. While that might not seem like much, over time it can really add up. If you have 100 supporters and each supporter performs 5 searches a day, that would raise $1,825 over the course of a year. And it's free money!

Registering Your Organization
The only criteria for registering with GoodSearch is that your organization is a registered nonprofit that operates in the US. If you fit that criteria, go to this link to fill out their charity registration form: http://www.goodsearch.com/AddCharity.aspx. It will take a few days for the GoodSearch staff to verify the information on your application and approve it.

Generating Funds
To generate significant funds using GoodSearch, you must communicate all of the details to the supporters of your organization. If you feel comfortable, you should suggest that your supporters ask their friends & family to use GoodSearch as well. This is one of those fundraisers where you really need to get the word out and get as many people involved as possible.

Listed below are the steps that your supporters need to follow in order to generate funds using GoodSearch:

1. Go to http://www.goodsearch.com/.
2. Type in the name of your organization in the 2nd box on the page (under the label "Who do you GoodSearch for?").
3. Click the "verify" button. Once the verification is complete, the box will be filled in with the name of your organization and a confirmation message "Search now and money will go to your designated cause" will appear below the box in red text.

By performing these steps, GoodSearch will save the designated cause (via a cookie) to your supporters' computers – so that every time they go back to http://www.goodsearch.com/ and use the search engine, your organization will already be preloaded. Another way to access the GoodSearch search engine is through the Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, or Mac toolbar. To get directions on how to set this up, visit: http://www.goodsearch.com/Toolbars.aspx. I heard from many of the parents at my daughter's preschool who said that they exclusively use the IE toolbar to perform searches and that they were so happy that there was a way to use GoodSearch through this toolbar.

Getting the Word Out
As I said before, the only way this fundraiser will succeed for you is to get as many people as possible to use GoodSearch with your organization selected as their charity. There are a number of ways that you can go about doing this.

First, you should send out an email about Goodsearch to all of your supporters at the beginning of your fundraising year. I also suggest sending periodic reminder emails throughout the year, especially if you live in a more transient area where supporters move on a regular basis.

Another way to get the word out is to add the GoodSearch logo to your organization's web page, if you have one. GoodSearch's web site offers the HTML code for a number of different graphics, which you can find be going to the following link: http://www.goodsearch.com/GetInvolved.aspx#logo.

For even more ideas on how to advertise your involvement with GoodSearch, review the suggestions provided at: http://www.goodsearch.com/GetInvolved.aspx.

Notes
The GoodSearch fiscal year runs from October 1st to September 30th. All of the funds generated for your organization during this year are sent in a lump-sum check in December as long as at least $20 has been generated.

One note of caution – I’ve noticed that the cookie which GoodSearch uses to save your designated cause gets erased from time to time when I reboot my computer or run the Norton SW. If your supporters use the search engine via the GoodSearch web site, they will automatically notice this; however, if they use the search engine via the web browser toolbar, they’ll need to periodically go to the GoodSearch web site to make sure that your organization is still set up as their designated cause.

I hope your organization enjoys great success using GoodSearch!

Thanks, Kara

Introduction

Hello! I'm the fundraising co-chair for my daughter's preschool and have spent many days and nights over the past couple of months researching different ways to raise funds for our school. Given all of the valuable information that I've gathered, I've decided to start a blog about fundraising. I want to share what I know so that other moms & dads out there who organizing school fundraising events do not have to waste time researching the different options that are available. I know that fundraising is not the most fun activity associated with your children's school, but I hope the information available in this blog makes it easier.

Thanks for reading,
Kara