Fundraisers That Work

Bake sales always work great! Set up at ball games this winter and in the spring. Hit people up at half time. We have also done these in town outside the post office.

Good luck!

Hi there,

This is a bit more involved, but I've worked on 2 different community cookbooks (we used Morris Press --- www.morriscookbooks.com). It's a bit of work to organize a committee and collect recipes, so I don't know if it's right for your cheer squad, but the cookbooks make really nice gifts, and it's a pretty high-yield fundraiser for your organization.

Best,
R.

Walmart's in my area allow groups to do bake sales too

I recently did a silent auction that went really well. If you use any products like Mary Kay or Pampered Chef etc most consultants have a fundraising program. I do 30% of my profits on Mary Kay, you dont have to do anything but hand out a flyer. You can host a party with a consultant in your area to create more involvement and you could do mother/daughter makeovers!

You might ask around local restaurants and see if you can host a spirit night for your cheer team and get a % of the profits. The girls could bus tables and help to publicize the events. A lot of our school PTA's do this and make some money as well as giving people a chance to socialize with families. I don't know if you need a non-profit number in order to do this.
Also there was a fundraising website someone mentioned that had some great ideas. www.fundraising-ideas.org/listings/index.html

I think candy bars are the best fundraisers! They are cheap and easy to sell :)

We just did the Yankee Candle fundraiser and raised $800 as a group with only 7 sellers. One mom said it was so much better than trying to sell food. They do a session in the fall and spring.

We just did several fundraisers to raise money for a charity organization. Our biggest hits were a restaurant fundraiser (not sure you could do that since your organization might not have the tax code), a an open house one, and a photography one. For the open house one, I had six home based business people come and invited friends. All the businesses (Scentsy, Cookie Lee Jewelry, Homemade gourmet, 31 gifts.....) donated a percentage of their profits. It was fun and I we made lots of money in just a couple hours - perfect timing with the holidays.

The photography one, our photographer offered to do a quick photo shoot and give each family a certain "package" of pictures for $50. She gave me $25 of each sitting and 1/2 of all additional pictures purchased. Also good for holiday time and Christmas cards....

None of those are big "events" because I coordinated them all with just me and my husband inviting our friends. Good luck!

If you have a Chick Fil A near you, they will do a spirit night for you. You will earn 20% of the profit from that night's sales. You will have to hand out coupons before the night of the fundraiser - you can't pass 'em out at the restaurant.
We have done car washes - the most successful one we did was at Chick Fil A!
We did TAG Day - you go door to door on a specific day and time - you need to advertise it in the paper - and you ask for donations. Pick your neighborhoods carefully and you need an adult with the kids at all times... Make sure they are in uniform!!
Bake sales at Walmart or the grocery stores are usually pretty successful, too.
Fun Pasta - is great. You can do an online sale only and hit people who are out of town... Try that one!
YMMV
LBC

When my daughter was in HS dance, they used to buy candy bars in Costco and sell them to the students for a small profit.

I am President of the High School cheer booster club and we have to fundraise. We don't like the door to door selling of things people don't need.

We produce, make and sell the football prgram and that is our biggest FR. Granted, you are not going to do one that big due to your specific program. We work for months from (April-July) to set everything up in order to have programs ready for late Aug game dates to begin. We make our money on ads sold.... around $12,000 this year. We also design and sell Spiritwear (shirts, shorts, etc) with school mascot name, etc. I have successfully connected with a small, quaint new shopping area and we volunteer for children's events each month and in turn they donate to our general fund. This works great because our girls also get community service hours. We volunteer to help with 5K runs, etc in the area.

We have not done many small FR. The dancers at the school sell pajamas. CUTE PJ's, reasonalbe pricing. The Athletic boosters have silent auction, sell concessions,etc.

I'd stay away from cookie dough and magazines. Last time I bought magazines, I never got them.

We have a few scouts who come through occasinally with regular sized candy (Hershey, M&M's, etc) and sell for $1 each. Of course they buy in bulk at Costco so they get a profit from this.

We sell to pay for competition training $5000 and to supplement the camp costs of hotels, food etc. EACH girl is asked to sell $500 or write a check.

Write a check is EASY and a lot of people rather do that than work at selling, etc.

Best wishes.

I had a dance studio, and we had a competition team. In my experience, car washes do not profit too much unless you have like just five kids at each location. By the time you divide it up, each girl gets only like $20 to $30 for an all day thing. So, if I had different locations for the girls, they could make $40 to $60, which really makes it feel worth it.

www.wowfundraising.com has some good fundraisers. We made great money on the dollar bars.

Bake sales are very profitable as long as you don't spend too much money on too fancy of baked goods. Cookies, cupcakes, muffins, etc. Keep it simple, easy to make, and stuff people can grab as they leave the store.

We did several meal delivery things. We did pre-orders, got donations for some products, then got the moms who didn't have to work together to deliver the meals.
Example of one:
Barbecue baked potatoes. We got one company to donate some potatoes. Several moms took them home, baked them, put them in ice chests and brought them the morning of the delivery. We got a local barbecue place to donate some barbecue. He advised us an ice cream scoop per potato and someone picked it up the morning of the delivery. We went to Sam's and got the containers. We got the small containers for butter, cheese, and chives. We also did a salad and did a container with salad dressing. Some people ordered some potatoes without the barbecue. We gave them a choice of ranch or italian dressing. The morning of the delivery, we got together and put the boxes together. We had already mapped out our farthest delivery points, and had a strategic plan on deliverying. We spent about 2 weeks getting orders together. Best places to get orders were car dealerships! Also, your local shopping centers that are always needing lunch! People always need to eat! We learned Fridays are the best days. We made A LOT of money on these. Another one we did was spaghetti. That was more profitable. We did meatballs from Sam's. Each plate got three. Oh, and we added a brownie to each plate on whatever we made. It was some work the night before and the delivery day, but worth it. You will need many cookers, warmers, etc. if you decide to do this one, and a big central location to meet at to get it together; and great map planners.

Have fun! I can't think of much else, but, I do know it wore me out on fundraising. Some good ones that I usually buy from are the candles, and the candy.