Your cut with QSP is about to be less also, since they are imposing a 2.00 fee for each magazine order sheet (those carbon copy things)!! Disappointing.
We have been using a product for our youth hockey team fundraising. It's a great little bleacher pad that folds and is easy to carry. The cost to us if $4 and we sell them for $10. They are an easy sell because you can use them for football and baseball also. They are called Bleacher Butts. I think they have a site. They are made of canvas, not that sticky plastic.
I will be going into my second year as PTO Prez and head of Fundrasing for our middle school of about 640 students. The past few years we have done the mag sales, this year I changed up the prize structure and we made over 20k compared to last years 14k. I am happy with that, but our cut is just 40% so I am also searching for something new. The trick is getting the most money with the least effort and stress on teachers and school staff.
Has anyone used a company called "YES"? I got some info from them and plan on setting up a meeting to see what they have to offer. They claim to have a 45-50% cut for schools but I have concerns about the support they will offer. Any insite into their workings would be great! We have used QSP in the past.
I prefer events to having children peddle stuff out of a catalog. Every roll of gift wrap and box of chocolate your child peddles from a catalog compete against a local retailer that is desperate to move that same merchandise off their store shelves in this depressed economy.
Partner with local businesses and support your local business tax base. See what events they can come up with to earn as much money as catalog sales. An event can be short and only a few hours long, where the only thing you sell is tickets. The partnering business can also sell tickets.
A good, fun fundraiser is a movie nite. For Christmas, I recommend Santa Claus Conquers the Martians: www.imdb.com/title/tt0058548/
JK
It's an online game contest where participants play games and ask their friends and family to sponsor their play with a donation. There are educational games (word, physics-based, etc). Plus it's very efficient, there are no upfront costs and the school keeps approx 85% of the donations.
Times are tight and fund raising is hard. My advice is to go with useful things. Think about interest in your area and how much support you will have from the parents.
This year our school did a cook book but those are big sellers around here. We used a Compant called G & R publishing, a nother good one is called Morris press they are a little expensive but g&r lets you submit online. We ordered 500 books and we will make around 2384.00 at selling them for 9.00 a book. We could have sold them for anround 10 to 15 due to the book having 395 recipes we decided to go lower due to the economy. It is really simple to do it took us about 2 weeks to get it all done.
We are also doing a baked steak dinner, we will also have a 50/50 drawing, bake sale, and start selling our cookbooks. We will be charging 7.00 a plate and that will cover coffee/tea and dessert. We only have around 30.00 tied up in it. We were able to get everything donated except the news paper add. Most resturants will donate food items or plates, cups things of that nature, and even local hospitals or most places with a caffeteria. If we sell all our meals we will make over 1000.00. Spaghetti is also a easy thing to do. Parents will help out too with needed items. Alot of time your local fire fighters will help or a community center also.
We are a small school and the area we live in has a high unemployment rate so we have to think along the lines of what people can afford and what items they will go for. Most food fund raisers like candy, pizza dough, wraping paper, or anything you can get cheaper at a store dose not work for us.
Talk to parents and your neighbors and see what they would most like sell or buy. If parents feel items are over priced they do not try to sell them.
No matter what you decide to do I wish you the best of luck.
