Kevin's Watch

I am trying to think of a good way to raise funds for my son's Cub Pack. I do not think that the suggested methods are very good ideas (i.e. begging people to buy way overpriced popcorn tins). I would like Daniels den and the entire pack to be able to do as much as possible without having to ask the parents for money continuously. Any ideas? BTW, you should see me in my old Boy Scout uniform that I fished out of a box in the back of the closet, the one that I had when I was 18 still fits.

SBG...

The most effective fundraisers we did for my karate dojo were also food oriented. One was through Cinnabon. You don't make a lot per certificate sold, only $3.00 or thereabouts, but the price you would sell it for should still be a discount from the retail price for the same amount of product bought without the certificate, so it was a pretty good seller. Especially on Sunday mornings if you can get permission to set up at the entrance to the food court where the Cinnabon bakery you are working with is located. The main drawback was paying the discounted price for the certificates up front. If you don't already have the cash, it doesn't work.

The second one works best with a popular local restaurant who is willing to support groups like your son's pack. Someone approaches the the restaurant, and basically bargains with them to sell gift certificates for the restaurant. We did a local pizza place, and sold certificates for a large pizza for $10.00. Their usual price for a large cheese pizza was $12.00, so the buyer saved $2.00. However, the restaurant sold the gift certificates to us for $5.00. So we made $5.00 per gift certificate.

Also, the certificates were numbered, and we told the restaurant which numbers were sold when we turned in the $5.00 for each one sold. This way, the restaurant knew which ones were valid, and we were able to sell them and turn in the payment after they were sold.

The only draw back was whoever took on the accounting for the gift certificates had to really be on top of getting the payment and records to the restaurant. Some buyers wanted to use their certificate that night, and we had to establish a turn around time so the restaurant would not tell them the certificate was invalid since we hadn't given them the number as having been sold, nor the payment for it yet. So, it was a bit of a pain, but was an excellent seller.

Clear as mud?

Thanks Menolly, for the last couple of hours I have been making the pack a myspace page, here is what I have so far.profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseactio ... =416578313 I would like to change the link text to black, I just can't quite figure out how to?

Cub Scouts still have to earn merit badges right? If this is correct then set up a place to have a massive car wash. Contact your den moms and dads about making some posters, there MUST be a graphic artist, printer willing to donate to buy paper parent in there somewhere. Have the kids two weeks in advance start pimping it and offer to sweep sidewalks in exchange to have local area businesses post signs to advertise it, get volunteers from the cubbies Mom's and local churches to donate snacks and refreshments. Hit your local Napa for donations for the wash soap and mitts etc. Hold the car wash, well advertised. You might be surprised. People are WAY more willing to donate for kids who are visually working for it. The store owners are also going to talk about it more if the kids EARNED the advertisement from the store. If carwash doesn't sound like a good suggestion to you then chore auction might work provided the kids are weed pulling and lawn mowing ages.

Can't help you there, SBG. I'm not on MySpace...

Menolly wrote:The second one works best with a popular local restaurant who is willing to support groups like your son's pack. Someone approaches the the restaurant, and basically bargains with them to sell gift certificates for the restaurant. We did a local pizza place, and sold certificates for a large pizza for $10.00. Their usual price for a large cheese pizza was $12.00, so the buyer saved $2.00. However, the restaurant sold the gift certificates to us for $5.00. So we made $5.00 per gift certificate.

Playing off of that idea, I've done several similar fund raisers(my choir is getting ready to do one in about a month).
Most restaurants I've seen will let you have one night, where for every purchase that is made during a specific time frame, the restaurant will donate about 10% to you.
One time that we did this, the restaurant had us hand out fliers, and only people who handed them a flier when they ordered their food would have 10% given to us. The way we got around that is we had someone standing out front of the restaurant with a ton of fliers asking people as they walked in if they wanted to help us out.
The one we're about to do for my school choir, 10% of every order during the specific time frame is being donated to us.

Like I said, a lot of restaurants have a similar deal, so I would ask around. Good luck!

Magickmaker is the fundraising queen. Ask her about the flamingoes sometime.

Similar to the carwash idea, you could have the guys gather in somebody's neighborhood on a specific Saturday, then go house to house with rakes, knocking on doors and asking if people would want their lawns raked for a donation to the troop. The grateful homeowner sets the donation price.

Oh, and forget the professionally produced signs for the carwash. Give the kids poster board and Sharpies and have 'em make their *own* signs. We did that every year for our Girl Scout cookie booth. One year Magickmaker (here I go, bragging on my kid again ) designed a poster that we used outside Blockbuster Video -- "match your cookies to your movie!" Example: "Tagalongs for romantic films, because chocolate and peanut butter are the perfect match!" We used that poster for three straight years, and our booth sales at Blockbuster *always* rocked.

magickmaker17 wrote:Most restaurants I've seen will let you have one night, where for every purchase that is made during a specific time frame, the restaurant will donate about 10% to you.
One time that we did this, the restaurant had us hand out fliers, and only people who handed them a flier when they ordered their food would have 10% given to us. The way we got around that is we had someone standing out front of the restaurant with a ton of fliers asking people as they walked in if they wanted to help us out.
The one we're about to do for my school choir, 10% of every order during the specific time frame is being donated to us.

Like I said, a lot of restaurants have a similar deal, so I would ask around. Good luck!

Not only restaurants, but some stores will have a "shop for charity x day." My kids' former school has done that as a fundraiser in the past in cooperation with a department store, and we are thinking of doing one with Borders in the organization I currently volunteer for.

I helped fundraise for my group of high school kids to go to Europe (my bro is a teacher, and took about 20 kids to France and Italy). Anyhow, we did a spaghetti dinner. We were able to use the school cafeteria, and the head cook even made the stuff for us! (Helps to make friends with support staff, my brother always says!). We sold the plate of spaghetti, salad and garlic bread for a flat price (like $5, or something). We provided water and tea to drink, and I think we had a bake sale alongside it. We did it on homecoming night, and had a pretty good turnout.

Pancake breakfasts are also relatively inexpensive ways to make money. You can buy the mix at Sams' club, and if I recall correctly, one brand offeres rebates on each bag used in a fundraiser. Check out this link for more ideas about making the pancake fundraiser profitable.

One of the student organizations at my university did a Puppy Chow Sale, and that went really well. Puppy chow is a really cheap, fun, and easy dessert to make, and sells well (we made and sold 60 sandwich-baggie-fulls at $1.50 apiece in one lunch period). A big plus about puppy chow is that it is addicting, so many people will want more than one bagful (I remember one person who bought 6 at one time).

I had to read that twice to convince myself you weren't being literal. At risk of seeming incredibly naive here, but what in the heck is 'puppy chow'?

Puppy chow is Chex cereal mixed with chocolate and peanut butter and coated with powdered sugar. Delicious!

Puppy Chow

9 cups crispy rice cereal squares
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar

In a saucepan over low heat, melt the chocolate; add peanut butter and mix until smooth. Remove from heat, add cereal and stir until coated. Pour powdered sugar into large plastic bag, add coated cereal and shake until well coated. Store in airtight container.

That sounds wicked. In a good way.

Yeah, it's pretty addictive.

The chocolate may also be melted in the microwave (best to use mini chocolate chips for this) if kid safety is an issue around the stove.

threaten that the pack will have to shut down and demand the gov't give you billions?

The most profitable fundraising event my daughter's soccer club put on was a golf tournament. The profitability is high because there are many opportunities within the event to take in additional money. Free beer is a requirement (loosens people inhibitions and wallets.) Canvas the community businesses ahead of time for donations. Anything raffled off or given away as prizes should be from them. It is like advertising. The downside is that organizing and executing the day-long event is a lot of work. You will need several volunteers.

Auleliel wrote:Puppy chow is Chex cereal mixed with chocolate and peanut butter and coated with powdered sugar. Delicious!

Woof!