Monday, September 28, 2009FUNDRAISER RIPOFF!by Sherie SmithThe Fundraising Designer 3 Hours To Fundraising Success Group  Sorry
folks but I'm sounding off again. A few weeks ago my husband came home
saying he'd bought 5 frozen pizzas to support a fundraiser for a
co-workers' child. When he told me he spent $15, I figured $3 per
pizza wasn't such a bad deal. Today they were delivered and, much to
my chagrin and exasperation, we received 5 tiny pizzas, the size of
which hardly feeds my 2 year old granddaughter. Each single
pizza easily fits into the palm of my hand...with nothing falling over
the edges. People, that's messed up!If you are like me, when youth groups hold fundraisers, I'd much rather just hand the $15 over to the kids! With this deal we spent $15 and got the equivalent of a 5-pack of mini-pizzas that I can pay $4.99 for at the local Save-A-Lot! (Yes, I DO on occasion shop at one of those 'bag your own/no frills' markets! What's more ... I laugh all the way home at the money I save doing so.) At least if you just handed $15 over to the kids, you'd know their group benefitted from the ENTIRE $15. But no, we have to have a vendor, a shipper, a manufacturer and probably at least a few district sales reps somewhere in the middle of that mix. Do you see where I'm going on this? Why pretend to give us something of value for our money, under the pretense of helping the kids, when I could buy the same thing at the store for $4.99 and give the remaining $10 straight to the youth group? But what really happens is the youth group you THINK you're helping probably only receives a few bucks out of that $15. In the meantime, all those 'middle-men' are laughing all the way to the bank. This is SO WRONG and really gets my goat, as we say in the South! I'm so tired of vendors pushing kids to sell a $5 item for $15 with the kids only get a tiny share of that money. Next time, I'll pay $4.99 at our local discount food store for the same 5-pack of pizzas and just DONATE the remaining $10 directly to the school or youth group. But because innocent young people are involved, and we don't want to 'scar them for life by refusing to buy their pizza', we just pay the $15 and mutter under our breaths. So, if you think this is WRONG, then the next time the neighborhood kid is selling an hugely inflated products, just have the courage to say something like this: "Johnny, if I buy this pizza I know your group receives only a few dollars out of this $15. So, instead of buying the pizza, I'm just going to donate the whole $15 to your group. That way you don't have to split that $15 with ANYONE! Is that ok with you?" I guarantee he'll say yes, none of your hard-earned $15 has been wasted and the kids will make a whole lot more money. Sorry for the honesty, but do it MY WAY, and your youth group will be that much closer to Ultimate Fundraising Success! Sherie Smith, Editor The Fundraising Designer email: fundraisingdesigner@gmail.com Twitter: Twitter.com/fundraisingdsnr About Sherie Smith: Sherie Smith shares insider secrets to achieve Ultimate Fundraising Success in her free 5-Part E-Course at: http://www.3hourstofundraisingsuccess.com She also has published a step-by-step copycat manual of the popular '$4,500in3hours' project, entitled, '3 Hours to Fundraising Success'. Copyright c Sherie Smith All Rights Reserved. You may reprint the above-article so long as you include the above bio/resource box in full. Do not make any changes to the article or the resource box. Links in the resource box must be clickable to reprint this article. If you can't click the link, please ask permission to reprint. Posted by Sherie Smith at 10:48 PM Labels: Fundraiser Success Goal Setting Sales Marathon Teamwork Fundraiser Tips, Ripoff Fundraising, Youth Groups Bands Scouts Church Youth Groups Money |