Fundraising Success #42

Fundraising Success - Issue #42 - Article: "Dance-A-Thon Fundraiser"; Supplier Spotlight: "Uncle Jerry's T's"; Free ebook: "151 Beauty Tips"

However, as many schools on traditional calendars are winding down, many PTA's are looking for ways to to make that last push for fundraising.  So the big question is, what can we do to add to the PTA funds this year that have a low up-front cost? 

Since the weather is getting nice, consider doing what I call "Thon" fundraising.  Many fundraising events have a lower up-front cost but can be labor intensive. 

Read on to find out more about having a Dance-a-Thon.

The Supplier Spotlight is on Uncle Jerry's T's. They provide t-shirts, mugs, and jewelry for schools, churches, clubs, sports teams, charity and non-profits of all types.

This month's Bonus is a Free Sample of Tahitian Orchid Intense Eau de Parfum!

This month's ebook is downloadable Microsoft tutorials.


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Readers Q & A: "Funding Shortfall"
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Question:  Our school didn't make our budgeted amount for the fall fundraiser when school started.  What can we do to make up the shortfall?
- Drew Dannonetta

Answer: Your question coincides with the April newsletter column.  Look into having some type of "Thon" fundraiser.  This months column is for a Dance-a-Thon but the same principle can be used for a Walk-a-Thon, Read-a-Thon, or any other "Thon" that is appropriate to your school.

- Kimberly


You will find my book, Fundraising Success, very helpful in any
fundraising endeavor.

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FEATURE ARTICLE: Dance-A-Thon Fundraising
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Dance-A-Thon Fundraising

The Dance-a-Thon is not an original idea, but using it as one of your primary fundraisers might be. Kids love it, especially at the middle school and high school level. Whether your group holds many fundraisers throughout the year, or relies on one large fundraiser, this might be a good solution.

A Dance-a-Thon is probably most suited to school fundraising, but it could also be adapted to other groups as well. If you are investigating a Dance-a-Thon for a school fundraiser, a word to the wise, do it early in the school year.

That is, within the first three months of the school year. If you go too late in the year, apathy can set in not only with students, but with the volunteers you’ll need to pull it off.

The main expense for a Dance-a-Thon is the DJ. It’s best not to use live music with a band since you will want to have a variety of music and it’s hard to do that with a live band. Don’t skimp on the DJ!

 Choose one with good references, a large music collection, and good equipment. This will be the primary focus of your event, so don’t cheap it out.

The profits will come from ticket sales and concessions. To make sure your event is well attended, publicity is the key. Publicize the event well in advance, and keep the push on until the day of the Dance-a-Thon.

To make concession sales a big part of your profits, have the good stuff. Give ‘em what they want! Pizza, popcorn, candy, bag chips and not the cheap kind, even fast food brought in from a nearby eatery work best.

Additional profits can also come from having a raffle at the event. Tickets can be pre-sold and sold at the event for prizes that people really want.

Depending on the size and age of your group, small electronics work well. Raffle off a CD player, DVD player, MP3 player, and so on. Local businesses may be willing to donate prizes or sell them to you at cost.

Another way to make sure you get the most profit from your Dance-a-Thon is to sell Shout-Outs for about a dollar. A shout out is a message that is read by the DJ to the crowd between songs.

For example, “Here’s a Shout Out from Kimberly to all her soccer team buddies. Wildcats Rule!”

You’ll need to have slips of paper pre-printed so the Shout Outs can be submitted that include:

To:
From:
Message:

Give a few to every teacher about a month before the Dance-a-Thon and ask them to distribute them to deserving students. Once the first few Shout Outs are done, everyone will want a piece of the action. Be sure to have lots of volunteers working the Shout Outs table after that!

One last note about Dance-a-Thons; they can be pretty labor intensive so be sure to line up your volunteers early. One middle school in North Carolina had a Dance-a-Thon and the promise to the volunteers was this:

We hope to make enough money with the Dance-a-Thon that we won’t have to have another major fundraiser for the rest of the school year! That’s right, no wrapping paper, no magazine sales, no selling fruit baskets.

Watch the volunteers clamor to help and watch your groups profits soar.
 

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Supplier Spotlight: Uncle Jerry's T's
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(Excerpt from my book, Fundraising Success!)

Supplier: Uncle Jerry’s Tees
Phone: (800) 556-2887
Fax: (914) 934-9304
Website:

Address: 21 N. Main Street
City: Port Chester
State: NY
Zip: 10573

Description: Fundraising with t-shirts, mugs, and jewelry for schools, churches, clubs, sports teams, charity and non-profits of all types.

Featuring officially licensed character designs from Warner Brothers, Scooby-Doo, Snoopy, Blue's Clues, Nickelodeon (RugRats).

T-shirts available in a variety of colors and new special glow in the dark designs, baseball hats, tote bags, environmental designs, sweatshirts, long sleeve T's, towels, candles, picture frames, mugs and jewelry.

Your organization makes a profit of $5.00 for all fabric items sold. You also get $4.00 (50%) for all non-fabric items.

Each seller’s orders are pre-sorted for easy delivery. Each seller's order is packaged separately with the order forms stapled on the outside.

Orders can be grouped according to teacher, group, or any other criteria upon request. All orders will be shipped back to you via UPS in two months or less.

Prize program – When participant sells 12 items they will receive free any item from the catalog plus a Looney Tunes sticker sheet, robot dog key chain, fan-flashlight-pen and full-featured stop watch.

 

Product Lines: Candles, Catalog Sales, Gift Wrap, Photo Frames, Sports Caps, Sports Mugs, T-Shirts & Sweatshirts, Towels, Wrapping Paper

Terms: Prepay

Notes: Involved in fundraising for more than 25 years. Group organizer prize program included.

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Places To Go, Things To See, Bonus Item & More
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Places to go:

Art in Cities

The organizers of Art in Cities say, "Cities are like a huge art gallery with a permanently changing exhibition." Therefore, this web site exists to collect submissions of artwork from cities all over the world, and plot it on a map. To view the art, browse by selecting points on the map, or search by City, Submitter, or artist (Artwork by). There is also a quick link to the most recent uploads. On the day we visited, this link lead to stencil art and graffiti from several cities in the Netherlands, including Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Eindhoven, as well as one from San Bernardino, CA. This was just the first page of 473 for this specific link, which is in turn only a fraction of the close to 6,000 pieces of art on view at the site. Submitting art is as easy as uploading an image from your computer, and filling out a few fields on a form thus encouraging anyone to walk the streets of their city looking for art to add the site.

Things to see:

911 Safety Page for Kids

Guess what? Did you know that many children between the ages of 5-7 get hurt because they don't know their safety strategies when they encounter potentially dangerous situations in their daily life?

Our team's website will help young children learn how to avoid danger when traveling from home to school and walking along the beach and near the water. For example, young children should know how to cross the street safely, how to contact emergency agencies and how to follow directions without getting lost.

To present safety information in a way that would be easy for young children to understand, we have created fun activities that will hopefully get the message across that safety is important and we all need to make sure we follow good safety practices.

Bonus Item:

Free sample of Tahitian Orchid Intense Eau de Parfum!

Score a free sample of this luxuriously rich & intensely beautiful fragrance! The gentle floral blend of fresh Jasmine & elegant rose create the heart of this fabulous long-lasting fragrance!

Your Free Ebook:

Free Microsoft tutorials on Windows XP tips, Office shortcuts, and more.

Download here:

That's all for this issue. See you next month.


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Copyright 2006 by Kimberly Reynolds. All rights reserved.

Maximize your fundraising success!

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