Raising Money to pay for a School Group Trip

Almost all of us have done it, but a lot of people aren't thrilled about doing it. 

Lets face it, we live in a very fast paced world.  Anything extra that we have to do can seem really annoying.  You aren't getting paid for raising money for your school group.  Having to do extra work and not getting paid for it, doesn't sound like fun.  What I'm going to tell you is my story and how I made it a very rewarding experience.

When I was in high school, I was in a Spanish group.  Every year the Spanish group goes on a trip to Mexico. That sounds like a lot of fun!  There is only one problem.  We were in northern Minnesota and it's a long ways to Mexico.  The group had to fund the trip in some way.  That is where the raising money part came into play.

The fundraising technique was simple enough, we were just going to sell candy bars, that the school funded.  The school bought the candy bars from a company at a discount, we would then turn around and sell them at a higher price and there is where the profit was made.

Everyone was given a box of chocolate bars, each had 100 bars in it, then they told us to price them at $.50 each.  We would just sell the bars in our boxes and they had plenty of other boxes in reserve for us to sell once we sold our first box.  There was one more thing that they told us and I thought that this was very smart.  They told us that there would be an added incentive for selling the chocolate bars.

The first incentive, of course, was the trip.  The second incentive would be that the person that sold the most chocolate bars would get $50.  That doesn't sound like a lot, but when you're in high school, that is a lot.  It is also a competition to see who can sell the most.  Who doesn't like to win?

The first cool thing that I noticed about these chocolate bars was that there were five different kinds.  A big plus because just selling one type of bar would be a lot harder.  It gives potential buyers a variety.  The second thing that I noticed is that these bars aren't sold in stores, that helps for competition reasons.

Now, it was time to sell some candy bars!  I even came up with a plan.  After school I was going to go door to door, but I was going to do something that I didn't think anyone else would do.  I grew up in a very small town, about 850 people, so I knew pretty much where everyone lived.

That's important because when I first got out of school I went to all of the houses where the people are retired.  I did that because I knew that they would be home and that most people wouldn't get home from work for a few hours.  After I hit all of the retired houses, I then went to the rest of the houses in the evening.

At the end of the competition, I ended up winning.  When I look back at it, the $50 was nice, but that gets spent and never seen again.  What was really important was how much fun I had on the trip and knowing that I was a big part of enabling the group to go on the trip and have such a great time.  That's the best part of the whole thing!  

Nathan

Recommended Resources

PTA fundraising ideas  - suggestions and money-making tips for parent volunteer helpers