Is Team Fundraising Really About the Teams?

If you Google the phrase "school fundraising," you will find hundreds of companies offering you various ways to raise money for your sports team or school organization. These companies are pushing products for your team to sell such as candy, scratch cards, candles and more. Most profits are around 50 percent – so after all your hard work selling, you only get to keep half the money you bring in. At times, the fundraising business can seem like it is not really about the teams – its about businesses pushing their products for a big profit of their own.



Although I don’t want this story to be a complete sales pitch for Direct Fundraising, it may come across that way because we truly believe that fundraising should be all about the teams. First, we always make sure our teams make a good profit. In the unlikely case a team doesn’t make at least a 70 percent profit, we will charge them less money so they make a 70 percent profit. So we actually give money back if the fundraiser doesn’t go as planned for a team. Were are not worried about losing this money because in the end, if the team is making money, they are happy and they will tell others about us.



Second, we are always looking for ways to cut down the cost for our fundraisers. Then we can pass this cost savings on to our customers in lower prices. One example of this involves our recent decision to change the design of our fundraising letters. Direct Fundraising utilizes sponsorship letters that are sent out in the mail to raise money. We came up with a new design that does not to use an outside envelope to mail the letter out. This takes out the cost of the envelope, printing on the envelope and the assembly time to put the letters in the envelope. This is all done to reduce our prices for our customers so they can make more of a profit. Furthermore, it lowers the amount of paper we are using which is of course good for the environment.



In the end, if everything in fundraising is about the teams, everyone wins. Teams should always do research before working with a fundraising company. Make sure that the company offers legitimate guarantees and high profit margins. For more tips on choosing a fundraising company, read our 5 Tips article.