Fund Raisers

Has anyone held fund raisers for non-profit organizations? Last week I attended a sales meeting and learned that Avon encourages representatives to hold fund raisers in our community. The group trying to raise money gets really good prices on the products and you make a small amount but the big benefit to the representative is an increase in customers. What are your thoughts about this?

Originally Posted by ozzie What are your thoughts about this?

That's a great idea. You move a little product, find a few new customers, and generate a little exposure. If the opportunity presents itself take it.

Originally Posted by ozzie Has anyone held fund raisers for non-profit organizations?

I was a Jaycee leader for several years and we had many different types of fundraisers for our organization and the community. One of the annual fundraisers that we did was a garbage bag sale. A garbage bag company would put a telephone in our clubhouse and call every member of the community over a period of about three months selling a 6 month supply of garbage bags to the each person who wished to support the Jaycees. They got a good deal on garbage bags, the Jaycees received enough money to fund our clubs activities and the garbage bag company made a little profit. Everyone was happy.

We had another very interesting fundraiser, somewhat unrelated to moving products. The owner of the dog track in our community allowed us to use the track one weekend each year to hold a mutt derby. We would invite people from the community to register their dogs to run in the mutt derby and give trophies to the winners. We earned money from registration fees of the participants and also charged for the audience to come watch. The funniest race was always the dachsunds. It was great fun.

Those sound like great fundraisers! Do you think an Avon fundraiser would work well for organizations? I would have a choice between using the entire brochure or using a flyer with just one line of products on it. Wouldn't the second option be easier for a beginner?

Originally Posted by ozzie Those sound like great fundraisers! Do you think an Avon fundraiser would work well for organizations? I would have a choice between using the entire brochure or using a flyer with just one line of products on it. Wouldn't the second option be easier for a beginner?

Many organizations send out newsletters to their membership, ozzie. Perhaps, if you offered to give a percentage of your profit to the organization, on all products bought by their membership, they might put your offer in hteir newsletter. I can see how it might work.

As far as using a flier vs the whole catalog, I suppose there would be tradeoffs. On the one hand, it might be easier to learn about and be able to adequately talk about a few selected products that you would put on the flier. On the other hand, the limited selection may lead to limited interest. Perhaps others have had first hand experience in this area and could offer more valuable advice on this question.

Originally Posted by rlabston Many organizations send out newsletters to their membership, ozzie. Perhaps, if you offered to give a percentage of your profit to the organization, on all products bought by their membership, they might put your offer in hteir newsletter. I can see how it might work. As far as using a flier vs the whole catalog, I suppose there would be tradeoffs. On the one hand, it might be easier to learn about and be able to adequately talk about a few selected products that you would put on the flier. On the other hand, the limited selection may lead to limited interest. Perhaps others have had first hand experience in this area and could offer more valuable advice on this question.

Thanks for all of the replies! I've been having the same debate with myself about limited selection versus limited interest. Most people know Avon offers lots of products and would wonder why all of them aren't available for the fund raiser. hmmm......

Raising Funds is good idea, this way you even get those people to buy your product who would generally wont buy .

If you want to help not for profit organizations raise money while at the same time sell and promote your product check out my Referral Networking thread.

Business Referral Network