Hey Everyone.
My name is Samantha Richmond and I’m from team 1084. I am currently running into problems with my team alread and the “session” hasn’t even started yet. My team is not willing to give me ideas on fundraising. I need help. I am out of ideas for fundraisers because the ones we ran last year didn’t work. Any Ideas?
I know what you are going through … my team is totally unresponsive to fundraisers … meaning no ideas and even the ones that i do find through threads on CD, no one is willing to volunteer there time to participate in them. all i can say is if you want ideas on fundraising, there are a lot that can be found in this section. some of the ones that i can think of off hand are:
: yard clean- up
: car washes (or the varied … car wash-a-thon http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14808&highlight=car+wash+thon )
: collective yard sale
: bake sale
i know that there were many more, so just have a look through the threads
hope that helps 
shyra
It might be helpful to give us an idea of what you’ve tried in the past that hasn’t worked so you don’t get repeat ideas.
Basically we’ve tried raffle tickets, we tried coin drops. we even tried to say if we raised enough money our teacher would shave her head.
Right now we are doing one of those catalog sales and we are selling beef jerky during school.
*Originally posted by CyberWolf_22 *
**Right now we are doing one of those catalog sales and we are selling beef jerky during school. **
I would not recommend the catalog sales thing, well not as a main fundraiser. I would personally recommend dances. Even if you have to have a dance at another school, they will usually let you if it is for charity.
-Greg The Great
Walmart is a great help, they will match however much you earn up to like $1000 or $1500, so if you get $1000 at a car wash, they’ll give match the $1000 so you walk out with $2000… you just need to book ahead of time, but you could try contacting them. Bucket drops also have helped a good amount. You could try to get on board at like your christmas parades and such and sell like the glowsticks and such, good fundraiser. Depending on where your workshop is (we are in a mall) open up your doors and throw a sign on the door saying “Come on in and see what we do”, people will wander on in and like to see the robots running and such, and occasionally you’ll get someone who will say “I have a machine shop” or something that’s willing to help you out, which will reduce your building costs. That’s all I can think of right now.
*Originally posted by miketwalker *
**Walmart is a great help, they will match however much you earn up to like $1000 or $1500, so if you get $1000 at a car wash, they’ll give match the $1000 so you walk out with $2000… you just need to book ahead of time, but you could try contacting them. Bucket drops also have helped a good amount. You could try to get on board at like your christmas parades and such and sell like the glowsticks and such, good fundraiser. Depending on where your workshop is (we are in a mall) open up your doors and throw a sign on the door saying “Come on in and see what we do”, people will wander on in and like to see the robots running and such, and occasionally you’ll get someone who will say “I have a machine shop” or something that’s willing to help you out, which will reduce your building costs. That’s all I can think of right now. **
Nice idea, also check local places that may sponsor indivigule members in return for the member waring there pin or something.
-Greg The Great
I don’t think the walmart thing would work in Canada. They aren’t the worlds nicest people. As for the parade thing Thanks for the idea. Thanks for your help. If any one comes up with more ideas let me know and we can share.
I HATE being team leader of Public Relations
*Originally posted by Sam R. *
**I don’t think the walmart thing would work in Canada. They aren’t the worlds nicest people. As for the parade thing Thanks for the idea. Thanks for your help. If any one comes up with more ideas let me know and we can share.
I HATE being team leader of Public Relations **
Hmm… if your in Canada, I’d recommend calling FIRST… I know that when a member of our team went back to Germany after being here for the year, he went to try to start a team, and they helped find sponsors. Since your in Canada, there might be some sponsors willing to help out but don’t have a team near them, so maybe FIRST could help you… even if they can’t, it couldn’t hurt to ask.
*Originally posted by Sam R. *
**I don’t think the walmart thing would work in Canada. They aren’t the worlds nicest people. As for the parade thing Thanks for the idea. Thanks for your help. If any one comes up with more ideas let me know and we can share.
I HATE being team leader of Public Relations **
I am not familiar with your city, but going door-to-door might work if you have the right size city. People always support the “kids” of the city. I would think if the team did it together, they would be able to make a few thousand in a couple of hours with diligence and vigor.
-Greg The Great
it’s a little late to do this now, but at an off-season try doing a 50-50. mention that you’re trying to raise funds to start your season and since most people attending competitions are already supporters of FIRST, they’re more likely to spend more money. plus, they get half the cash you raise.
last year, in november 2002, 1089 attended Brunswick Eruption and we held a 50-50 total we raised for ourselves a little less than $400. i know it doesn’t sound like a HUGE sum, but every penny counts.
hope this helps. if you need anymore ideas, feel free to email me and ask more about what 1089 found worked last year.
*Originally posted by BandChick *
**it’s a little late to do this now, but at an off-season try doing a 50-50. mention that you’re trying to raise funds to start your season and since most people attending competitions are already supporters of FIRST, they’re more likely to spend more money. plus, they get half the cash you raise.last year, in november 2002, 1089 attended Brunswick Eruption and we held a 50-50 total we raised for ourselves a little less than $400. i know it doesn’t sound like a HUGE sum, but every penny counts.
hope this helps. if you need anymore ideas, feel free to email me and ask more about what 1089 found worked last year. **
I have also done something like this (Non-FIRST related) and it worked out well. If you really stress the “helping the community” thing, you can raise a lot of funds that way. It might be easier to just say…
1ST Place- 100 Dollars
2ND Place- 50 Dollars
3RD Place- 25 Dollars
Then if you really “work the fundraiser” you will make even more then fifty percent.
-Greg The Great
50-50 don’t work in my school. Sorry if there are any spelling mistakes i’m not used to typing with 2 fingures. i slammed my fingure in the car door. fun.
so
if you do something like a car wash or a baked goods sale, have your previous robots there to show them off
people will donate money even if they dont purchase whatever it is you are selling.
I think Jerkey sales work well especially if you turn it into a contest on who sales the most. Oh yeah…What are bucket drops??? I was also wondering on how to fundraise. So far al we’ve done is look up engeneer companies online to see if they wanna donate money. It’s kinda hard to fundaise at my school because people are penny pinchers and the adults in my city are pretty cocky so its hard to just sell stuff to people. I’m thinking of posting something in the SF Chronicle to see what kind of response we get back. What do you guys think??
Well, a really good one is to work concessions at sporting events. My team runs a concession stand and a few beer booths at Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions (they suck!).
We make lots of cash doing that, but you need a lot of students and parents. About 25 total for each event. We work about 11 of them each. Pulls in a good 20 g’s a year.
Well, to the point, contact local arenas, and the people in charge of the food, and ask if they need help, or if they could fit you in.
Any questions, email me at [email protected]
yeah.
*Originally posted by Dimples04 *
**Oh yeah…What are bucket drops??? **
Pretty much begging for money. We take our bot out to Walmart, make boards with action shots, the workshops, etc. etc. and things to show the games, and such. Then you have buckets and as people enter and exit some will drop some money in, start asking questions, etc. Sometimes you find people interested in mentoring who never knew about it, depending on the people you can make it a pretty good fundraiser (maybe like $300 for a few hours, not much, but it isnt bad since your interacting as well) and you really sometimes get your image out there, and (well since we’re the “sleeper” town for Kennedy Space Center and the town where you see the shuttle launch and such) we have engineers who get interested, then come down and check it out, some who will offer machine shops, etc. It really helps in more ways then money. People sometimes won’t donate money, but things you need (machine shops, volunteer time, ideas, etc.)
That a cool idea. Thanks. Can’t have a consession stand in our school events because our school athletics already have one.
Ok…heres a long shot…
Get your principal to agree to stand on a table next to a wall and be duct taped to the wall. You then make an announcement that at lunchtime, the principal will be duct taped to the wall…by students by strips of tape and putting them on him/the wall. You then sell foot long strips of duct tape to the students for 1$ each.
Everyone buys tape and sticks him there…and at the end of lunch you pull the table out and see if he/she sticks there…
Best of Luck,
Kevin