Fundraising with Popcorn

Fundraising with Popcorn is a real Winner! It's cheap to run, popular, and soooo... profitable!

Personally, popcorn is one of my most favourite snacks. It’s healthy and it tastes really good... I also absolutely love the smell.

It's really irresistible!

Fundraising with popcorn is a great way of fundraising if you are holding regular events. Like school sporting fixtures every weekend or weekly bingo/quizze nights. It's a snack that will always be bought!

If fundraising with popcorn is a campaign you'd like to do, you will first need to decide how you will do it. By either selling un-popped corn in packages or selling readymade popcorn.

Let's first look at some benfits of fundraising with popcorn and also how you can maximize your profits...

Advantages Of Fundraising With Popcorn:

• Easy and cheap to make – The ingredients do not cost much!
• Very Popular.
• Not Expensive – A cheap way for people to help out your cause.
• Healthy.
• Widely fit able – Can fit in with almost any campaign or event and can work well on its own too!
• Profitable – Can generate some great funds while costing very little!!!

Maximizing Your Profits:

It would be a good suggestion that you read the running a food fundraiser guideline page before you run any food fundraiser.You will find some excellent ideas on making all your food fundraisers highly profitable and rewarding.

There are a few of these tips though, that I would like to point out here...

• Buy from the best supplier – Shop around when you buy your ingredients and equipment. Find the cheapest supplier but make sure the quality is still good... Don't ever buy bad quality!

  You can shop locally or you could use a direct fundraiser supplier like " Fast Track Fundraising " to get your ingredients. Also consider searching online for other direct suppliers, there are always great deals to be found on the web!

• Advertise properly – Use posters and flyers at your popcorn stands and at your events.

  Also advertise through your website and newsletters about where and when you will have your popcorn stand.

  If you are selling un-popped packages you should also advertise them on your website clearly explaining how people can buy them!

• Make sure your sales team knows how to sell! When supporters come to buy popcorn, you're sellers should be friendly, look them in the eye and know what to say.

  They should also offer other options for people to contribute if they don’t want to buy popcorn. Like a simple donation or a custom bracelet.

  Design and practise a sales pitch that uses the words help and because. Read the food fundraiser guidelines to find out why.

Themed Popcorn Package Fundraiser:

When someone pops his corn package in a microwave the bag pops up into a certain theme. This themed based fundraiser is a real hit with schools, kids and sports teams!

Some of the themes you can choose from are Soccer, Baseball, Football, and Music Rocks.

This innovative idea is the type of creativity that will really boost your fundraising profits!

ReadyMade Popcorn - How do You Make It?

There are three ways that you can make popcorn to sell... Cooking in a pot, making microwave popcorn, or by using a popcorn machine!

Which one you choose will depend on what equipment you have, how much you can spend and how big you plan to grow with your popcorn fundraiser campaign! Think it through carefully...

Cooking In A Pot On Stove:

Turn your plate or stove on and place a pot on it. Add oil to the pot and add the desired amount of corn too. Some people like to wait for the oil to heat first but I get my best results from adding them both at the same time.

Wait for the corn to pop (shake pot to stop popcorn burning if required) and then empty into serving packages. Quite simple hey! Practice a few times before serving to get it just right!

Microwave popcorn:

Fundraising with popcorn from a microwave is a very easy thing to do. Of course, you will need a microwave though!

Microwave popcorn will be supplied in ready to use packages with the flavouring already added. Follow the directions on the packaging and BAM! You have some easy made tasty popcorn.

You can then either serve the popcorn in its supplied packaging or re-package it into a preferred package!

Remember that Fast Track Fundraising provides a really cool packaged popcorn option!

Using a Popcorn Maker:

Although somewhat expensive, a popcorn maker can be a great investment!

You can easily make large amounts of popcorn with it and when you aren't using the popcorn maker you can hire it out. Adding an extra way of Fundraising with Popcorn!

If you are planning to use popcorn fundraisers often, it would definitely be worthwhile investing in one.

A popcorn machine will cost you about $650 (or R5000), but you will make that back reasonable quickly if you are using it regularly and also hiring it out when it's not in use!

Please follow the popcorn machine directions when making your corn. It is pretty simple to make popcorn with one!

Packaging your Popcorn:

The last thing you will need to do before selling is packaging your popcorn.

That means both choosing the type of packaging and what flavours of seasoning you will use.

To package you can use simple plastic bags that you tie off, or you can buy specially made paper bags or cartons, or lastly, you could make your own paper cones.

It really comes down to what will work best for you.

For seasoning you should think carefully about what your supporter's tastes are and maybe even ask a few people what they'd prefer.

Obviously plain salt and icing sugar are two popular flavours but consider some others like salt & vinegar too.

I'd suggest having a choice of different flavours that you serve or allow people to season their own popcorn with your supplied seasoning.

Finishing Notes:

So there's your fundraising with popcorn wrapped up.

Remember to always maximize your profits, advertise your other fundraisers, and also offer other options for people to contribute... Like a straight forward donation!

Or maybe you could also sell candy bars from your popcorn stand.

All the best of luck for your popcorn fundraisers!

Other Fundraising Ideas:

Pizza Fundraising Cards

Online Auction Fundraiser

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