Running Profitable Food Fundraisers

All Food Fundraisers will take much effort to do.

So make sure that you run yours in a way that will reward your efforts!

Here's how to make your food fundraising ideas really successful and profitable...

Running Food Fundraising Ideas:

Quick Links...

Plan And Prepare Properly:

Benjamin Franklin once said, "If you fail to prepare... then prepare to fail."

So make sure you plan your food fundraisers thoroughly. Plan what foods you are going to use, how you are going to promote and advertise them, and then plan a sales pitch (see below).

Learn how to organize and run profitable food fundraisers. (Photo by Ginny / Flickr)

Plan and brainstorm ways of boosting your sales and increasing profits... Like giving incentives for larger sale volumes or prizes for best seller!

Set individual and group goals and stick to them. People love to succeed, so if you set a good goal everyone will do their best to reach it.

Choose Popular Food Products!

Always pick Foods that are popular and in demand.

Consider what type of foods your target supporters enjoy and what foods will be most desired, and then choose your products accordingly.

The more popular the food, the more funds you will raise!

Use A Quality Fundraising
Product Company:

Fundraising companies are focused on delivering fundraising products and solutions that will make your fundraisers as profitable and convenient as possible.

So using a quality company that provides a range of food fundraising products is of the utmost importance and will really help your fundraising campaigns!

Click here to grab a FREE fundraising info guide from GA Fundraising to see what fundraising products are currently popular and profitable!

Another option is EFI's food products.

If you are not from the US or Canada then you will need to do a local Google search below to find a company in your country...

(A Tip: Type the name of your local area or country with a plus sign before it, and then add your search query with a plus sign before it as well. Ex. +england +fundraising food supplier)

Learn how to organize and run profitable food fundraisers like bake sales. (Photo by Taber Andrew Bain / Flickr)

Advertise & Promote!

Depending on the different food fundraisers, you will have to advertise in a few different ways.

If you have a Food stand at an event or at a shopping mall make sure you have banners up displaying what products you are selling and what the cause is for.

You could even consider sending one of your sales members to go around telling people where your food stand is, what you're selling and what it is helping raise funds for.

(Remember that people are always much happier to buy something if they know that it is for a good cause; it's one of the great marketing tools fundraising causes have!)

If you are selling a single product through your cause, like chocolate bars or health products, you'll need to be a bit more aggressive with your promoting.

Obviously you will have a sales team who will sell for you and spread the word... Encourage them by offering incentives (see below).

Then Advertise through your website, social networking sites, by emails, newsletters, fliers and posters! Let everyone know about your food fundraiser!

For more ideas on promoting fundraisers read here.

Offer Incentives to Your Sales Team:

This is one of the best ways of boosting sales for food fundraisers... Especially if your sales team includes kids!!!

Offer prizes and rewards for large volumes of sales made, or for best sellers etc.! Make sure the prizes are quality and not junk...

If the prizes are really cool, the kids will go crazy and you'll run out of stock quickly!

Know & Practice Your Sales Pitch:

Have a guideline sales pitch for your sales team to learn and use. It should briefly explain what you are selling, and what the cause is for. Make it exciting!

Use the words help and because... "Please help our cause by buying a chocolate bar. We are fundraising because we need new sports equipment!"

Research shows that these two trigger words will boost positive answers ("Yes I will buy.") by more than 50%.

Learn how to organize and run profitable food fundraising aspects like teaching basic sales pitch guidelines, etc. (Photo by Ramsey Beyer / Flickr)

Then, with your sales team, rehearse and practice it... the more confident they are with what they have to say, the more sales they'll make.

That advice comes purely from my own experience. I used to work direct sales getting people to sign up to monthly donations to charities...

It was hard work, but the more I learnt and practiced my pitch, the more confident I became and the more sign-ups I made! Simple.

So learn that sales pitch!!!

I learned a lot of my fundraising sales knowledge through a few different fundraising books that I would recommend you read, in particular Let's Raise Money (click to read my review).

Offer Other Alternatives:

When holding food fundraisers you should always offer other options for people to contribute to your cause. It could either be a different food product or something completely unrelated to food!

Because people's tastes are so different I'd suggest you always have a second food product to offer.

For example, have chocolate bars as your main product and then also offer lollipops... That way if someone doesn't like chocolate (Highly unlikely I know!), they can always buy a lollipop.

Offer a few other options as well like maybe "supporter bracelets", or the most obvious... a Donation, check out the Scratch Cards Fundraiser for a cool Donations option!

By offering these extra options you will increase the likelihood of a purchase being made!

Ending Notes:

Remember that the planning of any Fundraiser is extremely important...

If you are not organized, you will waste much effort!

Take your time when planning your food fundraisers. Carefully choose your food products, outline your marketing plan and brainstorm ideas on how to boost your sales. And know your goals.

By doing all this you will end up truly rewarded for your effort!

Another last tip would be to market other current or planned Fundraiser campaigns at your food fundraisers. This tip goes for all Fundraising ideas.

And also make sure you always direct people to your website for more information about your cause and how they can help out!

I wish you all the best of luck with your Food Fundraisers!