Fundraising Ideas???

[iiipopes]

We checked with our Walmart. They require a one month advanced request. Our fundraiser was put together one-and-a-half weeks prior to the event.

 

Back in the fall I started our pack on a local fundraiser that our Price Cutter Grocery Store offers. Shoppers earn Community Bucks that they donate to nonprofit organizations. We turned ours in back in January. We had designated the $193 that was donated to use toward camperships. We thought this would be enough to support the families in our pack. We were mistaken.

 

Until now, our leadership was unaware of the great needs our families have financially, many being way below the poverty level. So, I quickly put together a fundraiser to raise funds to help every boy in our pack that wanted to go to camp - get to go to camp.

 

I was unaware at the time, as a fairly new Committee Chair, that camperships had never been available in our pack before. The leadership was fully behind me on offering this, and I assumed it had been done before. That was the only mistake I made - one good mistake. The kids that had never been able to participate in camp before are thrilled! One of them told me he finally felt like he was now truly considered a member of Cub Scouts and not just looking in from the outside.

 

Being that the time constraint was there, and the Walmart in our town is less than a half-a-year old and being bombarded with requests, I felt the next best thing was setting up across the street. The access in and out of the lot was easier anyway.

 

Next year we will have the car wash/bake sale planned from the beginning and perhaps Walmart can accommodate us. But I feel very comfortable with going back to AutoZone, as they were so great to help us on such short notice and invited us to come back again.

[ScoutNut]

Please, please, PLEASE ! - I don't care HOW fast you have to put together a fundraiser, do NOT forget to turn in a Unit Money Earning Application to your council for approval.

 

They are needed for many reasons, but the 2 best are 1) it is a BSA rule & 2) you are then covered by BSA insurance.

 

The insurance protects not only the Pack, but the leaders & the place of business that the event is held at. All it takes is 1 crazy accident.

 

 

[Lisabob]

iiipopes,

 

You're right that Wal-Mart requires some advance planning. You mentioned Lowes too - we've actually done better there than at Wal-Mart in the past, and they usually will work with less advance notice too. Plus the manager at Lowes is an excellent person for all cub packs to get to know - you never know when you'll want to ask for donations for pack projects!

 

If you're thinking about popcorn sales for fall - which you mentioned in another thread - maybe pick a couple of dates to sell outside of Wal-Mart now, and then you'll be able to get all teh paperwork in order over the summer. Also don't forget local grocery stores besides Wal Mart. They tend to be friendlier to local organizations anyway, in my experience.

 

As Scoutnut said though - make sure you complete the Unit Money Earning Application (required for everything except popcorn) and that you follow those rules. In reality, councils seldom check on this but you should do it anyway to cover all your bases.

 

Lisa'bob

[funscout]

Pizza Hut offers a percentage of their profits to organizations who sign up for a 2-hour time slot on a particular night. (week nights only) Our Pack is going to try this, because we won't be "out" anything by trying. All we have to do is hand out flyers to friends and family (plus Pizza Hut will have some on site) and then every time a customer includes a flyer with his payment, we will get a percentage of their total purchase.

 

Our local grocery store does this, too. You just hand them the flyer when you pay your bill at the check-out.

 

iiipopes - I love the idea of a fundraiser that is only for camperships!

[iiipopes]

I agree that everyone MUST file a unit money earning application no matter how small the fundraiser or how fast it is put together. I always do this. Our council gives approval while you wait and it provides extra peace of mind (something we all can use). I also insist that every den leader file tour permits for every outing (something they didn't do before I became CC).

 

On the carwash/bake sale, we had contacted our Lowe's store (in person) at the same time as our Wal-Mart. They said they had to get approval from HQ and would call us. Lowe's never called back, and they never returned our follow-up calls. We even tried to catch-up with the manager in person on two different ocassions. In all fairness, the store is also less than 6 months old. Maybe next year they will be more receptive.

 

One thing we always do in our pack is to state the reason for a fundraiser. If we can't give our parents and scouts a reason, we don't do one. Some of the outings we wish we could do, but need funds for, are Sleeping With The Sharks at Wonders of Wildlife (affiliated with Bass Pro), Boy Scout Weekend at Silver Dollar City (affectionately referred to in these parts as Steal Your Dollar City), Scout Day at the Discovery Center (a hands-on science museum), and any of the classes given by Mad Science. It would also be fun to take our boys to Fantastic Caverns ride thru Cave, but they would have to give us an exceptional discount to ever be able to do that.

 

I like the Pizza Hut idea. We will see how it goes with Wendy's first - if we have a good turn out of both scouts and customers.