Another Fundraising Idea

[dScouter15]

A couple of our troop's scouts came to the PLC with this fundraising idea. I guess they picked it up from something their school did. Its a game where the stakes are a pie in the face for a few volunteers. Basically, some volunteers that agree to run the risk of getting a pie in the face are announced to the troop. A bucket is then created for each of the volunteers. The bucket has that person's name on it, and it used to collect monetary donations. The way that the monetary donations work is that each cent put in the bucket represents a "point". At the end of the contest, the idea is that the volunteers who accumulated the most points would get the pie in the face. The catch is that points can be either positive or negative - paper money counts as "positive" points, while coins count as "negative" points. So, for example, a dollar bill would be "+100 points" and a quarter would be "-25" points. So, if both a dollar and a quarter were put in a volunteer's bucket, that volunteer would have 75 points. Get it?

 

So we got a total of 10 volunteers to be potential victims - the SPL and ASPL, 2 troop guides, either the PL or APL from each patrol, as well as the Scoutmaster. The PLC determined that the top 5 people with the most points would get the pies in the face. Donations were accepted at troop meetings over the course of a month. The scouts ended up putting their paper money in the buckets for those they wanted to pie - like the SM, SPL and their own patrol leader. They'd put coin money in the buckets for the other people to try to keep them out of the top 5. It made for some good jokes during the collections - like when the SM came in with a couple roles of quarters and made a big show of putting them into his own bucket, only to have his wife come up after him with a $50 bill!

 

At the troop meeting that ended the competition, our CC was asked to handle counting the points and dollar amount each person received, and then be the "MC" for the delivering of the pies. It turned out that we raised just shy of $500, and the SM, SPL, one of the troop guides, and 2 PLs would be getting pied. Since we had five patrols, a representative from each patrol was picked to deliver each pie. A good time was had by all, and we got some funny pictures to include in our troop's slideshow at its annual end-of-year banquet. The money went to replacing some of our camp stoves and other camping equipment.

 

Just wanted to share this one - its not a huge money maker, but its also not much of a time or financial investment itself - the only cost was a couple dollars for cream pies.

[evmori]

Sorta sounds like a game of chance or raffle which is not allowed.

[Thomas54]

 

The pot was not split between the donator and the troop. All money went to the troop. It was just who ever got the highest fundraiser (points) got a pie in the face.

 

The only thing I see is that all money raised came from the troop families. I prefer fundraiser where the infusion of cash is external to the troop families.

 

But $500 was raise and new equipment was procured. No one complained about having to anty up another $20/scout for the equipment fund.

 

Cool idea.

 

 

 

[dScouter15]

Yeah, I think calling it a game of chance or a raffle is a bit of a stretch. It was never intended to make a lot of money - we actually made a bit more than we anticipated. We only asked the scouts to donate their spare change, or maybe a couple dollars. I think a good chunk of the money actually came from some of the adults, particularly the parents of some of the "volunteer victims" who may have tried to influence the standings one way or another ;-) Point is, we never really intended for it to be a major fundraiser, but more of a fun way for the troop to raise a little bit of "petty cash".(This message has been edited by dScouter15)

[Phibbles]

I wouldn't call it a raffle either, but if you were worried that it was you could work around it. Instead of putting money in the buckets use beads. One color adds points, one color takes away point.

 

Where do the beads come from? Well the troop sells them of course. That's the fundraiser. You sell beads. If people choose, they can use the beads in the game. And since the game has no prize, it shouldn't be a gambling concern.

 

That's the long way around the bush...ya know.

[IM_Kathy]

sounds like what my GS troop did during the 2008-2009 scout year... only the girl or leader that had the most money in their jar had to wear a dress at the Feb. unit event. We all knew that all the other leaders, scouts, and their parents would make sure mine had the most money in their jar... a girly-girl I am NOT! in fact most of them hadn't even seen me without a ball cap on let alone in a dress. we raised over $50 and the only work we did was to set out the bottles at each unit event and take them to the bank at the end... had we thought even more we would've charged for them to take all those pictures of me too LOL