Why Some Fundraising Products Just Don’t Work (And What Works Instead)

wrapped gifts

With online giving growing by 12.1% over the past year, it’s normal for groups, schools, and organizations to use group fundraising platforms to raise money for their programs each year. However, when it comes to picking the right products for your school’s fundraiser, there are a lot of products out there that simply don’t work.

So what makes a fundraising product successful? And more importantly, what makes one unsuccessful? As your experts who have helped thousands of groups become successful with our online fundraising platform, we’re going to break down what you need to know when choosing the right fundraising products for your school or organization.

Why Should Our Group Choose A Fundraising Product? Here’s Your Checklist Why!

Before we dive too deep into what makes a fundraising product successful or unsuccessful, let’s answer the question of why your group should even choose to fundraise with a product at all.

Quite simply, fundraising products give groups an easy way to raise money while bringing in new donors and building relationships with current donors. In addition, group fundraising platforms (like MoneyDolly) make it easy for donors to give and receive recognition for their donations since 8 out of 10 people say they prefer receiving something in return for their support.

What Are Donors Looking For In A Fundraising Product?

Groups tend to think that they need to deliver the most innovative, flashy product in order to fundraise successfully, but that’s not always the case. In fact, it can be an easy way to entice and support every type of donor.

Most of the time people are purchasing your products as a way to support your group’s fundraiser while receiving a little something in return, and not necessarily because they’re interested in the product itself. This means that you don’t have to make the process complicated. Instead, the simpler, the better when it comes to product selection.

To break it down, the products you choose should naturally sell themselves. This includes criteria such as:

Self-Explanatory Product

When choosing a product for your school or group’s fundraiser, you want to select a self-explanatory product, meaning that the customer knows exactly what they’re getting when they make a purchase. They don’t have to learn a new concept. If your product is complicated or takes too much time to explain, people are less likely to purchase it.

Everyone Needs Or Can’t Get Enough Of It

Another thing to consider is whether or not your group’s potential customers actually need the product you’re selling or if it’s something that they just can’t get enough of. If people don’t really need the product, then there’s a good chance that they won’t purchase it, and your fundraiser will suffer. For example, if you’re selling candles or chocolate chip cookies, people are always in need of more, and they’ll be more likely to purchase them.

Replacement Or Upgrade To A Current Product

When looking for products to sell, you also want to consider if it’s a replacement or an upgrade to a current product. If it is, people will be more likely to purchase it because they see the value of what you’re offering. So, for example, if you’re selling a new type of water bottle that is an upgrade to the current one people are using, they’ll be more likely to buy it. You can never have enough of those in your kitchen cupboard, right?!

Great Gift To Give To Others

Fundraisers are an excellent way for people to donate to your cause and surprise others with a gift. If the items you choose make a nice gift, people will be more likely to purchase them. For example, beef jerky and caramel corn are great gifts to give to others because they’re tasty, packaged nicely, and neighbors, friends and family members love receiving them.

Light, Small, And Ships Easily

You want to make sure that the products you choose are light, small, and ship quickly. This is important because people don’t want to have to worry about lugging around a heavy item or paying a lot for shipping. Plus, the less you have to pay to ship your item, the more you can retain in profit, and the more likely people will be to order those items.

High-Quality, Well-Made Products

Last but not least, you want to make sure that the products you’re selling are high-quality and well-made. This is important because people will only purchase your product once if it’s low quality, and they won’t feel good about supporting your fundraiser again in the future. By choosing high-quality products, you’ll ensure that people come back for more and that they have a positive experience with your fundraiser.

How Do I Figure Out The Logistics Of Fundraising Products?

Once you have an idea of what you want to sell that meets the criteria of a good fundraising product, your organization will need to figure out the logistics of sending those fundraising products. For example, how will you manage inventory, order, and send to customers when they place an order and want to support your group? Well it’s a lot of work. And that work takes a lot of time and money.

So what’s the short answer solution? Using a company to fundraise with, like MoneyDolly, which specializes in group fundraising platforms.

With MoneyDolly, you can either choose to sell your own items or choose winning products from our product catalog, allowing you to sell from and ship directly to your customers without physically managing your inventory. This makes it easy for you to take orders and focus on your group’s fundraiser without any additional costs or headaches that running a campaign of this size on your own can cause.

Conclusion: Step Up Your Fundraising With MoneyDolly

When you need to choose the best company to fundraise with for your school or group, you won’t need to search any further than MoneyDolly’s group fundraising platform. MoneyDolly is a powerful online fundraising platform that will help you raise more money faster and simpler. It’ll also provide your school, club, or group with several methods to engage and attract contributors to your cause, so you can ensure that your group reaches its fundraising goals. 

What are you waiting for? Start your group’s fundraiser today with MoneyDolly! To get started, request a free demo with our fundraising experts to get $100,000,000 worth of fundraising advice!

Damion Smith

Damion is the Founder & CEO of MoneyDolly

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