The Christian EducatorA publication of North Valley Baptist Schools

Training for Life, Part 1

What I've Learned about Selling Candy

By Josh Nolan

I have had the opportunity for the past two years to head up the fundraising at our school. While many have personally put their hand on my shoulder and expressed their sympathy to me for being the “new guy” and having to take on this ugly monster of a responsibility, I have enjoyed it and learned much. The following is a list of what I wrote down after I reviewed the results of a candy sale fundraiser and realized I had not exceeded my expectations.

Plan. Talk with others who have experience. What company will you partner with to purchase the candy? How much candy should you purchase? How much money would you like to raise? For what are you raising the money? Plan where to sell, how to sell, how long to sell, and what is needed to encourage your students to sell. Plan the different prizes you will be passing out: daily, class, overall, family, etc.

Delegate. Teachers should be on board and trying to see their class win the class prize. Perhaps you can give a prize to the teacher whose class wins. Teachers should motivate students everyday of the fundraiser. A prize will encourage them to motivate the parents as well. Parent volunteers are not only helpful with alleviating heavy loads, but I have found instrumental in getting other parents involved. The key to fundraising is the parents. We delegated 13 fathers to be class captains in our last fundraiser. They rallied their class together for one week with meetings, phone calls, and updates. We brought in a net total of just over $15,000 ($63 per student). 11^th and 12^th grade students are also helpful with getting a perspective of prizes that motivate their peers to sell. The last two years, I have consulted this group and used some of their ideas for prizes. Of course, you will want to run everything through your principal/pastor.

Communicate. Local stores should be notified three months in advance for permission to sell. Give your students a list of these stores. Notify parents one month prior to the big kickoff of your fundraiser. Inform them of the product, purpose, goal, dates to sell and turn in money, and opportunities to sell collectively. Notify the students every other day informing them which grade is in the lead and who has turned in the most. Give daily prizes to encourage them to sell every day instead of just the weekend.

Begin with a Pep Rally. Play exciting, motivational music as students enter and exit. Stack all the boxes of candy in a pyramid in the front where you will be speaking. Dress up as some type of humorous, fun character. Speak with a different voice and really play it up. Use this character to go around the classes every morning and create excitement towards your fundraiser. Produce a fundraising video. Include the product you are selling, the in’s and out’s of candy selling, and the prizes you will be passing out. Pass out a lot of little prizes: candy, t-shirts, ball caps. In our last candy fundraiser, we used a t-shirt barrel cannon and launched candy bars.

Create opportunities to sell. Parents are busy, yet many have all the good intentions of helping out their school and keeping tuition low, but do not plan or have the time to take their children out to sell. Have teachers take their class out once or twice of the fundraising week. Group the high school up into teams of four and bus them to several stores in a local area for a couple hours. Give a prize to the team who sells the most that day.

Collect. Assign a volunteer in the elementary and the middle through high school to go through the classrooms everyday to collect money and keep a log of who turned in what and who needs more boxes to sell. After completing this task, the money should be turned in to the office. Students should not be turning in money to you, their teacher, the secretary, the principal, and their older sibling. This makes for chaos when you try to reconcile the financial books! Keep it simple.

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