Picking the right type of fundraiser will have a big impact on your chances of success. A lot of “popular fundraisers” rely on selling large quantities or expecting your supporters to spend up big in order to raise a reasonable amount of money. So it’s important to know your numbers before you get started.
Let’s have a look at some different fundraisers to see how the numbers stack up.
Fundraising Chocolates
Everyone loves chocolate, don’t they? It’s super easy (for you!) to hand out a box for everyone to sell at work. Then you collect the cash (and the leftover chocolates), and the job is done. In this example, I’ll look at fundraising chocolates that sell for $1 each, and you make a profit of $20 per box of 50 chocolates.
| Sale Price | Sell for $1 each
$50 per box |
| Profit | $0.40 per chocolate
$20 per box |
| Amount Raised | Need to Sell |
| $1000 | 2500 Chocolates |
| $2000 | 5000 Chocolates |
| $5000 | 12,500 Chocolates
or (250 boxes of 50) |
Wine
Who doesn’t drink wine am I right? And who wouldn’t want a box of it? After all, it’s going to a good cause, isn’t it! So you take some orders, pick it up from the winery (or bottle it yourself – hiccup!) and then hand it out to everyone who has bought a dozen (or they come and pick it up from you).
| Sale Price | Sell for $12-$15 each
$144 – $180 per dozen |
| Profit | $40 – $58 per dozen |
| Amount Raised | Need to Sell |
| $1000 | 17 – 25 dozen
204 – 300 bottles |
| $2000 | 34 – 50 dozen
408 – 600 bottles |
| $5000 | 86 – 125 dozen
1000 – 1500 bottles |
Lamington Drive
Yuuuuummmmm Lamingtons!!! Say no more! There is a reason these are considered one of Australia’s traditional cakes – soooo good! For this sort of a fundraiser you hand out the order forms to everyone, they ask everyone they know to order some, then you collect back all the order forms, get them from the bakery and hand them out to everyone who’s purchased them.
| Sale Price | Sell for $10.50 per dozen |
| Profit | $2.35 per dozen |
| Amount Raised | Need to Sell |
| $1000 | 425 dozen |
| $2000 | 851 dozen |
| $5000 | 2127 dozen |
Chocolates vs Wine vs Lamingtons
If your fundraising target is $5000, the table below looks at some of the common fundraisers and how many people you’d need to support your fundraiser and how much on average they’d need to spend.
| Amount Raised | Chocolates | Wine | Lamington Drive |
| $5000 | 12500 chocolates
(250 boxes of 50) |
86-125 dozen
1000-1500 bottles |
2127 dozen |
| Avg Sale
Per Person |
5 chocolates | 1 dozen wines | 2 dozen lamingtons |
| Avg Sale Price
Per Person |
$5 | $144-$180 | $21 |
| Avg Profit
Per Sale |
$2 profit | $40-$58 profit | $4.70 profit |
| How many sales
to make $5000 |
2500 people
spending $5 |
86-125 people
spending $144-$180 |
1063 people
spending $21 |
From the above example, to raise $5000 you’d need to sell 250 boxes of chocolates. The average person would buy 5 chocolates which would mean you’d make $2 profit per person and you’d need 2500 people to buy $5 worth of chocolate each to raise $5000.
If you were selling wine, you’d need about 100 people to spend around $150 each to raise $5000. (And don’t forget you’d need to deliver about 100 boxes of wine – that’s 1200 bottles!)
And if you were selling lamingtons, you’d need to find 1063 people who wanted to each buy 2 dozen lamingtons and remember you’d actually have to distribute 2127 dozen lamingtons.
Looking at those examples, I have 2 words – STUFF THAT!
Suddenly fundraising $5000 doesn’t seem that easy, does it? Want something a bit easier – check out “What sort of Fundraiser should I do then?”
