Community Theatre Fundraising Ideas

Zazzle is a fantastic site for creating souvenirs for your Community Theatre.

What is Zazzle?
Zazzle is a print-on-demand company where you (or a volunteer) can upload images and text to have them printed on all kinds of merchandise. T shirts, mugs, aprons, baby gear, dog shirts, magnets, buttons and many more gifts and apparel are available to choose from.

How can we use Zazzle for our theatre?
First, be sure your designs abide by trademark and copyright laws. Here are some ideas that I have for using these products for your organization:

Identify your volunteers (buttons that say "usher") show photos for cast gifts (photo on a mug), market your product (recruit volunteers or audience members), reward volunteers (give out shirts or keepsake boxes instead of trophies), thank patrons (give people who donate to a renovation project or show sponsors a t-shirt, or a print).

What's the best thing about this fundraiser?
Zazzle processes and ships all the orders, so there's no inventory to manage. If you're purchasing for gifts or giveaways, there are bulk ordering discounts.

Start-up Cash: LOW. $0
Volunteers: FEW. One or more designers, one person to check on orders/receive email updates. Optional volunteers to market products to cast members or community.
Time Commitment: LOW. 10-30 minutes to design an image, 10 minutes to upload products. As much as you want to do research and learn the site and optimization.

You can print up show shirts (some Disney images available with personalization on Zazzle, otherwise be sure you have rights to the logos or images), you can make donor buttons or usher buttons for volunteers, create keepsake ornaments with your show logo or theatre photograph on them. The best thing about using an online print-on-demand site? No preorders. Put all of your show shirts online and let people purchase them if they'd like. All orders and returns are handled through the website! (Now THAT's a great benefit to save you time and money).

Click on the following banner and add the home page to your bookmarks!

At graphics factory, you have over 2 million clip art images that can be put on shirts and mugs and all other items at Zazzle or other Print-on-Demand sites. With an affordable membership, all of the items come with a clear terms of use that say you can use the images for creating shirts and other items and selling them for profit.

I have run a very successful fundraiser on eBay for for my Community Theatre. Our theatre has a very impressive costume shop, and while it's spacious, there still seems to never be quite enough room for everything (sound familiar?). So one day I thought, maybe instead of tossing these things we don't use, why not try selling them on eBay? Well, the first few things I sold (giant box of gloves, anyone?) made us a couple hundred dollars and I was sold! It took some research and a well thought out presentatioin to the board, but soon we were on our way to raising several thousand dollars each year selling items we no longer needed!

eBay's program for non-profits
Mission Fish that is especially designed for non-profits. Visit the eBay website for more information on Giving Works, Mission Fish, charitable auctions, and their fee donation policy (they don't charge insertion or final value fees on items that sell if 100% of the profit goes to your organization!)

What should we sell?
Well, first check with your lawyer, to be sure you have proper licensing. However, usually donations made to your organization can be sold easilly. Vintage clothing is a hot seller, and something people donate to a community theatre often.

Second, for all of your questions about eBay as a fundraiser, check out the "Fundraising on eBay" book (below). It's absolutely the best information on starting a fundraiser on eBay.

If you decide to start your fundraiser, you can open a store at eBay. It does have a monthly charge, that's not returned through the giving works program. Having a store for us has been more than worth it though. It gives you the ability to list things very inexpensively for months at a time at a fixed price. A great option if you have businesses donate products for you to sell.

Startup Cash: LOW. $10 for initial fees to test out auctions. You can make a separate account and promise not to spend more on fees than you earn. $15/month (est) for a store if you choose to use one.
Volunteers: FEW but DEDICATED. This is a time consuming endeavor if you choose to write auctions in-house instead of using a Trading Assistant. Learning eBay is a process, don't begin with your most valuable items.
Time Commitment: HIGH. If you choose to use staff or volunteers for this project, they will need to be dedicated and/or really enjoy working on eBay. After time, the writing and uploading goes faster, but this is NOT "easy" money. Good money, but not easy.

If you'd like more ideas for community theatre fundraising, check my website Dramatically Correct . I have information there about other fundraising ideas as well as links to my costume shop organization website.

Some things to remember:

Check with both your theatre's lawyer and its board of directors before beginning any fundraising project. If you think these projects or any others will work for your organization, do your research first. Bring concrete information to the board so they can weigh the pros and cons. Boards will probably be reluctant to any idea they may have to input money into to start it up. That's why I've chosen low-cost start up fundraisers.

Be ready to work. These are fantastic ideas, but if you're the one bringing the idea to the table, be prepared to be asked to head it up. I've found this to be very rewarding for me, and I hope others will feel the same way.

Be open to new ideas. Everywhere I go, I keep my theatre in the back of my mind. If you see a good idea, remember to think "would this be good for our theatre?". You'd be surprised how many ideas you can come up with--especially with all the tools that the internet has provided us. I've barely scratched the surface with these three ideas.