Sorority and Fraternity Fundraising

Summer is coming to an end soon and therefore brings about the new academic year.

Remember: It is never too early to start planning your next great fundraiser!

The summer season is a great time to begin planning because you will have an important resource... TIME!

If you are the fundraising chair for your fraternity, sorority or club, begin contacting other officers or peers in leadership positions.
1. Identify your financial needs and goals
2. Identify possible fundraisers (bake sale, club event, concert etc.)
3. START doing your research!!!

Whether you are planning a bake sale or concert that might require the use of campus facilities, begin to research those options now! Most campuses have offices or departments that you must go through in order to host an event on campus or sell food on campus. Be sure to secure your venues ahead of time so that you get that difficult part out of the way and you won't have to rush to find a venue later (once they are less available). If you are selling food, there will be policies in place to assure that it meets health requirements.

Plan Ahead: Planning ahead of time also allows you to begin pooling your resources (club members, Sorority Sisters and Fraternity Brothers). By knowing what resources you have to work with, the less limited or pressure that you will feel.

Recruit a Committee:Fundraising chairs often try to do too much themselves instead of delegating tasks. Recruit a team of three or four members to help organize the fundraiser and recruit more volunteers if required. For example, assign one person to take care of the events marketing; two to handle money collection and record keeping on the day of the event; and another to manage delivery logistics.

Get people involved: Try and get help from peers and friends as early as possible! By doing so, you can begin preliminary marketing of your event or fundraiser through word of mouth. Not only that, but by having people see the planning process, they will become more engaged and therefore more motivated to make your fundraiser a success. Remind your Sisters or Brothers that fundraising is a group effort. A major part of the money fundraised will be going back to the chapter or club in various forms (Lower dues, planning an exchange, hosting retreats etc.)

Begin Promoting! Much like it is never too early to begin planning, it is never too early to being marketing! By marketing you will increase visibility and increase your potential number of supporters or donations. If you are hosting a club event, maybe create a website, post the event photo on your club, fraternity or sorority homepage. Use Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and other social networking websites. There are large numbers of students that spend time on Facebook looking for status changes, and this is your chance to shine. Write notes, make an event, change your profile picture to market the event. However, don't limit yourself to the world wide web and its audience. Using your most congested part of campus, you can reach many students by flyering, making a poster, and the easiest one of all, Word-Of-Mouth.

Final Planning:Days before your fundraiser takes place, make sure to hold a meeting with your committee to ensure that no loose ends exist. Run through the logistics once more and you will be well on your way to fundraising successfully.

But the most important tip of all .. HAVE FUN! With the right approach, fundraising can be educational and enjoyable for everyone. Here's a checklist you can download and print:

FastTrack Fundraising Checklist

One of the most common ways to raise funds is through a concert. Everybody loves good music once in a while. For this type of fundraiser, it would be good to get an array of singers and musicians. The organizers should choose a venue for this event. An open space area would be good for it can accommodate a lot of people. Furthermore it would not be so cramped. The organizers should already have an estimated number of attendees so they can choose a place for this. However if you would choose to have this concert done outdoors, make sure that it is not during rainy seasons as no one would go if it does rain.

The next thing the organizers should look into would be which musicians and singers to ask. It would be good to pick current artists and classic artists to be able to bridge the generation gap and get people from different generations. Look for artists that are willing to sing for free or a very very low cost to help out your cause. Decide on the number of hours you would want your concert to last and from there decide on how many artists and singers you would invite over. Do invite more than the allotted number of artists in case one or two might cancel out last minute. If all artists do confirm, fix the schedule by giving each group or individual a lesser number of sets to sing. If someone would cancel, then arrange with the artists or singers to probably sing another extra one or two sets each.

Most importantly do get sponsors to pay for the venue and the costs of the preparation for the stage, sound system and lightings. As it is a concert, each company or individual that would sponsor would definitely get full exposure and it would aid them in their business. So finding sponsors would definitely be easy. Also invite some food establishments to sell their wares at the venue. Arrange with them that a certain percentage would go to the cause in order to add to the expected amount for the cause.

As it is a concert, it would be advisable to advertise at malls, schools and heavily populated areas. Do not make the prices very expensive to ensure that many people would be able to attend. Posters should be placed at different venues to ensure that many people would indeed know about these events. Also try to advertise over the radio. Contact radio stations that play music in order for listeners to be well aware that there is such a concert that would be held at a certain date. Do regular radio advertisements to reach out to many listeners. Lastly spread out the word through emails and websites. It will be able to reach people who do not regularly go to malls and listen to the radio. But the best form of advertisement would be through word of mouth. Talk to friends about it and get them to tell other people about it too.

Energy drinks have become a national drink of choice for many people. They are a substitute for drinking hot coffee and dealing with prep time and the danger of spilling!

Energy drinks are portable, some come with reusable lids and are a great way to get a jolt of energy to start your day or get the night started!

When you are planning your next fraternity or sorority event, why not go ahead and sell energy drinks as an additional fundraiser. Depending on your custom design and the information printed onto the cans, people might buy them strictly for collection sake.

Before your next party or event that requires a party bus, you can sell them or hand them out days prior to the event as a marketing technique. You can even use them as an on-campus fundraiser and to increase sales, why not create a joint cause with a non-profit and donate a portion of the proceeds. Standing along the busiest intersections or walkways on campus can prove to be a great selling spot.

You can even target students walking to their next lecture or discussion section...they might be in need for a boost of energy but can't stop by the Student Union or local gas station to pick up an energy drink.

For more information visit: FastTrack Custom Energy Drinks

Do you still remember your freshman year in the dorms. It probably was a complete turn-around from living at home in your own room with everything belonging to you. In the dorms however, you share a room for the year with complete strangers, share bathrooms and have shared study areas where you got to meet several of your friends.

But... what about all that downtime during the day when parties weren't going on or floor socials weren't happening? Most likely you would sit in your room wondering what to do. TV was probably out of the question if you didn't own one and your friend down the hall was in class (so you couldn't use theirs). Nowadays we have the Facebook, blogs, News Websites where we can remain entertained for periods of time as we try and escape the mounds of reading required per class. SO... why not read something that you do like?

OPPORTUNITY
Primarily target students that live in the dorms since they are the least likely to have something other than their computers as a source of entertainment. And there is really no excuse for someone to not even have the smallest urge to buy a magazine about Cars, Fashion, Hobbies or any other interests. But don't limit yourself to a certain demographic... afterall everyone has read or at least gone through the pictures of a magazine at least one time in their life! Try selling magazines to professors, teachers, friends, floormates, clubs, people in your apartment building... the SKY is the LIMIT!

MARKET
Sell it as an investment! Sure you will be selling it for a price that might seem high at first but don't forget to remind them that they will be getting magazines throughout the entire year (or how ever long the subscription is for).

HOW?
FastTrack Fundraising brings you an excellent opportunity to sell magazines on college campuses with our Magazine Fundraising. And if you are worried about having to go from door-to-door (even on your own residence hall floor) then we also have a solution for you! By using our magazine fundraiser, we will help you set up a website that you can send out to all your friends, peers, and family.

Now the ease of using the internet can be utilized to benefit you. You can send emails out to everyone, make a Facebook event, twitter the link and reach the most potential donors with the least amount of effort.

FastTrack Fundraising helps you fundraise successfully, easy, and risk-free so that you don't have to go around filling out subscriptions forms or carrying sample magazines all around campus!

For more info: http://www.fasttrackfundraising.com/magazine-fundraiser.php

Paying to see unusual things has been going on for decades and decades. Why not use an unusual idea to help you fundraise money for your team?!

The Materials...
For this fundraiser, you will need a football field (or large empty field --> maybe it can be on your fraternity/sorority house property if you don't mind it getting a bit dirty and smelly), a cow (or a smaller farm animal such as a goat/sheep if space does not permit), and a team ready to fundraise!
1. Before anything can happen, make sure to do your research early and get the proper authorization from school staff or permission from the person in charge of the the House
2. Secondly, find out where you can get a farm animal for the event and make sure to accomodate to it's basic animal needs (food, water, and shelter). Depending on how long your event will run, basic supplies for the helpful-animal should not become a big issue.
3. Lastly, get the event underway!!!
Make sure to plan out the logistics, market the event, prepare the football field, and get ready to make money.

The Fundraiser...
The football field needs to be divided up into a large grid. Depending on the number of people attending, grids can have more squares or less (By analyzing how marketing is working and guaging public interest levels, you can plan accordingly and make more money).

Once the field is divided into squares with a designated number for each square, the fundraising can begin. Raffle Tickets are sold up until the point when the cow will be released to fulfill it's duty.

At a pre-determined time, the cow can then be released onto the field and allowed to graze, relax and enjoy the sunny day! While raffle-ticket holders wait patiently and anxiously for the cow to drop a load of dung on one of the grids, other activities such as food sales, games etc can be going on.

Finally... when the cow chooses a winner, the raffle number/grid number can be called out and the winner announced. The grand prize can be divided among 1 person or 3 (that depends on the team). The grand prize is a portion of the money fundraised during the event. Smelling the fresh smell of cow manure will never smell as sweet knowing that you used it to fundraise money for your team!!!

A real-life EXAMPLE
A booster club in Pennsylvania has been doing the Cow Flop for the past 20 years and they are able to fundraise about $10,000 annually through their 2-day event that features a parade, fireworks, music, food, and other entertainment. The main event of the Cow Flop is the raffle involving 2,000 squares and a cow's pick as to where he will relieve himself. Raffle tickets are $10 and the winner of the annual Flop raffle wins $5,000

Note: More profits require a larger scale event. Be considerate and weigh the possibilities of trying out a Cow Flop fundraiser before hosting one.