Fundraising Steps to Success

>> Print a PDF of the Overview and Guidelines

Special Thanks

Special thanks and acknowledgement is given from me, Phil and Kevin to Carolyn Beck, Cynthia Padgett, Jorge Rentiera and my wife Susie Bigelow for their time, vision and efforts in helping to create these Fundraising Steps to Success.

Please note: You are not asked to be a “sales person” and actively go out and “cold call” organizations to create a Fundraiser. With Nussentials this is still a warm market business . It's about relationships that are already established and where trust is high.

What organizations do you know personally? Who do your friends know that could use a FR? Once you start making an organization money you will have testimonials and can also ask for referrals. As you attract new reps who want to make money with you in Fundraising, they will in turn find other organizations as well …and your network and cashflow will grow J

Success brings success!

Also, keep in mind that the fastest way to start a fundraiser is to start with a small one, where you have ACCESS to the decision maker . This is why smaller recreation sports teams will probably work easier for you.

Who does fundraisers?

Schools, churches, church youth groups, non-profits, PTAs, youth groups like the boy/girl scouts, cheerleaders, school clubs like the yearbook club, etc, athletic teams (especially those that travel), Fraternities, Sororities, ????

Not counting sports team, churches, non-profits, and all the other possibilities let’s consider the facts regarding the number of schools in the US alone – these are HUGE numbers – LOTS of money making opportunities for each and every rep!

TOTAL NUMBER OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS: 98,916

Elementary: 67,032
Secondary: 23,426
Combined: 6,222
Other: 1,236

TOTAL PUBLIC SCHOOL ENROLLMENT: 49,293,000

TOTAL NUMBER OF PRIVATE SCHOOLS: 33,740

Elementary: 21,870
Secondary: 2,930
Combined: 8,940

TOTAL PRIVATE SCHOOL ENROLLMENT: 5,910,210

http://www.edreform.com/Fast_Facts/K12_Facts/

Universities – 4,084

Most fundraising organizations that are out there doing business with these schools offer 40 – 50% to the sponsoring organization. But in my research I noticed that those percentages usually have some hidden costs in them such as shipping and handling and are almost always based on number of units sold. In many cases the number of units required to be sold in order to get to that 50% split are so large that often it's impossible for the average organization to reach. In talking with the principal of my kids elementary school who has done numerous fundraisers, the reality is that they usually only end up making somewhere around 30 – 35% because of all the hidden costs.

I believe we should offer the organizations 50% of all sales – that's gross. (no handling, shipping, delivery, flyers, or any extra charges) This percentage will make us extremely competitive in the marketplace and organizations will be happy to sit down with the Nussentials representative to not only hear what we have to offer, but to do business with us.

And believe me, schools and other non-profit organization need the MONEY we offer!!!

Why do Fundraisers?

The costs associated with making a 10oz candle are approx .50 an ounce or $5.00 per 10oz unit. That number includes the glass container, the wax, the wick, the fragrance, the color and the sticker. There may be some additional costs with gas, electricity, gas for your car to deliver to the organization, some printing, etc., but to keep the math simple let's just stay with the $5.00, which is a very reasonable number.

If the organization sells each candle for $20 and receives 50% of the sale, which is $10, and it cost you $5 to set-up the fundraiser, as well as pour and deliver that candle, your net profit per candle would be $5.

My suggestion is you start with a small fundraiser to begin with – say about 100 - 200 candles or maybe an organization with about 40 participants.

If 40 participants sell an average of 5 candles each that would be a total sale of 200 candles or $4000 in total sales (40X$20), which would mean $2000 (at 50%)would go to the organization/team, $1000 would be your costs (approx 25%), with $1000 remaining in net profit for you as the rep.

Would $1000 for a few days (less than a week) of work be a nice ‘bonus' to your month?

How many 30-40 person teams, classes, organizations do you know who need/want to make some money?

What if you did 2 a month? What if you combined 2 or 3 fundraisers and did all of them at the same time (since you would already be set up with your ‘assembly line' and the set-up, clean-up and delivery time would be just about the same)?

What if you purchased enough candle products in one month to get yourself into the Retail Revenue Bonus Pool? Would that extra $600-$1000 (approx) bonus added to your profit make a significant impact on your month?

Let's consider these numbers in real-time. We'll use the example of a rep who does a fundraiser that sell 300 units and gives the organization 50% or $3000, has $1500 in expenses and makes a $1500 net profit. The amount of time to set-up, pour, clean-up and deliver a fundraiser of this size would be about 3 days of 4 hours each day or a total of 12 hours – start to finish. That means that for those 12 hours you will be earning approx $125 per hour.

Or looking at it another way, to take home $1500 in one full 40 hours week at a job a person would have to be making $50 an hour (assuming a 25% withhold). To take home $1500 in a month at a 40 hour a week job a person would have to be making $12.50 per hour.

How many people do you know that would like to make $125 an hour and ‘take home' $1500 for about 12 hours of work?

Susie and I can see the potential. We already have one 90 person fundraiser set-up and are in the process of setting up another large one. It's easy for us to envision making $5000+ per month just doing fundraisers. And that's with us both working only about 40 hours total in an entire month!

Can you see fundraisers as a way to create some great extra monthly income? Can you see that in the process you can introduce your family, friends and business associates to something that they could also do to make some serious extra money? How many people do you know who might want to become a rep themselves in order to duplicate what you're doing and not only make some great cash, but build a business in the process?

When you ‘show people the money' people will pay attention to you.

Now think bigger still. What happens when this idea really catches fire and starts to spread throughout your organization? How could this program impact your monthly check when you have reps on your 4 th and 5 th levels doing fundraisers where you are earning 3% and 10%? If you really let you imagination take that one on you might not sleep tonight!

Let me interject here and remind you to never lose site of the fact that we are doing this business through a multi-level company. There is an expression that says, ‘don't step over dollars to pick up pennies'. In this case what I mean is that there will be people who say, “I can go online and buy wax and the other candle making supplies cheaper than buying from Nussentials, and thereby make more profit for myself.”

However, in doing so you will miss the opportunity to create a duplicatable opportunity that others can follow which will in the long run make you MUCH more money then what you would have ‘saved' by purchasing cheaper products. (hence- stepping over dollars for pennies)

Oh, and by the way, there have been some reps who have tried that approach and bought the ‘cheaper' products online, and they discovered to their horror, that not all soy wax is the same. Phil really does get the very best of everything when he purchases for this company, and you may discover that ‘cheaper' is just that – cheap, and the headaches and hassles you may encounter trying to work with inferior products are just not worth the few dollars you save.

How to Set-up Fundraisers

Crucial– as you start your journey into fundraising, begin with those clubs, fraternities, sports teams, schools that you have a relationship with. They already know and respect you and will be more willing to sit and listen to your proposal. Once you have your first success the other organizations will fall in line because you are now an ‘expert' – based on your successful experience. Also, again, please start with a smaller 100-200 unit fundraiser first . If you're going to make mistakes, let them be small ones. Once you've gained in experience and knowledge then you can start going after the bigger organizations.

Crucial – Because you are the ‘expert’ make sure the organization knows up-front that …

Your role in setting up the FR and speaking with the ‘sales force’ and your ongoing involvement throughout the process is not an option

It is a necessary and invaluable part of the program designed to make all parties successful.

Crucial – all FR orders should be faxed in on a paper order form and not placed through your website. HQ will place the order on your PWP after ensuring all inventory is in place. Allow HQ 2-3 wks from the date they receive your faxed order to ship the product to you. Therefore in your presentation to the FR organization you may need to tell them there is a 5-6 weeks turnaround from the last day of their sale period to your delivery of the product.

Crucial - make sure that all your fundraisers are done on a pre-sales basis! This will allow you to get the money up-front to buy the materials for the fundraiser. (a spreadsheet will be available for you to use that will calculate for you how many 16 lb & 8 lb kits, wick kits, etc., you will need to purchase for the number of candles you need to pour and deliver.)

Crucial– the other important reason for doing the pre-sales is that you want to have a pretty accurate count of how much product you will need to fill all the orders so that you don't run short or over-order. It will be very expensive if you over order by 100 lbs of wax and then want to return it to NU. (it's expensive to ship 100 lbs of anything!) You should also know that if you do a fundraiser and then order enough product to get into the Retail Revenue Sharing Pool, and then decide you want to send back what you didn't use, the amount of your RRSP check will be deducted from your refund – which could in fact mean that you not only have no refund, but end up owing the company the difference between what you made in the RRSP and what you returned.

Crucial - be sure and make it clear to the organization that you have a ‘no buy-back’ policy. In other words, once they’ve paid their money and put in their order it’s a done deal. You don’t want to be picking up candles from people and giving money back – way to labor intensive.

Crucial – make sure you understand the lead times involved in ordering and receiving your glassware and your other candle supplies. Verify with the glass company (we have already worked out an agreement with a very good glassware company at a very good price for our reps) the transit time to your location. It would be embarrassing and unprofessional if you could not deliver on time because you had not factored in the transit time for your products.

Crucial– it is advised that you open a separate bank account to deposit each fundraisers' money into, as well as pay for your supplies out of. Business and personal monies should not be co-mingled … this is good general accounting advice. (mixing your personal money with the fundraisers' monies – especially as you start doing multiple fundraisers)

Crucial – Register your FR with Nussentials (this link is coming) A form that will ask: Who is the FR for, what is the organization's goals, how many participants will be involved, what size candles are being offered, what colors and fragrances, what percentage has been agreed upon, what is the address of the organization, who is the contact person at the organization, what are the dates of the FR, what is the 'delivery' date for the candles, etc.

We will also have another form that the rep will fill out after the event with questions like: when was the FR completed? What problems did you encounter? What solutions did you employ? What innovations or systems did you come up with? Etc.

Nussentials will use both the pre FR and post FR information to:

1- gather info on FRs to help the field with more ideas and options and

Crucial – let your ‘upline’ know about the FR so they can provide assistance and support when and where needed, and again, in the case something were to happen to you the FR could still be completed.

Crucial – we have an incredible opportunity with these fundraisers to make money and build our organizations. However, we must understand that when we decide to take on the
responsibility and effort of a fundraiser, that our actions and performance on each and every fundraiser being done within our company, will reflect either positively or negatively on Nussentials itself, and as such, will impact every other rep in this company and their future regarding Fundraisers.

Any rep that makes an agreement with an organization to provide them with a fundraiser obligates themselves to complete in a professional manner. Any ‘lack of perfomance', misrepresentions. actions that lead to a poor result, or tarnishes Nussentials reputation will be subject to immediate review and can lead to – possible suspension, dismissal and/ or may be subject to legal action by the company depending on the abuse.

Crucial – by purchasing your candle making products from Nussentials, you are creating a duplicatable system that your downline will follow, and in doing so you are building towards that long-term residual income – better know as ‘ cashflow'. Realize that if you choose to buy products that are less expensive from some on-line source you may end up with inferior products – but more importantly – you will miss out on the opportunity for the Retail Residual Bonus Pool money and the even bigger picture of growing your organization and your check.

Also you need to know and understand that if you substitute any item(s) in making the candles for your FR, whether wicks, wax, fragrance, or color you MAY NOT call it a Nussentials candle, or a Nussentials FR. You can not represent yourself as a Nussentials Independent Representative in this scenario.

Nussentials does not, cannot, and will not be responsible for products other than those that we purchase and provide to the field.

Let’s Begin

We provide the organization with two choices of soy candles in a 10oz attractive glass container. The candles will come in two choices of colors and fragrances: White or Golden Tan, and vanilla or cinnamon. (you may choose any two other colors or fragrances if you so desire) This keeps things simple for everyone.

I suggest that you begin your talks with the organization talking about number of units of candles sold rather than talk about how many people there are involved and candles per person. That makes it easier to understand. For instance:

10 oz candle ... $20 sale ... your org gets 50% or $10 dollars.

Here are some of the conditions you may want to ask for from the organization:

• Ask them to provide you with 6-8 volunteers to help w/ pour and allow you to use their facilities (depending on size of fundraiser this may not be necessary)
• Ask them to assist in the photocopying of the flyers, order forms, etc

Susie and I also like to offer incentives as a way of boosting sales that we provide from our share of the profits. For instance, we’re doing a 90 person fundraiser for the Year Book club at our daughter’s high school consisting of three classes with 30 students each. The club needs to raise money for a 3 day field trip to California to go to the year book factory as well as spend a day at one of California’s resorts.

We’ve offered to give the top ‘seller’ from each class 4 movie tickets (a $24 value), the top seller of all 3 classes a $50 Visa card, and the top selling class a pizza party in their class, with us ordering the pizza. So, out of our profits we will give away another $170 in prizes to help ‘boost’ sales which puts more money in everyone’s pockets.

After you’ve talked about the percentages, the number of participants, the various conditions as well as the incentives, then you can start to talk about what they want to make based on the total number of units sold. At this point you want the org to be in on the process of setting minimum requests of their students/people – and they will happy to do so because they will ‘see’ the benefit (the $$) that they can make.

Start with one plan and have it outlined and structured with numbers, percentages, etc. and then add in your own particular instructions or other variances as stated above. Adjust those numbers, parameters, etc with each success.

Use Fundraisers to Build Your Organization

Keep in mind you need to make each fundraiser very profitable for you! Why am I saying this?

I sometimes hear people say things like, “Well, it’s a fundraiser and I really don’t want to make money off other peoples’ efforts”; or, “I really just want the organization to make the money, after all it is for their charity.”’; or, “I’m a member of the organization and I don’t think it would be right if I made a profit by doing this.”

Here’s the problem – if you’re not personally making the kind of money on each fundraiser that gets peoples’ attention, then you’re going to miss the even greater benefit of doing a fundraiser – and that’s the opportunity to attract and sponsor other people who want to do what you’re doing and make the kind of money you’re making.

Trust me – no one is going to want to sign up with you as a rep and go through all the steps and work to make a bunch of candles for some organization and not see any real money!

Here’s how you attract the new reps. As you get set-up and ready to start the pour, you invite some of your friends, family and business associates over to learn about soy candles and to help you make some. You make the event a fun, party-like atmosphere with some libations for everyone. Then as everyone is having fun pouring you mention how it’s so great that you have this opportunity to hang out with good friends having fun and in the process make $1000 dollars. (or whatever)

Some of those friends and family members will say, “Can I do this? Can I make money by doing a fundraiser? Could you show me how? I know a bunch of organizations that are looking for ways to make money.”

You say, “Of course you can, and I’d be happy to teach you and support you every step of the way. Let’s get you started right now.”

So now, not only have you made some good money, but you have also implanted throughout your organization the structure for how everyone can make great money. That idea then becomes duplicated by each and every one of your reps which will spread like wildfire throughout our organizations and add more and more monthly residual income to our checks.

Remember, you want it duplicatable by your reps, and you want your reps (as well as your family and friends) to see that the money is real and a good amount!

Nussentials Future for Fundraisers

In speaking with Kevin and Phil, what Nussentials would like to end up with is to have Fundraisers programmed on the shopping cart in a way that makes the whole fundraising process a ‘point and click’ business. For instance:

Fundraising Packages

Choose option 1 for 100 units
Choose option 2 for 200 units
Choose option 3 for 500 units
Choose option 4 for 1000 units and so on …..

Choosing any of the options would ship to you the entire package necessary for that number of units: wax, fragrances, wicks, Nussentials bottom stickers, color chips, possibly the glass containers, candle making instructions with color formulas, tips and techniques, production line system suggestions, template for flyers, order forms, etc.

The future of the fundraising side of Nussentials is all dependent on what we as the reps in the field do. The more fundraisers we enroll and the more volume those fundraisers create, the greater the opportunities for our partner, Phil, to buy products in bigger and bigger quantities, and in doing so allow him to find ways to perhaps lower costs for bulk purchases (more money in our pockets); to appoint a more attractive CV value to the fundraiser ‘kits’ to help get reps into the RRSP more quickly (more money in our pockets); or to buy and stock other items such as the glass containers which would also lower our costs and put more money in our pockets.

Soy Candle Fundraisers are really a win-win-win-win-win-win-win idea. A 7 Win.

1. The organization wins because they get to make more profit with us then most other fundraising companies offer.
2. The families who purchase our candles win because we are providing them with a product that will create a healthier environment by eliminating the toxins from paraffin.
3. The kids that Nussentials feeds via Children, Incorporated win because 5% of each dollar you spend on the products you purchase to make the candles supports that amazing cause. http://www.childrenincorporated.org/Partnerships.aspx
4. You win because you get to make money. Maybe you get so good at fundraisers that one of the people in a relationship can stay home full time with the kids – maybe you get so good that both parents get to stay home by making your income from fundraisers – especially as this idea begins to take hold in your downlines! – In which case your entire family wins!
5. Your reps (current and new) win because you have shown and taught them a duplicatable system that they can plug into to enrich their own lives.
6. Nussentials wins because the more we do the more the company grows – which actually comes back to us (the reps) winning once again – because I know Phil well enough to know that as we continue to grow he will continue to find more and more ways to put additional monies into our pockets.
7. The FR creates built in leads. The order sheets can provide you with hundreds of leads for potential customers, refill order, people who might want to attend a candle class and learn how to make candles, and people who might be able to refer you to their own organizations for a potential fundraiser!

So – what are you waiting for? Get busy and start talking to every team, church, school you know about the incredible opportunity you have for them!

Oh – and don’t forget – HAVE FUN!

John Bigelow
Leadership Council