Raising money for your child's school, sports team, youth group, or church can be a difficult endeavor. There are so many fundraising efforts to compete with, how do you set your group apart from all the rest? Fundraising is even more troublesome if, as a parent, you've never organized a charity event before. If you keep the fundraiser focused on the group that needs the funds, success will almost always follow.
Fundraisers for kids are always a success when education and learning are associated with the event. That’s why one of the best fundraisers is the book fundraiser. Giving books as gifts is a great idea, especially around the holidays when so many other gifts seem frivolous.
Book fundraisers can be the ultimate success, and we’re not simply talking about the same old catalogue fundraiser where buyers flip through a catalogue to pick out magazine subscriptions they want to order.
No, we’re talking about a book that features all of the talents of your children such as a coffee table art book featuring the drawings of every kid on the soccer team, a cookbook with a yummy collection of your youth group’s favorite Christmas cookies, a book of photos taken of high school students at prom, or a collaborative story book that features tales told by the entire pre-school class.
Regardless of the subject matter, your book sale will have more meaning and garner more fundraising dollars if it’s personal to the community members who will purchase the books.
Here is a sample of some great book fundraisers:
An Old Fashioned Book Drive
The book sale collects family favorites from everyone in the community. Families can donate old books their children have loved, but outgrown. Almost every family has a dusty collection of most-loved fairy tales or fables that could be donated.
Once the books are all collected, host a sale at the local school’s gymnasium, recreational center, church, or auditorium for kids and parents to come and purchase favorite titles at low cost. If books are left over, those can be donated to less fortunate countries, non-profit education programs, or the school library.
Coffee Table Book
This fundraiser is always a success with pre-schools, elementary schools, and daycares because it’s a coffee table art book filled with works of art, photos of, or photos taken by children from the community. You know that parents, grandparents, and family members will want to get their hands on their own child’s artwork. Plus, this book almost always guarantees multiple sales to the same customer because it makes a wonderful keepsake gift for everyone in the family.
You can collect the art in the classroom or send a flyer home asking parents to submit one great piece of art or photo taken by their child. You can even ask parents to help their child write a biography that will appear alongside their art in the book.
Cookbooks
These are great books to give as gifts, especially around the holidays. A cookbook filled with a collection of favorite sweet breads, desserts, kid-friendly dishes, appetizers, school lunches, and more is a beautiful family heirloom that can be passed down from generation to generation.
The best thing about cookbook fundraising is that the book will most definitely feature a unique collection of family favorites from the community. A cookbook like this is a personalized treasure that everyone can use again and again.
You can collect recipes for a pre-school cookbook by asking parents or kids to bring in the recipe for a favorite dish. When putting together a cookbook, a theme is important. Take these for example:
- Holiday recipes
- Scrumptious desserts
- Comfort food
- Kid-friendly cooking
- Bake sale favorites
- Recess snacks
- Best bagged lunches
Publishing your Fundraising Book
Now that you’ve chosen a book to create, you will need to find a means to publish it. Seeing your book in print can be as easy as collecting the art, photos, stories or recipes, typing them out on the computer, and laminating the pages.
However, if you want a more professional design, you can use a printing company. Just be sure to do your research to compare prices, design options, and shipping costs.
Remember, you will want to keep the creation costs low if you are selling this book in hopes of making money for your charity. Some cheap publishing options are:
- Create the book in apple iBooks. This program lets you collect and organize your book in a template for publishing
- Almost everyone knows a graphic designer. Ask them to create your book and set you up with a discount printer
- Seek printing sponsorship from local businesses
- Approach a local printer and offer to let them advertise for free in your book if they do the printing for charity
Selling your Fundraising Book
Get some advertising out to the public early on. This can be as simple as sending a pamphlet home with kids so that parents are aware and eager for the book. Once they know their child will be featured, you can almost guarantee pre-orders as gifts.
This is why centering your book around a holiday is a great idea. If you collect personalized recipes, artwork, or stories parents will be more likely to buy a book just to see their child’s name in print.
