If you’re unsure about how to plan a snack food fundraiser for your school, club, sports team, or other organization, start here! This step-by-step guide will help you plan your fundraiser from start to finish.
Three Stages of a Snack Fundraiser:
- Preparation
- Execution
- Follow-Up
Each of these stages has key steps, too, so let’s get started.
First: Prepare for Your Snack Food Fundraiser
Step 1: Make a Fundraising Proposal
If your snack fundraiser needs approval, start by making a brief proposal. A proposal lists what snack you’re selling for your fundraiser, a general budget (how much it will cost and how much money you want to make), and how long your snack food fundraiser will last. If you’re not sure if you need a more formal proposal, just check with your leader.
A proposal includes:
- A budget.
- Dates/timeline for the fundraiser.
- What snacks you’re selling. We recommend our delicious smoked meat sticks!
How to Create a Budget
The point of a budget: To make sure you can cover your start up expenses and still make enough to reach your fundraising goal.
The first step in creating a budget is to determine all your expenses. Add up the estimated costs of buying the snacks to sell, promotional materials, and any other expenses you know about ahead of time.
Then, figure out how much you can sell the snacks for. With Country Meats snack sticks, you buy each stick for $.75, with a minimum purchase of one case. You can sell the sticks for $1.50, doubling your profit. Make more money by selling them for $2, or bundle them to boost profits. You decide.
Step 2: Get Approval
Get written approval from your leader that your fundraiser is a go. This can be something as simple as signing off on your proposal or an email.
Step 3: Recruit Volunteers
Dedicated volunteers are very important to your success. Recruit volunteers from your organization or the community to handle all the parts of the fundraiser. You’ll need people to help with promotion, selling the snacks, and keeping track of the money.
Step 4: Choose Country Meats Smoked Meat Sticks as the Snack To Sell for Your Fundraiser!
We’ve been successful snack fundraising partners for 40 years! Our smoked pork snack sticks are delicious, affordable, convenient, and profitable. Plus, they’re protein-based, so they make an easy-to-sell on-the-go snack.
Second: Execute Your Snack Fundraiser
Step 1: Market & Promote
To raise awareness and excitement about your snack fundraiser, you’ll need effective marketing and promotion.
How To Promote a Fundraiser:
- Create promotional materials such as flyers, posters, and social media graphics. Country Meats has plenty of promo materials available on their community Facebook group!
- Have volunteers distribute flyers around the school and community.
- Use social media to spread the word and build hype.
Step 2: Prepare Sales Stations/Display Booths
Decide where you want to set up your sales stations/fundraising display booths. Get permission first if you want to sell outside of big box stores or local businesses. Community events and public locations (like a popular local park) are also good places to sell your fundraising snacks.
For a sales station/display booth, you’ll need:
- Tables
- Chairs
- Signage (like a poster or banner) for the sales stations. Signage should be bold and easy to read. It’s supposed to attract attention. We give you a Country Meats fundraiser banner for free with your order! Or, you can choose to make your own.
- Display boxes or attractive packaging for bundles.
Step 3: Get Cash Boxes & Card Readers
Have all your methods for collecting and securing payments ready to go before you start selling your fundraising snacks:
- Gather cash boxes or money bags for collecting cash.
- Get card readers (like a Square) for taking debit and credit cards.
- Download appropriate digital payment apps like Venmo or PayPal to make it easy for anyone to buy. But read our article that explains the pros and cons of digital payment apps before you use them!
- Use a tracking sheet to log each sale.
Step 4: Train Volunteers
Good volunteers make for a great fundraiser. Train yours on 1) how to approach customers 2) handle money and 3) answer questions about the fundraiser. Encourage volunteers to be enthusiastic and friendly while selling snacks.
Step 5: Get Out There and Sell! Sell! Sell!
- Arrive at the sales locations early to set up your display booths.
- Display snacks attractively to entice customers.
- Collect money and remember to keep track of each sale.
Third: Follow-Ups & Thank Yous
Once your snack fundraiser is over, it’s time to thank your supporters, volunteers, and whatever leaders and business locations were involved in helping you. Do this with traditional thank-you notes, special social media posts, or as mentions in newsletters or emails. Now it’s time to wrap-up your snack food fundraiser.
Step 1: Count and Record Proceeds
- Tally the money collected from sales.
- Record the amount earned. Compare it to your initial goal. How did you do?
Step 2: Evaluate the Snack Fundraiser
- Assess what went well and what could be improved, so you’ll know for the next fundraiser.
- Consider conducting a volunteer survey to help assess the fundraiser.
Step 3: Share the Results!
Announce the results of the snack fundraiser to your volunteers, members, and community. This can be as an actual announcement at the next meeting, or you can publish the results online, on social media, on the organization’s intranet, or in the newsletter.
Main Image Photo Credit: Hooligans Baseball Alaska LLC