30-Second Fundraising Workshop Series: The Reject Gift Drive

(cont'd from Mar. 6th post) 

Here’s how the Reject Gift Drive works: Organizations solicit and collect unwanted, unopened gifts throughout the year.  (Note the phrase “throughout the year.”)

Random thoughts:

• Wedding and Valentine’s Day gifts can be particularly good auction items, in terms of monetary and/or entertainment value.
• It’s easiest to solicit unopened, unused gifts, but there are exceptions to this rule (see above).
• Encourage in-kind donations of all sizes. A lot of little reject gifts can be artfully displayed in the proverbial nonprofit auction basket (as in, “Italian Dinner in a Basket,” “Spa in a Basket,” etc.) encased in cellophane and adorned with a big bow.
• I find that this fundraising tactic works as a complement to more conventional fundraising, as opposed to a substitute for same. (Sometimes you collect great stuff; other times – not so much.)

Reject gifts can be used as auction items and raffle prizes.

To fundraise or not to fundraise?

That is the question confronting public school students and their parents...

What if parents channeled all their fundraising time and energy into organizing to demand that public education be publicly funded?

For organizing ideas, read my article in today's Crosscut.