Magazine Fundraisers

Most of us have been subjected at one time or another to those college students knocking on our doors at dinner time claiming to be selling magazines to pay for their education, but in spite of the bad name it got from those unethical practices, magazine fundraisers are being utilized by many reputable organizations. For example, in some areas Girls Scouts of America use magazine fundraising to generate initial funds for the troops as the new season begins. This QSP fundraiser as they call it helps with the first camping and badge efforts, before kicking off the major cookie sales in the early winter. Magazine fundraising for schools has begun to replace the candy, cookies, and other low-end type products that were once a part of the early fall and spring fundraisers. It many areas this is the result of concentrated efforts to prevent children from knocking on doors because of some previous violence. The magazine fundraiser makes it easier for the children to approach people they know because everyone reads at least one magazine on a regular basis. Even if someone's subscription is still good, they can renew and still help the students with their fundraising efforts.

In order to know if the efforts are paying off, one must appoint someone to be in charge of fund raising management for magazine subscription sales. Failing to do that will prevent you from knowing exactly how well your efforts have paid off, especially since sometimes a magazine subscription fundraiser includes forms for the purchaser to send directly to the company. This means the organization has no way of knowing how much money was actually raised until students turn in their forms at the close of the fundraiser. With management in place, someone can oversee the efforts of the students during the fundraising effort, and keep a running total of how well it is going. It will be a big plus if during the fundraising, magazine sales totals can be estimated, in order to allow the organization to decide if they may wish to extend the effort in order to draw in more sales.

Magazine fundraisers for Christian schools are becoming more popular as they attempt to compete with the efforts of the public school sector. With some of the public schools rallying away from candy and cookies and leaning toward magazines and other fundraising efforts, the Christian schools are in line to compete, or at least to attempt to break even in the amount of money they raise in an individual effort.