Bake sales are a great way to raise funds for charity, but there are a few things that you need to know before you start. Bake sales are hard work and in order for your sale to be a success, you need to be organized.
Organizing the Sale
Fund raising bake sales are a terrific way to make money for charity, but they are a lot of hard work. Members of your group need to be willing to put forth a great deal of effort to ensure the fundraiser is a success. Most people have a sweet tooth and are more than willing to part with their money for a homemade treat. First, you will need to select a leader for the fundraiser. This should be someone with great organizational skills. Her duties will include delegating responsibilities and organizing volunteers. She needs to be a people person and someone who can get people to do her biding without protest. Volunteers are needed to bake homemade goodies for the sale, seek out donations from local bakeries, set up tables, sell goods, handle publicity, collect money, package baked goods, decorate tables and clean up after the sale.
Your Market
Busy women are always looking for ways to cut their work load. Target this market when putting on a bake sale. These women will often pick up several weeks worth of treats and freeze them to use later. This market alone can bring in several hundred dollars. Another way to sell baked goods is to set up a table near a church on Sunday morning. When church is over and people stream from its doors, you’ll have a steady stream of customers. Along with the baked goods, be sure that you have some lemonade or juice for sale. Baked goods are sweet and cause thirst. This will also help you to raise extra funds.
Donations
It helps if baked goods are fresh. Recruit the bakers from your group and have a two day baking marathon. If your group doesn’t have a kitchen, ask a local church to donate theirs. Churches will often allow groups raising money for charity to have use of their kitchen without charge. If need be, donate a monetary gift for children’s Sunday school papers, or a missionary project. Once you have the kitchen, have members gather together to bake pies, cakes, cobblers, cookies, date and nut loaves, zucchini loaves, cupcakes, tarts, fudge, peanut brittle, candy apples, caramelized popcorn and other goodies. Have volunteers visit local bakeries and ask for donations of homemade bread, rolls, doughnuts and any other treats they’d like to offer.
Selling your Product
Ask a school in your area to help. Seek permission to set up tables in the gym every day for a week over the lunch hour and sell treats to children and their parents. If the school agrees, donate a few new books to the library, a piece of sports equipment or money to help with a school trip. Schools are always looking for money and this is an easy way for them to make a little. Both the school and your group will benefit from this type of agreement. Then, send a member to a local book store or sporting goods store to ask for donations that your group can give to the school. Ask a church to allow you to run a bake sale in their gym or basement on Friday night and Saturday. Set up nicely decorated tables. If your sale is near Christmas, Easter or some other holiday, decorate for the occasion. Use tablecloths in pastel or solid colors. Patterned tablecloths draw attention away from your product, which are the baked goods. If you wish, you can hang beautiful decorations from the ceiling or place them on walls. Be sure you have permission from the buildings caretaker to do this. Out of respect, take the decorations down when the sale is over and clean up after your organization. This will encourage the church to allow you to use their services again in the future.
Advertising
Make up a flyer telling all about your fundraiser and what charity is going to benefit from it. Ask someone you know that has a copy machine to make a donation of a few hundred copies. Distribute these in your neighborhood, ask stores to tape them on their doors, hand them out at food stores and have the school principal distribute them to all the children in the local school, so they can take them home for their parents to read.
Setting up the Sale
Arrange the tables in categories. Pies, cakes, cookies, squares and breads should all be placed on separate tables if you have the quantity to do so. This allows customers to easily find what they are looking for. Sales will be much higher if people can find what they are looking for at a glance.
Individual Servings
If you plan on selling to children or seniors, wrap baked goods in single servings. A child or senior will not buy a dozen cookies or an entire cake. They will be happy to be able to purchase individually wrapped products that are fairly priced.
More than Baked Goods
Don’t limit yourself to baked goods. Serve coffee, tea, water, soda and lemonade. Have a member of the group that has word processing knowledge produce a small cookbook with recipes donated by the members of your group. Keep the price under five dollars if possible. Create gift baskets and specially packaged goods that can be purchased to be given as gifts.
Prices
Keep your baked goods reasonably priced, while at the same time being certain that you are getting the price of the supplies. Though most of the items will be donated, you don’t want to set your prices too low. Yes, you will see everything, but when you have your next bake sale, people will look for very low prices. Be fair. Charge approximately the same amount as local stores would charge for the same products.
Success
All of these things combined will ensure your baked sale is a great success. Your customers will thank you for all the wonderful goodies and the charity you’ve chosen will thank you for a sizeable donation. Most all of all, make sure that all members of your group have a fun-filled experience and make your bake sale an annual event.