How to Incorporate Product Fundraising Into Any Campaign

Product fundraising, or the act of providing some type of material token in exchange for a donation, is a classic fundraising idea that you’ve probably encountered in various contexts. Even if you’ve never hosted a product fundraiser before, you may have purchased a t-shirt from another organization, bought a chocolate bar from a kid to support their school, or otherwise supported worthy causes with your purchases. 

When you consider how your nonprofit can amplify your own fundraising efforts, product fundraisers can dramatically increase your ROI for various types of campaigns.

Especially in the wake of COVID-19, when we’re all trying to raise as much as possible to get our organizations back on track, amplifying fundraisers is more important than ever. To help, we’ll cover how you can incorporate product fundraising into a number of different types of fundraising campaigns to increase your potential revenue. We’ll discuss how these useful opportunities fit into: 

• Independent Campaigns
• Nonprofit Events
• Peer-to-Peer Fundraising
• Online Fundraisers
• Donor Appreciation

With a bit of creativity, product fundraising can play into many aspects of your mission, helping you strengthen supporter relationships, spread awareness for the cause, and grow revenue. Ready to learn how you can incorporate product fundraising into your larger strategies? Let’s get started. 

Independent Campaign

An independent campaign is a product fundraiser that your organization hosts separately from other fundraising activities. Instead of being a part of another campaign, it’s held on its own. Your organization will choose or design a product and sell it directly to your supporters either online or in-person. 

To host this campaign, your organization will need to choose the product you’ll sell. Schools often choose candy bars or coupon books, but often, other nonprofits choose a product that can be more easily branded to the organization and lasts longer than a year. For instance, t-shirts, face masks, hats, and mugs make for lasting product options. 

Then, organizations will sell these products either online, in-person, or both. When supporters purchase the goods online, your product fundraising platform should ship them directly to the supporter. If you sell in-person, you’ll need to order the product in bulk before conducting the fundraiser for an immediate exchange. With independent product fundraising campaigns, nonprofits usually allocate the money they raise to their annual funds, but you can always choose to allocate them to specific campaigns and projects instead. 

If this type of campaign sounds like an intriguing option for your nonprofit, make the most of it with these tips: 

• Brand the product to your organization. If you’re selling t-shirts or mugs, include a design that incorporates your logo, brand colors, and other elements into the design. If you’re selling chocolate bars or coupon books, you might include your logo on the wrappers and covers. 
• Explain the impact of the purchase. What’s better than buying high-quality merchandise? Buying it for a worthwhile cause. Explaining the impact of the purchase for your organization will make your products more appealing. For example, if you’re hosting this fundraiser to raise money for medical expenses at a dog shelter, communicating this cause will motivate your supporters to make their purchase, understanding that they’re making a difference. 
• Ship online purchases directly to supporters. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, all types of nonprofits shifted their services and fundraising efforts online. Product fundraisers are no different. Setting up an online store through your fundraising platform allows products to be shipped directly to buyers instead of making you the middleman. When products aren’t sent to your team to disperse, supporters will receive purchases faster and you can cut down on shipping expenses. 
• Look for low fees and no upfront expenses. While buying in bulk before your fundraiser allows you to sell in-person, if you don’t sell your target number of items, you run the risk of losing money. Selling online through a platform with no upfront expenses is ideal, and low payment processing fees will be the cherry on top. 

When you host an independent product fundraiser, one of the best ways that you can create some variety in the opportunity is by selling a range of products. If you want to sell t-shirts with matching dog tees, your animal-loving audience will flock to the campaign. Or, if you sell hats with sport tees, your athletic audience will come running. 

Nonprofit Events

You’re well aware of the importance of nonprofit fundraising events. They’re incredibly effective to raise money for various campaigns, but they’re also an important part of your donor stewardship strategy. Events are your opportunity to bring supporters together and instill a sense of community among those who support your cause. 

The products that sell the best at events are those that commemorate the event itself, acting as a lasting reminder of the good times supporters had with your organization. Generally, nonprofits turn to t-shirts as their product of choice because they provide plenty of versatility for event-specific or cause-specific design. Plus, when supporters wear their t-shirt for months and even years to come, they act as a walking billboard for your organization!

There are several ways that you can incorporate products into your fundraising events. Here are just a few options: 

• Provide an add-on option during registration. When supporters register for your event, give them an option to purchase merchandise as they sign up to attend. This taps into your supporters’ desire to get involved during the height of their engagement with your organization. Try offering a discount (10% off for early bird purchases!) to further convince your supporters to make their purchases ahead of time. 
• Include product merchandise in registrations. You’ll find that in a lot of sporting events like 5Ks or walk-a-thons, organizations include a t-shirt or product as a part of the registration itself. Build the product cost into the registration fee, and your supporters will feel like they’re getting a free perk for participating. 
• Sell product merchandise at the event itself. Set up a booth at your event to sell products in-person at your event. If you do this in addition to selling products as an add-on, you can decrease the amount of merchandise you’ll need to purchase in bulk upfront, while still offering products for your supporters who chose not to purchase merchandise during the registration process. 

If you want to maximize product sales, try offering a combination of these options for your next event. This is especially important to consider if your organization plans to host virtual or hybrid fundraising events. An at-home audience won’t be able to pick up merchandise at the event itself, but they can order it online and even sport their new apparel when attending event Zoom calls!

Peer-to-Peer Fundraising

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a type of campaign that allows your supporters to raise funds on your behalf. Similar to crowdfunding campaigns, it usually takes place largely on social media, as your supporters share the fundraising opportunity and ask their friends and family to contribute. However, with peer-to-peer fundraising, all of your supporters have their own fundraising pages that they share with their network of friends and family. The following image from this guide depicts this concept, clarifying the differences between these two types of campaign: 

These campaigns are especially effective when leading up to a special event that your organization hosts. It provides more marketing opportunities to encourage people to sign up for the event, helping you acquire additional funds. 

So how does product fundraising work in conjunction with a peer-to-peer campaign? 

Instead of asking your dedicated volunteer fundraisers to collect donations on your behalf, you’ll ask them to sell a product. 

The process is pretty simple and will look something like this: 

• Set a financial goal for your peer-to-peer fundraiser.
• Pick a platform that allows you to create a primary fundraising page for the campaign, sell merchandise, and collect donations.
• Recruit volunteers, asking them to sell products and collect donations on behalf of your organization. 
• Your volunteers will personalize their own fundraising pages. 
• Volunteers share the opportunity with their friends and family (usually via social media) to solicit donations.
• You’ll track the progress of the campaign, encourage your volunteers, and strive to reach your fundraising goal. 

While this type of campaign is an effective way to attract new supporters, don’t forget who the true heroes of your campaign are. The volunteers who reach out to solicit donations are the ones who truly deserve your praise. Give them the recognition they deserve and thank them thoroughly for their dedication to your cause. 

If you’re interested in running a product-based peer-to-peer campaign, we recommend using a platform like Bonfire who specializes in peer-to-peer t-shirt fundraising. We like Bonfire because their platform is free to use, there’s no inventory costs, they have a great selection of high-quality products, and you keep 100% of the profits of whatever you sell!

Online Fundraisers

Unless you’re a brand new organization, your nonprofit likely already has an online giving page  where you collect donations directly through your website. When you initially designed your organization’s website, you likely structured it to feature your donation page prominently to drive additional traffic there. 

These pages are fairly standard on fundraising websites, and converting donations on yours is one of your organization’s top priorities. This is usually where you capture new supporters, allowing you to grow your relationships with them and develop a strong fundraising program. 

Therefore, you should aim to get the most out of your online fundraising pages as possible, and including merchandise is one such way to do so. 

Which would you rather do: donate to a nonprofit or give the same amount and receive a free t-shirt in exchange? Probably the second option, and your supporters think the same way! To incorporate product fundraising in your online donation pages, consider the following options: 

• Offer products in exchange for donations of specific sizes. For example, offer supporters a face mask in exchange for a gift of $20, a t-shirt for $30, and both for $50.
• Sell products for specific campaign pages. If you have separate fundraising pages for different campaigns, you might offer different products depending on the program supported. For instance, if one campaign is designed to help you start a program to serve kids, you might incorporate child-like handwriting in your t-shirt design for that campaign. 
• Ask supporters to cover the processing fees associated with their purchase. Payment processing fees can quickly add up for your organization, but each supporter can pay slightly more to cover these costs. This allows your nonprofit to take home all proceeds. 

When you design your online fundraising page with a product, feature images of it front-and-center on the page. It should be eye-catching to encourage supporters to convert. 

Donor Appreciation

Donor appreciation isn’t necessarily a fundraising campaign. However, it does empower your organization to raise more in the long run. Appreciation is a key element of donor stewardship, which helps you develop relationships with your supporters and retain them for the long haul. 

One way you can work product fundraising into your organization's strategy is by including merchandise as a way to say “thank you” to your supporters. 

Whether someone is contributing their hard-earned funds or volunteering their time with your organization, they’ll love to have their hard work recognized. InitLive’s volunteer appreciation guide provides a number of ideas to say thank you to your supporters who volunteer their time for your organization, a whole category of which are appreciation gifts. They suggest you consider gift ideas such as: 

• T-shirts
• Books
• Goodie bags
• Face masks
• Meals

Retaining your supporters is much less expensive than trying to constantly replenish those who only give or volunteer one time. Appreciation is just the start. Use branded merchandise to say thank you and to open up conversations with supporters. Products can become a catalyst to a strong lifelong relationship. 

Product fundraising can easily be a standalone campaign or it can be attached to another fundraising opportunity hosted by your organization. Consider your nonprofit’s fundraising opportunities. Are there opportunities to expand on these campaigns to increase your return on investment with merchandise? Probably so! 

Think about your audience and the types of products they’d like to purchase in support of your mission. Then, work out how you’ll include those products in your next campaign. Good luck!