Fundraising

Labor Day is now past and summer is closed, as the Son of Never Stops Eating might say.  The kids are all back at school, football games have started, the grocery store is stocking Halloween candy and soon the local malls will be putting up their Christmas decorations and advertising visits with Santa Claus, if they haven't started already.  This can mean only one thing for those of us with offspring still at home: It is now fundraiser season!

I have a intense dislike/hate relationship with fundraisers.  I get why fundraisers are necessary; I just don't like doing them.  I suspect I am not alone. Part of my dislike comes from the fact that I am horrible at asking people for money, and part of my dislike comes from the expectations of the fundraiser organizers as to who, exactly, I can hit up to buy rolls of wrapping paper, cookie dough, discount cards, or any of the myriad other fundraisers my kids have presented to me.

For example, the paperwork will often say something to the effect of "Sell to your relatives! Your neighbors! Your parents' co-workers! Your friends! People at church!" An entire network of people you know, just waiting for you to approach them about buying some candy or a magazine subscription!  In practice, it isn't that easy, at least not for our family, because we don't actually have that many relatives who are willing to fork over $15 for a box of greeting cards.

Sometimes, I would have the Teenager call the Grandpa and Grandma of No to present her sales pitch.  The Grandma of No has Alzheimer's and probably wouldn't be interested in wrapping paper, but Grandpa...it never hurts to ask, right?

Kid (calling grandparents...phone ringing...ringing...ringing)
Grandma: Hello, who is this?
Kid: It's your favorite granddaughter. Can I talk to Grandpa?
Grandma: Who?
(In the background you can hear Grandpa telling Grandma to give him the phone)
Kid: Hey, Grandpa, do you want to buy something from my school fundraiser?
Grandpa: What? Why would I want to do that? Isn't that why I pay taxes?
Kid: I dunno....Mom said to call you.
Grandpa:  Tell your mother I already contributed to enough fundraisers when she was in school!

Selling to the relatives doesn't always work out well.  The workplace has a no-solicitation policy, so scratch that potential pool of customers.  All of our friends also have kids that are selling the same exact things.  Eventually, what I am left with is one extremely small group of individuals who are willing to buy something: the people in my immediate household- meaning me.

The other problem with fundraisers, at least from the Mom of No point of view, is that we all know who is doing all the fundraising work and that person is Mom! I didn't really understand this until my daughter joined Girl Scouts.  People actually want Girl Scout cookies, so everything went smoothly until the order was picked up from the Cookie Mom.  All of a sudden, I had a room filled with boxes of Girl Scout cookies that had to be sorted and delivered.  The family mutt was eyeballing the cookie boxes with that look that said, "Yum! Delicious! Doggie treats!" It was imperative to get those cookies out of my sunroom and into the hands of eager cookie eaters.

First, though, I had to sort them, and figure out who ordered what, and how I could hunt them down to deliver their cookies, and then there was the one neighbor that would never answer the door, and the panic (always unrealized) that somehow the order had been recorded wrong and the customer would say "I didn't want these Samoas! I wanted Thin Mints! Where are my Thin Mints?"  The potential for error was quite unnerving.

Perhaps this is why I like the Band Parent Concession Stand Duty much more than the traditional fundraiser.  All I have to do is show up, make nachos or funnel cakes for four hours, and go home. On a slow night, I can even indulge in some band nachos (although if I eat them too late in the evening, I get heartburn; I have to be careful about the nacho eating).  I don't have to actively sell anything to anyone, collect any money from people who forgot that they ordered something, sort anything, deliver anything, or unsuccessfully hide food products from a terrier with an iron stomach and the ability to open doors.  I just have to make sure there's enough cheese on the nachos and keep track of who wanted jalapenos and who didn't.

Now I just need the Teenager to get her driver's license (no pressure) so that she can deliver her own Band Pies later this year, and my Mom Fundraising career will be even easier to manage.