Cheese cakes, other bakery products and gourmet foods are very popular fundraiser items. They are easy to sell and well-received, and can turn a sizable profit with organizations often keeping as much as 60% of sales returns.
Bakery goods, such as cookies, pies, cheese cakes, cookie doughs, and gourmet food and baked-goods mixes, do well as fundraisers for a number of reasons:
– Products are highly consumable, and so do not last and can be sold again every year.
– Bakery products and mix programs usually require no upfront expenditures, and so they can be very manageable for a small or cash-poor organization.
– Consumers enjoy great quality bakery products in their own homes.
– Bakery products are convenient, yet needed items during the holidays.
– Profits may be made immediately available to fundraising groups, so there is no long-term turn around.
– When bakery product fundraisers are repeated annually at predictable times, buyers will come to rely on them and plan ahead to buy them.
The only real downside to fundraising with baked goods (excluding dry bakery mixes) is that the delivery and distribution of the foods can be tricky. Many gourmet foods (in particular cheese cakes, pies, and cookie doughs) are frozen and must remain frozen until they are used. That means that having people on hand for delivery from the company is a must, and fast distribution and/or storage of frozen goods is also needed. However, if these hurdles can be overcome (either by storing goods or having same-day pick-up), bakery fundraisers often prove to be very successful, repeatable money-makers.
In addition to fundraising with baked goods, ready-to-bake goods, and mixes, the bakery market can also be tapped by selling cookbooks. Personalized organization cookbooks can either be collated, published, and sold entirely by the fundraising organization, or a group can purchase pre-printed cookbooks and have the organization’s name printed on the cover. Cookbooks are often popular because they offer a unique set of recipes which can be revised yearly, profits are turned immediately, and sorting and handling is minimized as all items are the same.
Whether the choice is actual baked (or ready to bake) goods or simply the recipes to make them, fundraising with bakery products is usually met with great success. Baked goods are products that are consumed in practically every home and so the potential for outreach is vast. Consumers enjoy having great items with little or no fuss, making baked goods successful annual fundraisers; and any time a fundraiser can be repeated, life is made easier for the next crew of fundraising event organizers.