Car wash fundraisers are indeed great moneymakers. Well, why not kick this year’s car wash fundraiser up a notch with a couple of extra income earners? After all, you have a captured audience and are a business-minded person, right? You care about your children and want them to be successful and successful in all their activities, and you also know that the more money fundraising events generate, the less money dear mom and dad have to invest in the program. Let’s face it, kids are getting pretty expensive and anytime you can offset some of these costs, it makes sense, right? Here are some additional ideas to increase revenue for your annual car wash fundraiser.
HOT DOGS
If you choose to sell hot dogs, you will definitely have a captured audience. If you intend to feed your group, you must charge them at least fifty cents each to cover the costs; otherwise, they will eat 100 percent of your winnings. People get hungry washing cars and burn a lot of calories. If you offer free hotdogs to your washing machines and let’s say there are twenty of them, they will devour sixty hotdogs, three each. This may sound like fun, but not when you’re trying to make money for your group. If you charge for them, you’ll need an average of 1.5 hot dogs per washer and cover your costs. Find how many hot dogs you will sell and add 1.5 times the number of washing machines to this number. This will give you an approximation of the supplies needed. Remember to buy a little more buns than hot dogs, half a pack or so. Some people will want a hot dog without the bun and others will want the bun without the hot dog. Also, it will drop some or crush some buns and no one will want to eat them. Be careful when selling hot dogs. When your car wash gets crowded, you want people to stay in the cars, otherwise they will disappear into the hot dog area while your car blocks your production.
A hot dog stand must also have a parent if it is a group of children to manage the hot dogs and money. The children burn the sausages, cook them badly or give them away to their friends. They will also forget to turn off the propane on the barbecue. This will really screw up sales if you run out of propane. No one will want a cold or raw hot dog.
BAKE SALE
This is the hardest type of side activity to have at a car wash fundraiser. Try to find someone in your group who has had a successful bake sale before, one that actually made money and sold. If they’ve been through this a couple of times, you should use their experience and put them in charge. Ask them to host the separate bake sale event with different volunteers, money, etc. Give them a really good location and let them carry trays of treats to people in line or in the drying area. Do not allow sales in the washing area. If you allow people to get out of their cars to buy baked goods, ask them to leave their keys in the car. You will need an additional supervisor moving cars, watching hoses and people moving from the washing area to the drying area. This will allow customers to navigate the bake sale layout. It’s nice to have a bake sale and a hot dog stand. They work well because someone who wants a hot dog and a soda will want a brownie. Bake sale volunteers should be given the utmost courtesy so that tensions are kept low and everyone works as a team.
PANCAKE BREAKFAST
If your fundraiser is at a school or church with a cafeteria, you might consider a pancake breakfast. The most important thing to remember is to put your car keys away when people come in to eat. Then make sure there is enough parking for the cars that have been washed, otherwise they will pile up and the lot will be full.
MONEY
You should have the person in charge count the money with someone else so that if someone thinks money is missing, the exact amount can be verified. Keep donation can money, hot dog money, and car wash ticket money separate from customer money. Also keep the stack of tickets received from customers who attended your car wash fundraiser and a tally of the number of cars washed. Subtract the number of tickets received from the number of cars washed. Multiply that number by the price of the car wash for the day of the event. This should equal the total money made from car washes. In this way no one can accuse anyone of any wrongdoing.
Think about how you will host these additional revenue enhancement sales during your car wash fundraiser. As long as you have the volume, you should be ready to use any additional big-ticket items you sell this year; think about it
