Fund Raising
North Carolina Fraser Fir Christmas Trees are a fabulous way to raise money for nonprofit organizations for several reasons:
1. Huge profits compared to other fundraisers. The Boy Scout district in Birmingham, Alabama raises over $100,000 dollars each year for scouting through their Christmas Tree Sales. There are few fundraisers that over time can raise this amount of money. The key is to get started and watch the funds grow over the years as you sell excellent trees and get a reputation for quality.
2. No overhead or expenses. Often the sales lot and labor are free and these are big expenses on a tree lot that impact the bottom line.
3. Lots of potential customers. Nonprofit organizations often have lots of people who are associated with them and want to support them and are very willing and inclined to buy from them. You can often sign people up to buy a tree even before the trees arrive.
4. No taxes. You have to love this.
Now! How do you do it?
Step one- Meet with and get a committment from the leaders of your organization to take this fundraising project on. Get a committment from each person in your leadership to work hard to make this a success. You can not do this alone. After your leadership commits then put each person in charge of certain elements of your fundraiser( pre-sell, advertising, tree and wreath ordering, lot set up, volunteer manager, etc.)
As a Committe decide which fundraising option you are going to pursue. Here are the choices;
1. Sell Trees and Wreaths or Wreaths only
2. Run a full blown lot like many civic, church and Boy Scout organizations do. Primarily open evenings and then all weekend or just weekends. All members of the organization are scheduled to work the lot with their families(great group building time). Get people to pre-buy wreaths and trees( we have a Soccer team in Atlanta that presells over 150 trees sight unseen and distributes them in two hours) or at least get a commitment that they will look at your trees first. You will have the best trees and the sale is pretty sure if they are going to buy a tree. Run the lot for only 1 or 2 weeks let people know that they need to buy their trees early.
3. Do a pre-sell fundraiser for trees and wreaths partnering with another organization. Example: hook up with a large Realtor with 50 or more agents if you have such an organization in your town or even the realtor board. Have the agents buy trees and wreaths as thank you’s to customers that have bought houses from them. Sell them the trees at retail and use the mark up for a humanitarian cause that your club, Realtors and customers want to support. Customers bring gifts when they pick up their tree on a Saturday morning first Saturday in DEC. and gifts are given to needy families and children. Ray Bergy has done this very successfully with his reality company and sold three hundred wreath and three hundred trees having just done it two years. It takes time to grow these events into huge numbers.
4. Another option is to get a large number of nonprofits together and they sell North Carolina Fraser Fir Christmas Trees to all their constituents and then share the income among all the organizations.
Example of one of the options:
We have a football coach fundraising for athletics and he pre-selling Fraser Fir wreaths and Christmas Trees at football games. They have not done it yet but they could have tree and wreath samples which they set up by the concession stand with great advertising to sell and to support the team. Fraser Firs are pre-sold for full price and are delivered during one morning. They often pick the trees up unwrapped sometimes the trees are set up in a tree lot fashion for only one morning and you can select your prepaid for tree.
Figure out which way you want to go. Most people start out with 100 to 200 Fraser Fir Christmas trees and lots of pre-sold Fraser Fir wreaths and build it up significantly over the years.
Step 2 - Get your organization behind you and your committee. Get a comittment from members and if possible family members to work the lots and sell Fraser Firs to their friends and neighbors. Get them to work up their own personal lists of people they think are a very good possibility as a sales prospect.
Step 3 - Pre-sell and get pre-committments to look at your Fraser Fir trees first.
Step 4 - Set up your sales area depending on whether you are going to do classic Christmas Tree sales or whether you are going to have a one day pick up event. If you are going to do a classic christmas tree lot we can consult with you on how to set that up and on all aspects of retailing trees and wreaths. We have had fifteen years in retailing in the Virginia Beach, Va. area before we started strictly selling Fraser Fir Christmas Trees wholesale.
Step 5- Stay in it for the long term the bigger money is raised after several years of building the fundraisers popularity. Coop other groups to help you make it bigger and better.
Step 6-Make it a Fundraiser to Remember. A great draw is to do a drive through Christmas Light Show, these are done around the country and are huge and draw lots of people to your sale. Other ideas are a live nativity, petting zoo, Santa Claus, Ms Claus, elves, use your imagination. Consider selling pumpkins in the fall and Mums and Lillies in the Spring as additional fundraisers to build your base of people helping your organization do great humanitarian things.
Step 7 - This will only be successful if everybody is involved and it will be much eaier.
Step 8 There are things that you need to set up a tree lot. You can choose to go barebones or elaborate. Most folks go somewhere in between. Here is a list of things that are necessary and optional.
1. Lights-Best lights are 100′ strings of work and safety lights(buy at local electrical supply store) that can be hung from 12 foot 4×4’s that are put around the lot if on a grass area. If on pavement spot lights or work lights can be used, can build stands for light poles and hold them down with sand bags, even the parking lot lights can be used but it is good to have additional lights.
2. Display supports: There are many options here. The cheapest is 3/4 rebar pounded into a grass lot. The normal lot displays around 80 trees at a time though you can do much more and much less. Wood saw horse type supports can be used thta you lean the trees on. Both of these are relatively inexpensive.
A more expensive but better option are metal racks that are 5×5 feet with pins on each corner where you place the tree This system requires a stand straigh drill press cost around $550. Instead of the 5×5 racks you can use stand straight stand stands, $9/stand, to display the trees and then you sell the tree with a stand($18 retail for stand). This works good except is ground is uneven or if there is a lot of wind in your area.
3. Chair saw electric or gas to put a fresh cut on tree. Tree must be placed in water within a couple hours otherwise a new fresh cut is required to hydrate the tree.
4. Shade structure and water to keep inventory fresh. Water is not absolutely necessary but excellent to have.
Optional but good to have items are:
1. Manual tree netter- puts netting around tree for easy transport. Cost $300, netting 5 cents per tree.
2. Signs- advertising lot
3. price tags- so you can price tree individually
4. String to tie trees on car. Better to let customers take liabilithy for tying trees on car but provide string
5. Accessories to sell: wreaths, roping and stands. These are the main sellers it is rare that you can make money off other items the first year out. There is a lot of competition from many stores. Though your group may make money on food, crafts and unique items especially for a fund raiser.
CHRISTMAS TREE LOT ACCESSORIES, STANDS, LOT BALERS, WREATH ACCESSORIES, LIGHTS BANNERS: www.kelcomaine.com, www.pursellmfg.com, and our favorite local supplier Fraser Knoll at http://www.fraserknoll.com/Web%20Page%20-%20Catalog%20Listing.htm
