Fundraising with a Cookie Dough Fundraiser

by Deane Brengle, Editor of the Fundraising for Small Groups Newsletter

A cookie dough fundraiser is popular with many fundraising groups:

Everybody eats cookies.
It's offered in lots of delicious flavors.
Sales prices are reasonable.
There's low risk to the group with a presale fundraiser.
Easy to sell.
Highly profitable fundraiser.

This booklet is designed to get you acquainted with cookie dough fundraising if you haven't done it before. If you are already doing a cookie dough fundraiser this booklet will help you discover the latest offerings, ideas, tips, and hints in making your cookie dough fundraising even more successful.

Overview of a Cookie Dough Fundraiser

Cookie dough is sold to parents, relatives, friends, supporters, and the general public by way of an order form supplied by a fundraising supplier. Orders are taken over roughly a two week period for specific dough flavors. At the end of the sale period order forms are tallied and the cookie dough is ordered. About two weeks later your cookie dough is delivered and you distribute the dough to your buyers. The dough can be refrigerated for weeks and frozen for months (exact lengths vary with each supplier).

All cookie dough suppliers offer frozen dough in several different flavors. Tub sizes and price points vary among suppliers. Some fundraising distributors offer more than one manufacturer, brand, brochure, or program. You may also find cookie dough included in a brochure along with snack items, cheesecakes, pretzels, drinks, and more.

And there is a new kid on the block- dry mix cookie dough. These dry mix cookie dough products ship and store easy and they are price competitive.

Points to compare among different programs:

The items in the catalog - are they suitable for the group you are selling to?
Final selling price points.
Percentage of profit you will make (based on your projected sales).
Any difference in shipping.
Prize program availability and cost.

Potential Income for Cookie Dough Fundraising

Generally speaking, you can make between 30-55% profit on a cookie dough sale.

There are some variables that will determine your bottom line. The most important is how many tubs/cartons you will sell. Some suppliers offer free shipping on all orders (with a minimum order amount) and others have a case minimum before free shipping kicks in. Most all suppliers charge less per tub as the size of your order increases (increasing your profit). The best way to figure out what you will make from a sale is to talk to each company and have them help you calculate how much your group will sell and what your profit will be.

Other things will affect your profit so be sure and ask about them:

Cost of the brochure/order forms
Cost of the money collection envelopes if you need them
Availability/cost of computer reports if you need them (sales totals by student and/or teacher)
Availability/cost of distribution sheets for each seller if you need them
Availability/cost of prize programs if you need one (can add or deduct 3-5% of the total)
Do they use pack-to-the-case - rounding each cookie dough flavor up to a full master case (usually 6 tubs)?

Most cookie dough suppliers recommend you have a minimum of 30-50 sellers to make your program successful.

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The Complexity a Cookie Dough Fundraiser

This fundraiser is pretty straight forward, but there are several questions you should ask yourself:

Pre Pay or Post Pay- pre pay is when your customers pay when they order. Post pay is when your customers pay when they receive the product. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. The general thinking is that pre pay sales generate less sales volume. But post pay sales generate losses when customers can't be reached or don't pay. Before you decide which way to go make sure you ask your cookie dough supplier. Many only do prepay. Others have strict rules for post pay.
Scheduling- once you determine you want to do a cookie dough sale, it will take about one week to get your brochures, two weeks to hold your sale, one week to total your sales (and get late orders) and two weeks to get your cookie dough delivered and distributed. That's six weeks start to finish at a minimum.
Facilities- most cookie dough suppliers recommend you have access to refrigerator/freezer space. They recommend a commercial unit like the one at your school cafeteria, restaurant, or grocery store. If you organize your dough distribution efficiently, you will only need it as a back up for orders that aren't picked up. Suppliers also sometimes recommend a commercial height loading dock to simplify unloading. These things aren't a big deal and can usually be arranged for the asking.

Conclusion

A cookie dough fundraiser is a very simple, no hassle fundraising system. With a good tasting easy sell product, no risk presell options, and great profit percentages, successful fundraising doesn’t get much easier than this.

Recommended Cookie Dough Fundraising Supplier
I've taken the time to carefully review all the suppliers that provide cookie dough fundraising programs and I am recommending JustFundraising.com.

Frozen

They offer 4 different frozen cookie dough fundraising programs using brochures to sell cookie dough. Choose from:

2 different scoop and bake brochures. Both the 6 and 10 flavor brochure make my mouth water just looking at them.
Pre-portioned ready to bake with 12 different cookie flavors.
Or a desert brochure with gourmet cookie dough, home-style pie, hand twisted pretzels, sinfully delicious cheesecakes, gourmet coffee and more.

All 4 programs offer free shipping, free brochures and up to 56% profit.

Dry Mix

6 flavors made natural ingredients. With a dry mix cookie dough all you add is eggs and butter. And no problems with keeping it frozen while you deliver it to your customers.

With only a 1 case minimum order, this is the perfect fundraiser for smaller groups with 1-10 members.

Find out more about JustFundraising Cookie Dough Fundraisers. Get a free information package on cookie dough fundraising.