Unity Church Marketing

Guestpost by Annalaura Brown

If you are a member of a church you no doubt need to do fundraising at least occasionally if not frequently. You need funds to pay for everything from a new building to mission trips. So how exactly do you jump start your church fundraising and make it as easy and painless as possible.

Here are 10 ideas to help you get your church fundraising going and make it profitable and worth your time.

1. Choose products you feel represent your values and which will make a reasonable profit for your church. Consider contacting some network marketing or home party reps about some great products you can sell.

2. Consider mixing up selling products along with events to fundraise. You may be even able to get a network marketing rep to agree to host a home party and donate a portion of his or her profits to your church.

3. Check into on going fundraising opportunities. Many network marketing reps with a fundraising program will make arrangements for a portion of repeat orders to go to your church in addition to the profits from the primary fundraiser.

4. Because of your non-profit status you may be even able to sell your products in heavy traffic areas such as outside in front of Wal-mart or a local grocery store.

5. Mix up the products you sell to include different kinds of items. Avoid always selling food items and mix up food with other items such as candles and kitchenware.

6. If you have a large church, it may pay for you to consider signing up to be a network marketing rep in the name of the church and focusing only on the fundraising part of the business. This gets you wholesale pricing and the profits can be enormous. Some companies will let you do this and others will not so you would need to do your homework on this part.

7. Encourage your members to ask around among their friends, family members and neighborhoods and see if they know anyone who offers fundraising programs.

8. Request information on several opportunities and compare them to each other. Vote on the programs with the members who will be participating.

9. Consider putting on a play or other musical event as a fundraiser. If you have a large church and enough talented people you can be very successful with this kind of a church fundraiser.

10. Set financial goals and know exactly how much money you need to raise and what it will be used for. Having goals ahead of time will make your church fundraising much easier.

AnnaLaura Brown is a fundraising expert who enjoys helping groups of all sizes raise the money they need. Learn more about church fundraising options at http://www.squidoo.com/churchfundraising

Request your free information packet on fundraising as well from AnnaLaura at http://www.profitwithfundraisers.com

We welcome your feedback at Unity Church Marketing. Or follow our tweets on Twitter at twitter.com/John_Panico

We think church can and should be more. We hope you do as well!