What should you know about MLM Fundraising? Before we get too deep into that topic, let’s take a moment to define fundraising.
Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. ~ Wikipedia
Giving back is a good deed. It makes you feel good. It helps make the world a better place. It helps people in need. And, it can also benefit you and your business.
Just about every MLM Company in existence supports non-profit charities. A few examples include:
• Mary Kay® supports the Mary Kay Foundation®
• Isagenix supports Childhelp®
• Nu Skin® supports the Force for Good Foundation®
These are just the first few companies I looked up. Most MLM Companies donate a good amount of money to charities. In many cases, they even started the charity. Personally, I like that fact that most MLM Companies give back to these organizations.
Why You Should Consider MLM Fundraising
This post is not about MLM Companies. It’s about you, the distributor.
Using MLM Fundraising to help grow your business is a smart move. While many people will buy from you if you ask them to, if there is an additional “value added benefit” they will receive, even more people will buy from you.
When you do fundraising, it shows that you care about your community or the cause you are supporting. It shows you are a good person. It shows you have values. Not only will a good fundraiser help a local cause, it can also create an explosion of new sales and reps, if you do it the right way.
In the paragraphs below, I’m going to share 7 things you can do to use MLM Fundraising to grow your network marketing business. These ideas are listed in no particular order.
Top 10 MLM Fundraising Ideas
Here are several things you could do:
# 1: Donate Your Retail Profits
As you acquire new retail customers for your network marketing business, you can keep track of your retail sales and donate a portion of the profit of your sales to a charity of your choice.
Most companies have a 20%-50% wholesale-retail markup, so on an average $100 customer order, you would have somewhere between $20 and $50 in retail profit that you could donate. Not bad!
If you can find 20-30 loyal customers you could donate a significant amount of money to a charity. You could let new customers know that 50% of their first purchase gets donated to a specific charity (or whatever percentage you choose).
It’s important to tell your customers what you are doing. This will definitely help increase sales.
# 2: Donate a Percentage of Your Bonus Check
When you get paid your bonus check each month you could donate the entire bonus check amount (or a portion of it) to a charity of your choice.
Start out by donating a percentage of your check, say 10%, and send it to the charity you want to. As you start to make more money with your company, the amount you donate will increase drastically. Over the period of a year this could add up to a large donation.
Plus, make sure you let your prospects and new team members you are doing this.
# 3: Mini-Golf Tournament
You could have a small mini-golf tournament with your team. Charge a $10 or $20 entry fee. Whoever wins the tournament gets half the money and the other half gets donated to charity. Or, you could just give the winner a trophy and donate all of the money collected.
# 4: Sponsor a Youth Sports Team
You could find a youth sports team in your local community, either a baseball, soccer, football or basketball team (or any other sport) and sponsor that team.
For a good $1,000 to $2,000 you could sponsor a team and have a year’s worth of free advertising for your business. Your company name and your name would be on all the jerseys and maybe even on a sign on the sports field.
This creates goodwill with the parents of the kids on the team, and with your community.
It also lets people know about what you are doing. Just ask your MLM Company’s legal department first, to make sure it is okay.
# 5: 50-50 Raffle for Free Products
You could do a raffle for some cash and free products. You could donate a product of your choice. 50% of the proceeds collected and the free products would go to the winner. The other 50% of the money collected would get donated to a charity.
# 6: Team Volunteer Day
While this strategy doesn’t involve money, it does involve volunteer time. Get a bunch of team members together for a Saturday or Sunday and do something nice for your community. You could do Adopt a Highway, clean up a park, help people in need, work the soup kitchen, etc.
# 7: Donate Unused Inventory
If you have some old inventory, or a few products in inventory that are hard to sell, you could donate those items to the charity of your choice. Find a charity that plans on doing a silent auction. Depending upon what type of products your company offers you’re bound to find at least one charity that can benefit from it.
# 8: Have a Team Member Yard Sale
Another thing you could do is team together with a few of your local MLM Distributors and have a community yard sale. You could take the money collected and donate it to a charity. You could also give every person who stops at your yard sale a flyer or business card or drop card for your network marketing business.
# 9: Walk-a-Thon
Similar to a yard sale, you could team up with a few reps in your company and participate in a walk-a-thon. You could collect donations for the event. You could wear your company shirt during the walk. Each person who donates to your walk-a-thon event could receive a free sample or a free gift card from you on a future purchase.
# 10: Team Contest
This is one of my favorite MLM Fundraising Ideas. You could set aside a certain dollar amount, say $100 or $200, even more if you have a big team. You could then have a monthly team contest. Set the criteria, such as most people sponsored, rank advancements, most retail sales, etc. Give half the money to the winner and give the other half of the money to the winner’s charity of choice. This will help motivate a lot of your reps and help a good cause.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, MLM Fundraising is done by both MLM Companies and independent distributors.
You will quickly discover that most MLM Companies donate a portion of their proceeds to different charities. They understand the importance of giving back and supporting their local community. You will discover that many distributors do the same thing.
Personally, I believe it’s a good idea to donate to charities, especially charities that are close to your heart.
What are your thoughts? Do you have any MLM Fundraising Ideas that you would like to share with the rest of our community? What have you done in the past that worked for you? Leave a comment and let us know. I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks.
Chuck Holmes
20+ Year Network Marketing Professional
Top Earner & Top Recruiter
Email: mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
P.S. Learn how to grow a successful network marketing business. Secret tips, training, and practical ideas. Free training delivered by email.
I really like these ideas. They are all practical and helpful. I strongly believe in giving back and all of these ideas are solid ways to do that. I really appreciated the tip about wearing your company shirt at a race. It makes so much sense because you can promote yourself and do something good for the charity/community at the same time. I think everyone should give back. It is so rewarding and if you believe in karma, good things will come to you when you give unto others.
I agree that giving back is very important.
This was a great post Chuck. As humans, I believe God gave us a responsibility to help other humans. We do this with our abundance. With that being said I need to point out the other side.
Please look closely at the charities you are donating to. There are many in which very little goes to the main objective the charity describes. I have seen supposed charities that pay people that “work” for them outrageous sums and the actual humans who are supposed to be benefited only get 1% of 1%.
It is our responsibility to make sure who we are giving to is legit. Please make sure.
I agree that some charities have a very low payout and should be avoided.
I’m in Shaklee and I do fundraisers all the time. Sometimes I sponsor churches and local businesses into my Shaklee business to help them raise money. It works every time.
Good for you, Bonnie. What are your best tips for getting these organizations to join?
MLM can be used for fundraisers. We’ve done it at my church and with my son’s football team. In both cases we raised more than $1000 for each organization. You simply need to get creative.
That’s wonderful Karen. How did you do the fundraiser to make so much money?
Whenever I do a home party with my Mary Kay business, I donate 5% of the total sales to a different charity. I even let the people at the party help me pick the charity. In most home parties I sell between $1,000 and $2,000 worth of stuff, depending upon how many people are there, so we normally raise $50 to $100 per party. Over the course of a year, I probably contribute several thousand dollars worth of donations to different charities, just from my Mary Kay sales.
That’s really awesome Jeannie. It sounds like you are doing a great job with your Mary Kay business. Keep pressing forward and thanks for supporting your local charities.
I’ve been with Avon for many years and every year I give away 10% of my profits for my business to local charities. In most years, that is between $2000 and $4000. I always do this in December and it feels really good to know I am helping out charities in need, especially around the holiday season.
Lisa
That’s wonderful Lisa that you give back. I truly believe that what goes around comes around. Here’s to your continued success in your business.
There are a number of discussions about value on this site, and this article is a good example of opening up your MLM to augment your efforts to deliver value first. Supporting a worthy nonprofit organization or charity is a win/win direction to take. Some MLM’s actually partner with a nonprofit organization or charity by signing the organization up as a distributor and allowing them to keep profits that they generate. This relationship should be considered with a word of caution, however, because a legal gray area arises concerning a nonprofit organization making money. Should you venture into this kind of an arrangement, be diligent in learning all of the associated legalities and limitations.
Good points, Amy. If you’re thinking about doing MLM Fundraising, make sure you contact your company, and maybe even a lawyer first, do you don’t do anything wrong and wind up in hot water.
Chuck