Case Studies Marketing Ideas

How to Raise Funds with Custom Grocery Bags

As a Vice-Principal, administrator, or parent advisory board, you decide that this year’s

Fund-raising campaign must fulfill the following objectives:

  1. raise funds for the chosen cause
  2. inspire the community to participate
  3. educate the students and the community
  4. promote environmental sustainability

You’ve become aware that there is a movement to reduce the amount of plastic shopping bags being consumed in grocery stores these days. Thinking to yourself that there has to be some kind of eco tote bag on the market that is inexpensive, made with recycled material, potentially biodegradable, and that has a great imprint surface, you contact your favorite promotional products distributor who shows you a large variety of tote bag solutions.

In a school assembly, you advise the student body that you are using an eco-friendly grocery bag as a fundraising vehicle. The key is to arm each student in the school with 1 grocery bag that has the school logo on it along with an eco message. The students will be told that they are raising money by selling tote bags. Most importantly, the students will have to be educated on the perils of plastic shopping bags and non-reusable bags. Their goal will be to “educate” their parents, grand-parents, friends, and neighbors about why using eco-conscious/re-useable bags is so important. They will use the sample given by the school to show the effectiveness of the bags and talk about its eco-properties. By educating prospective buyers, the parents, grand-parents, friends, and neighbors will support the fundraising while at the same time helping to conserve and enrich our planet.

  • If each student sold a mere 5 reusable grocery bags, that’s 4000 advertising impressions on a reusable product that will be seen thousands of times!
  • If each student sold 10 reusable grocery bags, that’s 8000 advertising impressions on a reusable product that will be seen thousands of times!

Once all of the orders are tallied, the school places one master order (cost savings are incurred with higher volume orders) and the goods are delivered by the students. Your school message is forevermore advertised in the community and the fundraising campaign can be repeated yearly.

How to boost your sales:

To significantly boost student participation and sales, try providing incentive prizes for “all-star performers.” You can give away drawstring knapsacks to students who meet a pre-determined objective.

The result:

If done effectively, we have seen success stories in excess of 20,000 bags for one school!!!!!!

Good luck with the sales pitch!! Remember – we’ve all purchased chocolate coated almonds for at least $3 a package. It’s definitely not a far stretch to support a community school and the environment by purchasing a $4 or $5 reusable grocery bag!!!