How to Properly Manage Fundraiser Late Orders

How to properly manage your late orders.

Every sponsor wants their sale to end smoothly. In a perfect world, everyone turns in their orders on the due date. Unfortunately, it usually never works out that way. You'll likely have to deal with late orders for fundraisers. Things happen, like students being absent on the due date or forgetting to turn in their orders.

As a result, many sponsors hold up their entire order for a few stragglers. This makes it unfair for those who turned in their order forms on time, and since people have already paid for their merchandise, you may get phone calls. Other sponsors mail their main orders on time but continue accepting late ones. Here's how you can adequately manage your late orders.

Enforce the End Date of your Fundraiser

Hopefully, starting with your kickoff meeting, you'll make a big deal about your order deadline date. This is where you want to create a sense of selling urgency. Students only have a limited time to sell to win prizes, so there are no more chances once the cutoff date is here.

You'll also want to continue to enforce your turn-in date throughout your sale. Use multiple forms of communication, like morning announcements to students, sending notes home to parents, and sharing them on social media. Call it a clever name your students can identify with, like 'money day'.

Announce a Late Order Cutoff Date

Even the most meticulous sponsors are bound to have late orders. We automatically anticipate this by giving sponsors an extra week after their sale is over to send in their order forms. This way, they can combine everything into one mailing to make it easier. Therefore, make sure everyone knows about the deadline for turning in late orders, but be careful not to announce it until the actual turn-in date has passed; otherwise, everyone will be late.

Stick to Your Late Order Fundraising Policy

It's easy to get caught up in continuing to accept fundraiser late orders over time. However, once you announce your policy, stick to it even if it means turning down orders. There's simply no excuse for turning in orders past the late order turn-in date. In most cases, these are minimal orders anyway. If you're consistent, you'll help yourself with future sales because everyone will know that you mean what you say. Once a parent has had to deal with the hassle of returning money to their supporters, they won't want to do it again. And if you've communicated your late order policy, they have no one to blame but themselves.

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Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.