3 Ways to Help Prevent Late Fundraising Orders

How to ensure sellers meet your order due date.

You want to ensure you receive your merchandise back before the Christmas holidays so everyone can distribute their gifts to friends and family. The last thing you need is unhappy parents who must wait until after the first of the year to get their stuff.

The mistake that some sponsors make is waiting for late orders to come in before mailing off the rest of their order forms for processing. They end up making their entire order late because of a few stragglers.

So what would you do if you were in this situation? You wouldn’t have to deal with late orders in an ideal world. The goal is to push for the ideal as much as possible. Here are three ways to help keep you from dealing with late fundraising orders in the first place.

1. Have a Late Order Fundraising Policy

Often, sponsors get into trouble with mounting late orders because they don’t have a policy for handling them. In addition, they’re often too lenient or inconsistent, thus sending mixed signals to parents. Many don’t want to turn away late orders because:

• Even with small orders, they’re still turning away money.
• If they say no, they’ll have to deal with a disgruntled parent who must return the money to their customers.

Regardless, having a set policy will help you deal with these circumstances whenever they come up. We recommend waiting a week before sending in your order. This allows you time to collect any additional late orders and remaining money. Then, if you get any late orders after mailing in your order, you can fax or email them. We recommend not accepting any more late orders after that, no matter what.

2. Focus on Your Fundraiser End Date

Many sponsors make the mistake of not making a big enough deal about their end date during their sale. Announcements should be made about this daily. Having some countdown over the last 4-5 days and sending reminder notices home to parents will help. The more you focus on enforcing your end date, the less likely you’ll have to deal with late orders in the first place.

3. Don’t Make Exceptions for Some Sellers

Stay consistent with your policy. Once people see you’re willing to bend the rules, you’ll open the floodgate to more problems. There’s always going to be someone with an excuse. However, once people see that your late order policy is enforced, they’ll be more motivated to get their order forms turned in on time.

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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.