How to Distribute a Bulk Cookie Dough Fundraiser Delivery

Plan for an easy delivery

Planning is vital because you will receive your Ultimate Cookie Dough order packed by flavor in cases of six tubs rather than according to the seller. Your primary goals are to:

1. Notify your participants once you know your delivery date. (Delivery time is not guaranteed.)
2. Recruit delivery volunteers.
3. Decide on your order distribution plan.
4. Communicate your plan to your participants.
5. Get 100% of your products distributed on delivery day.

We will schedule your delivery day about one week ahead of time. We cannot provide an estimated delivery time because of how LTL freight works. The delivery company determines the delivery route independently of the shipper. Sometimes, you can request a morning or afternoon delivery, and we will submit it to the shipper. Even then, there is no guarantee.

Notify Your Participants

Once you know your delivery date, send notices to your participants. Download our guidebook to find delivery day notice sheets. It won’t hurt to send these out more than once.

It is also a good idea to use other means to notify participants, such as automated phone messages, the school district website, and the school marquee. Put cookie dough delivery signs up in the front of the school.

Inform your participants that if they cannot pick up their order, they make necessary arrangements to have someone else pick it up. You will need to consider various options for storing cookie dough. One advantage to selling Ultimate Cookie Dough is that it’s shelf-stable, and you can store it at room temperature for up to 21 days at 72° F or below.

Suppose participants don’t pick up their order by a specified day and time. Some groups will notify participants that if they don’t pick up their order by the end of a specific delivery pickup period, then their order will be donated to ____________________________.

Consider assigning 3-4 volunteers to call people who have not picked up their cookie dough by a specific time. Consider initiating your delivery pickup reminder calls 30 minutes after school lets out.

How to Distribute Your Cookie Dough

Once you and the driver have performed a product inventory, sign any necessary paperwork and dismiss the driver. The next step is to decide how to distribute the cookie dough to your sellers to take home. There are two systems that you can choose from:

1. Cafeteria-Style
2. Pre-Sort

Cafeteria-Style

Using a cafeteria-style system, you will pack the orders as participants arrive to pick up their cookie dough. If you plan your delivery and distribution, follow the suggestions below, and are well organized, your participants will have a relatively short wait.

The advantage to the cafeteria-style is that you don’t have to pack each order ahead of time like with the pre-sort system. The disadvantage is that the participants must wait for their order to be processed and packed. What follows is how we recommend that you prepare for a cafeteria-style pickup.

Designate specific cookie dough stations by placing large ‘throw-a-way’ poster signs on the wall in a prominent centralized location (like the gym or cafeteria stage). For example, a sign that says ‘Chocolate Chip—1001’ would first be placed, then ‘Oatmeal Raisin—1002’, followed by ‘Snickerdoodle—1003’ and' Peanut Butter—1009’.

Bring the cookie dough cases in and sort and place the cases underneath each respective sign. Assign 1-5 helpers to each station to open a few cases and remove the cookie dough tubs. Once participants arrive, these helpers will also help distribute the tubs at their stations. Use the empty boxes that the tubs arrived in for students with larger orders.

PRO TIP: Sellers will need a way to take their orders home, especially if they have a lot of items. Ask participants to bring boxes for their orders. You can also approach local businesses, which may discard used boxes that they no longer need.

Have a greeting table and 1-2 greeters set up at the start point. Include the individual student order forms participants turned in at the end of the sale. Organize the order forms so your greeters can easily find the participants' names when requested.

Have greeters hand the order forms to designat­ed runners, who will then go to each cookie dough station and fill each order ac­cordingly. Designate a checkout table ready with volunteers and ask participants to wait there for their orders.

Once the runners fill an order, have them bring the order to the checkout table and call out the participant’s name. Have checkout volunteers ready at the checkout table to assist with the final handoff to the participant. The runner will then hand the participants their items and order form.

Before dismissing participants, have them proof their order with the checkout person and sign their name next to their name in your sales report. We recommend printing out the Seller’s Packed Items report found in the sponsor’s portal.

PRO TIP: Print out your sales report information before your delivery. You will receive access to your reports with your sales results information email. It may be a good idea to have a second checkout person look up the participants while the other person proofs the order, which will speed up the process.

Pre-Sort

If you use a pre-sort system, you will need to prepack each student’s order so that when your participants show up, they can pick up their orders and go. The advantage to using a Pre-Sort system is that your participants have little to no wait, and pickup will usually go relatively quickly. Of course, the disadvantage is that you must spend time packing each order beforehand. What follows is how we recommend that you prepare for a pre-sort pickup.

You will need plenty of boxes to pack participant orders. You can use the empty boxes for students who have larger orders. You can also approach local businesses, which may discard used boxes that they no longer need.

Bring the cookie dough cases to a prominent centralized location (like the gym or cafeteria stage) and sort them by flavor. Then, assign 1-2 helpers to each flavor to open the cases and remove the cookie dough tubs.

Use the Seller’s Packed Items report to pull the necessary cookie dough tubs to fill each student's order. Once picked, place each order alphabetically by last name and put a copy of each order form with its respective order. Don’t forget to label the outside of each box with each participant’s name along with any other needed information, such as the team leader or teacher’s name or room number.

Once people start arriving, have them provide you with the seller's last name and direct them to their order. Before dismissing them, have the seller proof their order with the checkout person and then sign their name next to their name on your Seller’s Packed Items report.

It may be a good idea to have a second checkout person look­ing up the seller’s name while the other person proofs the order, which may help speed up the process.

Some Additional Things You Should Know

Since we have to ship the cookie dough in whole cases (6 tubs/case) that we cannot break down, you will most likely receive extra cookie dough and be invoiced accordingly. Here are a few ideas on how to capitalize on the extra cookie dough:

1. Sell the extra cookie dough and make even more profit.
2. Use these extra tubs to fill late orders or replace damaged ones.
3. Incentivize willing sellers by offering a portion of the profit for each extra tub sold.
4. Offer them as sales awards.
5. Give them away as gifts.

Orders with more than 3-4 items may need a carrying box. You can use the case boxes that the cookie dough tubs arrive in for this purpose. You can also arrange to have smaller orders (3 items or less) sent home in bags.

Murphy’s Law states that if you tell your participants to show up anytime between, say, 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., they may all show up at the same time, causing a bottleneck. To avoid any bottlenecks from happening, consider asking people to show up in specific groups over time. For example, those with last names beginning with A-F show up at 2 p.m., G-L show up at 3 p.m., etc.

Even though you can store the cookie dough at room temperature for up to 21 days, we recommend that you plan to have a refrigerator or freezer to store any unclaimed dough.

Items to Have on Hand

1. Student Data Sheets & Order Forms
2. Sponsor’s Report
3. Have plenty of plastic carrying bags handy. You can use these for smaller orders (up to four cookie dough tubs) and can even ask people to bring their own.
4. It’s better to have too many empty boxes than not enough. Even though you will have empty boxes that you can use that the cookie dough tubs initially come in, having additional empty boxes is great for carrying home larger orders (5 or more cookie dough tubs). Either people can bring their empty boxes or you can make arrangements to have the boxes on hand already.
5. Throw-a-way poster signs for labeling the types of cookie dough for each station (Cafeteria Style).
6. Make ‘Cookie Dough Delivery Day’ signs in front of the school and main entrance promotion, etc.
7. Box Cutters
8. Pens, markers, highlighters
9. Packing tape

Advantages to pack by the case:

More Profit: It's a great way to make extra profit, and after all, this is your fundraiser! Sell them to your supporters—many will want a second or third item, especially once they've tried it! There will be others who you can still approach. If you want, you can sell them quickly by offering them at a fire-sale price. For a limited time, buy our tubs for only $20!

Less Hassle: Groups often need more items because a few participants turned in their orders late or forgot to turn them in at all. The extra items you receive with your pack-to-the-case order will help you cover that shortage, which will help avoid the prohibitive costs of refrigerated shipping for the items that you were short.

Get Your Free eBook

Receive your complimentary Your Kickoff Guidebook: Complete our 'Download Your Free Kickoff Guidebook' form to run your fundraiser ebook.