Why Limo Rides and Pizza Parties Help Fundraisers

A guide to adding a pizza party or limo ride to your fundraiser.

One of the best ways to increase sales is to add prize incentives. The main prize program will only do so much, so your goal is to raise your program's overall enthusiasm level. For instance, young sellers get excited about riding in a limo or going to a pizza party with their friends. As a result, many students compete for this special incentive by selling more than they would ordinarily. Adding a limo ride or a pizza party is a great way to add another exciting element to your fundraiser, so we highly encourage you to consider it. Plus, if you promote it effectively, you can more than make back your initial investment.

How to Make These Incentives Profitable

If you add a limo ride or pizza party to your prize program, your group will be responsible for paying for it. So you may be wondering if it makes financial sense. The short answer is yes.

Let's take the limo lunch, for example. Most schools that add a limo usually rent it for 2 hours; to make it exciting, lunch should also be considered. Renting a limo usually ranges between $60-100 per hour. Since most limos hold 8-10 people, you are looking at around $25.00 per seller on the high end. If you also incorporate lunch, you can add $3.00 per seller, depending on where you want to take them. Fast food establishments will work fine most of the time.

You'll want to recoup your expenses and make additional profit. You can do this by ensuring your sellers sell enough items to qualify.

Select a Qualification Method

Here are two different options to consider for accomplishing this goal:

1. The top 8-10 sellers get to go to lunch in a limo. The advantage of this approach is that you are guaranteed to fill the limo and take full advantage of your investment. The disadvantage to this method is that you haven't set a minimum number of items that must be sold to qualify. Thus it's possible to have sellers who sell less than you might expect to qualify.
2. Everyone who sells 35 items gets to go to lunch in a limo. The advantage of this approach is that everyone who qualifies has made you about $150 net profit, even after covering your limo and lunch expenses. The disadvantage is you might not fill your limo, depending on how many sellers reach 35 items. Or, you may have more than enough sellers who reach 35 items and thus have to end up shuttling your sellers or renting an additional limo. This is an excellent problem to have.

Regardless of your chosen method, remember that your goal is to maximize your sales by actively promoting your activity to your sellers.

Additional Fundraiser Tips

• Some organizations arrange to have the limo at the kickoff to help get their sellers excited.
• You can incorporate a limo ride or pizza party into your super party or splash party prize programs. If you choose to add a limo to either prize program, we'll provide a kickoff video with a limo scene.

See our brochure fundraisers.

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.