Summer is over and school has started. Each year with the start of school there is a flurry of school related activities such, as band competitions and football games. These extracurricular activities always have a portion of their expenses for which they must generate funds.

To do this groups rely on many kinds of events including hosting dinners, car washes, hiring out for yard work and selling items to family, friends and members of the community. One item that typically has high appeal for selling to just about everyone is food products. Food products offered for sale by fundraisers range from cakes to pizza to popcorn.

An excellent item for fundraisers to sell is meat products. Meat products are used and enjoyed by most people. They have a wide appeal and make great fundraisers. Items like ground beef chubs, pork sausage chubs, summer sausage and snack sticks all work great for fundraising sales.

If you are interested in getting into fundraising sales, you must be proactive and search out groups that are potential customers to purchase your products and resell them as a fundraiser. Groups that get actively involved in fundraising include; school bands, sports teams, FFA, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, church groups and community organizations.

Develop a flyer and contact representatives of these groups with whom you can discuss your products. One of the nice things about fundraising is that you only need to sell your products once. After that you have many salesmen out there promoting your products to the end user. Offer only 2-4 items for fundraising sales. Choose items that can be sold at a price that is appealing to a large audience and still includes adequate profit for you and the fundraiser. Perhaps select products for which you already have a good reputation in your area.

Two-pound chubs of frozen ground beef or pork sausage make nice items to use for fundraising. You might also want to consider a box containing five 1-pound chubs of ground beef or pork sausage. I suggest not promoting a single 1-pound chub, as that is such a small unit that it becomes difficult for the fundraiser to realize much profit on a sale. I also suggest distributing it frozen rather than fresh. Do make sure your fundraiser has a way to keep the product frozen until it is distributed.

Snack sticks and summer sausage also make great fundraising items. Particularly around the holidays, summer sausage is very popular. You might consider offering a gift box that contains two sticks of summer sausage. If you manufacture the products as shelf stable items, the handling during distribution is not as challenging as it is with a refrigerated or frozen product. Additionally, I do strongly suggest that you get your fundraising partner to pre-sell the product and then manufacture just enough to fill their order.

It takes some effort to get set up in the fundraising business, but one of the nice features of fundraising is that often it presents the opportunity for repeat business as many groups have fundraising projects every year. It also can serve as excellent advertising for your business.

Remember: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is then not an act, but a habit.