Howdy!

Thank you for the opportunity to tell you why this fundraiser works.  We've looked into dozens of Fundraisers from other companies. Candy Bars, Cookie Dough, Flower Pots, Pizza-Coupons.  Do a search for Fundraiser and they pop up by the hundreds.  But almost every time, there's a catch in the fine print.  Either you have to pay hundreds of dollars up front to get over-priced products, or you end up biting the bullet because you couldn't sell enough for their "minimum purchase". Their programs might work for churches with dozens of sellers and thousands of members, but for small churches, families or youth groups, we just couldn't find any fundraisers worth the time you'd put into them.  (examples are below)

So when we thought about offering a fundraising program with our Name Meaning Gifts, we wanted to design a program that had ALL the important pieces to make a group comfortable and excited about selling these Name Gifts. If you're going to do a fundraiser, this is the one.

When we looked into the fine-print of other popular fundraisers, we identified these
top reasons that people are not satisfied:

They're Complicated.

There are hidden prices and fine-print catches.

It's a dull product (Candy, Cookie Dough, etc.)

They're Not Profitable.

Nothing is a bigger discouragement than trudging through a complicated program and then getting stuck with some fine-print fee in the fine print. And when it's for $2 Candy that you know customers can buy for 85¢ at the grocery store, it's hard to get excited for a measly 30% profit margin.  And when you find out that the 30% got eaten up with shipping or unsold product... it's just discouraging.

That's where our Fundraiser Program is different:

It's Simple. Easy to understand and easy to use. All the steps are explained right here on our website, and our Free Sales Package comes with simple Sales Forms and Full-Color Catalogs. Even a gradeschool child could offer the Name Gifts and complete the form. And if you ever need help, we take your call promptly and personally and get you the answers you need.

It's Honest. No Contracts, no Fine-Print, no Strings Attached and no "Catch" in the fine print.  Actually, there's no fine print, either!  All the details you need are right here on our site.  We're not out to make a quick buck at your expense. For 15 years, CrossTimber has operated with integrity, and when we advertise our Fundraiser Program, we are straightforward and honest. We genuinely want your group to succeed through our Fundraiser Program, and we're up-front about every aspect.  The only requirement is that you sell at least 20 plaques or mugs.

It's Eternal. There's no other way to say it. These Name Gifts are made to encourage others through a Christian understanding of the meaning of their name, and encouraging hand-chosen Bible verses to match. Not only can we support your Group through the Fundraiser Program, but your Group ministers to the people who purchase the plaques and coffee mugs. Name Meaning Gifts are encouraging and uplifting.  And they often open an opportunity for you to be a joyful blessing to your church, friends and community. 

It's Profitable.  You probably won't find any other program offers personalized gifts with such a high return, and with zero setup cost. Not only can your Group offer people encouraging, quality products at a great price, but you only need to sell 20 to earn $5 for every plaque or coffee mug that you sell. That's over $100.  If you sell to 20 families who each order 5 plaques, you make $500.  If you collect 60 orders of 5 plaques each, then you'd earn $1,500!  It doesn't come without effort, but with our Fundraiser Program, it comes with great reward, at no financial risk.

When we crunched the numbers for our Program, we decided that we wanted to be over-the-top-generous to the Groups that would be selling through our Program. As long as your Group sells at least 20 plaques or mugs, you earn $5 off of every item. No stair-stepped, percentage-based graph or chart to find out what you might make, or if you're going to make anything. And no startup costs, either!  Unlike other fundraiser programs, we don't hike up the price in order to make the program run, and we don't demand a penny for you to get started.  We won't undersell you, and we truely want to help you succeed.  Why?   For 10 years, God has blessed us with a great Ministry and Business through Name Meaning Gifts, and we want to pass along that blessing to others. We've put thousands of hours into the full-color designs for our mugs and plaques. We've put thousands more into setting up the business and website. Now, we want to expand the blessing of this business to others through our Fundraiser Program.

If you haven't already, read through our "How It Works" page.  Give us a call if you have any questions at all, (888-763-2646) or read our below reviews to see how our Fundraiser Program measures up to other programs from other companies.

 

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Pro's and Con's of Other Fundraisers:

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Company Review #1
Cookie-Dough Fundraiser

Pros:
Everybody likes Cookies.
10 flavors.
No Startup costs
Free Shipping, supposedly.  See "Scenario 3".
30% profit (supposedly) for 15 cases.  See "The Catch"

Cons:
Customers can get more cookies cheaper elsewhere.
Customers still have to bake.
You have to sell at least 120 tubs (15 cases) of cookie dough,
which means your Customers have to spend $1560 for your minimum order.

The Catch:
Here's the catch on this one: Each flavor of dough must be ordered by even cases of 8. And if you're selling 10 flavors, chances are that when your orders are all tallied up, most flavors won't round out to 8-packs.  For 120 tubs with 10 flavors in rounded-up cases of 8, chances are you'd end up buying an average of 35 to 45 more tubs than you need.  And you know there's going to be some guy who will order only 1 of the less-common flavors, leaving you to buy 7 to fill the rest of the 8-pack case.  According to the company, you'd make $390 profit, but those extra 35-57 tubs will cost you anywhere between $330 to $537!

Scenario 1:  Even if you were really good at organization to get your tally for each flavor closer to the 8-tubs-per-case, and only have to buy, for example, 2 or 3 extra tubs to round out each flavor to even cases of 8, that's still at least 20 more tubs than you sold, and you'd pay almost $200 out of your profit for them.  Even in this favorable scenario, you'd only make $300 for selling $1600 of their product.  That's only 19% profit; far less than the 30% profit they advertise.         If you were to sell $1600 worth of our NamePlaques, you'd get $620!

Scenario 2:   You sell 80 tubs of cookie dough for $1040 from your community.  Chances are, for 10 flavors, you'll end up needing 40 more tubs to round up each flavor to cases of 8.  Which adds up to an average of $364, which you would take out of your $312 profit.  If you do the math, you just spent $52 to do all this work.  But at least you have 40 tubs of cookie dough in your freezer.

Worse Case Scenario:  You're enthusiastic about the program, you don't read the fine print.  You do great and sell 10 of each flavor.  But now you need to round-up each flavor to cases of 8, which means you'd have to spend $546 on 60 cookie dough tubs you don't need, and don't have space for in the freezer.  So you call a few of your customers, and get them to change their flavors so that you can get closer to the cases-of-8 problem.  Some people will, some people won't, but after a few hours on the phone and deciding you could afford to buy 3 tubs for yourself to round out a case, you manage to get almost all the flavors rounded out to cases of 8.  Miraculously, you'll only have to up the order by 7 tubs to finish it out.  Finally, you're done, but you only have an order for 110 tubs. In the program's fine print, it says they will accept an order less than 120 tubs, but you'll get charged an additional $4.50 per case short of the minumum order.  You don't want to spend another $91 to get it up to 120, so you pay the extra costs.  Bottom line, you did all this work and you made $290, and have 10 tubs of cookie dough in your freezer.  Oh, and now you have to go deliver 100 tubs to customers.  Anyone remember who ordered what?     By the way, with our Fundraiser Program, the customer's name is already on the product.   *wink*    (they're Name Plaques.)

Conclusion: Unless you have dozens of volunteers planning to selling 100s of tubs for 1000s of dollars, you'll most likely get stuck with ordering a lot of extra tubs that eat away at your profit.

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Company Review #2
Brand-Name Candy Bars:

Pros:
Name-Brand, large candy bars.
A $2-sell is an easy-to-buy way to support cute kids at your door.
40% profit. (IF you sell all of them.)
Simple and easy to sell for grade-school kids.

Cons:
Supporters can buy the same candy cheaper at the supermarket.
After a few tastey bites, the candy is gone.
Just to get started, YOU have to pay $1168.20 for a 9-case minimum order.
Huge startup cost, and you have to sell 640 Candy Bars (nearly 60%) before you earn a dime.
And if you don't sell 60%, your sales-kids end up eating the profit.

The Catch:
Well, the $1168.20 is a problem.  Most groups don't have that kind of cash to risk on candy, (that's why they're doing a fundraiser) and with over 1000 candy bars to sell, you'll be doing a lot of walking, and a lot of selling.  One more obstacle is that the first 60% of the candy you sell (to regain that $1168.20) is going to be most popular flavors, leaving you with Wafer-Kits and Red Licorice Twisties to represent your profit-margin. 

Conclusion:  Simple, basic, but very pricey.  If you have the selling power to for all 1000+ candy-bar sales, consider the same effort put into our NamePlaques.  If you sold just 300 of them, you'd earn $1,500 in profit, with no start-up costs.

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Company Review #3
Generic Candy Bar Fundraisers:

Pros:
At only $1 a piece, it can be an easy sell.
Nice Display Box, for counter-top selling.
40% Profit (If you sell all 400 of them.)

Cons:
Not a major brand for candy bars, and they're tiny.
$250, 8-case minimum (at $25/case plus a hidden $50 s/h fee.)
You don't see a penny of profit until you sell 250 candy bars.

Conclusion:  For small groups, $250 is still a large chunk of change to risk on making $150.

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Company Review #4
Fruit & Flowers
"Fruit with A Peel"   

Pros
Cute name for their program.  "fruit with a peel"
30 to 40% profit, depending on what your Customers order.
Your Customers can order online or by catalog.
Product can be shipped Direct to Customer's home.

Cons:
The cheapest item is a flower for $30, or 10 oranges/grapefruit for $30+
Supporters could buy the same stuff for much less at the grocery store.

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Company Review #5
Pasta

Pros
No Startup Costs
Loads of cute noodle shapes.
40% profit
No minimum order.  Free Shipping
$10 Perk if you sell over $1000 worth of product.

Cons
Your Customers would pay $6.50 for a small 14oz bag.   Per ounce, that's 10-times more expensive than the 42oz box of spagetti noodles for $2 at the grocery store.  And in these hard times, cute-noodles will be harder to sell.

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Church-Website Referral Fundraisers

Pros:
No deliveries, no costs.

Cons:
Your Customers have to sign up on programs, credit cards, subscriptions, etc.
Customers end up paying more when they buy from brand-name high-end companies.
Anyone with an e-mail account has probably already had their fill of trial-offers, sign-ups and online subscriptions.

Conclusion:  It's a nice idea, but it looks like more of an advertising gimmick for high-end companies than a fundraiser program for churches.

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Our Fundraiser Program with Name Meaning Gifts

Pros:

It's Simple.   Easy to understand and easy to use, with great customer service.

It's Honest.   Our Program is straightforward and honest. No hidden fees, no contracts, no fine print, no start-up cost, no over-priced perishables, no *s after every promise, and no risk of losing money.  We genuinely want to help you succeed.

It's Worth it.   These personalized Name Gifts are not only cherished for years to come, they are an eternal investment of encouragement, through the researched Christian Meanings and hand-chosen Bible verses.  It's a product you can be excited to sell.

It's Profitable.  Sell 20 or more plaques or coffee mugs, and you get $5 per item.  Sell 100 plaques, you'll get $500.  Make a business of it and sell 100 plaques a month, and you'll get $6,000 a year!  We designed our program to make you successful, and to share this fantastic ministry and business through our encouraging Name Meaning Plaques and Coffee Mugs.

Cons:
There's a minimum order of 20 plaques.
You've had to read all the way down here before deciding to go with it.  (Click here to get started with a Free Sales Packet.)

Or Click here see how the program works, if you haven't already.

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Fundraiser Links: Information for above reviews was gathered as of March of 2009, and companies may change their web-page or the details of their program without notice.  If you'd like to check out their programs, here are a few that we've found.

http://www.fundraising.com/fundraising-products/sweetest-cookie-dough.aspx
http://www.school-fundraisers.com/cookiedough/index.html
http://www.efundraising.com/Hersheys-Fund-Raising.aspx
http://www.worldsfinestfundraising.com/?campaign/unrealadwords/&utm_source=adwords&utm_medium=PLM&utm_campaign=FR+-+General&utm_extra=dim2/Broad&utm_term=fundraiser+programs
http://www.lbg.org/DoorStep.html
http://www.funpastafundraising.com/pdf/2008-2009%20SummaryofBenefits.pdf
http://ourfreehelp.com/howitworks.php

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