Do you buy things from youth organizations or just donate?
May 1st, 2008 | by mbhunter |If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
My wife and I are munching on some popcorn that I bought from one of my colleagues, whose son is in the Boy Scouts. The quality of the popcorn is fine. The bags don’t open quite as easily as other commercial microwave brands. A variety 30-pack of these was $30, which works out to one dollar per bag. (I did that one in my head.)
A buck for a bag of microwave popcorn borders on highway robbery, especially when I can get one for 60 cents out of a vending machine. But I expect to pay through the nose for fundraising stuff, because a good chunk of it goes back to the Boy Scouts.
But not all of it. Some of it goes to pay for the popcorn itself, and all of the middlemen in between.
I remember selling all kinds of stuff when I was young for my music groups: nuts, wrapping paper, candy bars, etc. Some guy came in with the Motivational Speech and got us All Excited about selling this stuff. There were Great Prizes for the top sellers. Of course, the real reason for this pitch was because he got a commission on the total sales volume, and the better he got us pumped up, the more money he made.
There was a lot of markup on this stuff: $3.50 or $4.00 for one roll of wrapping paper in the late 1980s. (Apparently the prospect of meeting thousands of apathetic teenagers wasn’t enough to keep the sales force; they had to have a large commission pool.) People definitely don’t buy this for the value; they buy it because they want to help out the organizations I was in. Help them out because budgets were limited, and because there’s nothing better to build up a child’s leadership skills than to push overpriced junk to family, friends, and neighbors who already paid hefty local taxes to pay for the school programs that had the limited budgets. (It all makes perfect sense, really.)
So, if you couldn’t already tell that the stuff your neighbor’s kid was selling you is overpriced, now you know why.
Anyway, there is a more cost-effective way to donate to a youth organization (actually a couple):
- Pull out your wallet and hand the kid some cash.
- Pull out your checkbook and write out a check to the student’s organization if they seem just a bit too eager to take your cash.
No fuss, no muss. No unwanted merchandise. And every penny goes to help the student’s activity.
If you help out kids, do you buy stuff or just donate?
19 Responses to “Do you buy things from youth organizations or just donate?”
By L@SpillingBuckets on May 1, 2008 | Reply
I was in the girl scouts for many years and sold cookies. They cost about $2.50 a box (when I did it, $3 now) but the troop only got about 10c - 20c per box.
I like the cookies so I still buy them, but I would much rather donate directly to my local troop so I know they are getting all the money.
By The Family CEO on May 1, 2008 | Reply
Good question. I would prefer to donate too. (Except when it comes to Girl Scout cookies! I want the cookies!)
I often find, however, that the person doing the selling is confused by that offer and isn’t sure how to go about it. Sometimes it’s just easier for them if I buy what they’re selling.
By mbhunter on May 1, 2008 | Reply
I have a soft spot for the Girl Scout Cookies too. Mmmmm … samoas.
I think this year the cost was $3.50 and the troop kept 60 cents of that.
By Aryn on May 1, 2008 | Reply
In the past, a local newspaper would send kids around to sell subscriptions to support an at-risk youth organization. They always had an adult with them, so I asked the adult how much they got for each subscription. They couldn’t take the check right there, so I got their address and the kid’s sales ID number so he got credit, then mailed them a check for the amount they would have received from the newspaper.
By philip on May 1, 2008 | Reply
I have considered this quite a bit recently, but it is difficult to give to the organization compared buying the stuff from the kid. Also, the kid is usually selling to try to get some prize or whatever the competition.
If there were a simple way to directly donate a small amound that could easily split to the youth selling and the item that would be ideal.
Now that I think about it when I was in church youth we sold “Bonds” I think it was, basically we just asked people for a donation, after our trip we put together a presentation of what we did and they got a spaghetti dinner out of it. At the time I felt bad asking directly for money, now I see that I would rather do that than get some junk and pay a middle man for it.
By Richard @ StudentScrooge on May 1, 2008 | Reply
When I was little, I, too, sold stuff like this — magazines for school, Christmas wreathes for Cub Scouts.
I will say, though, that I usually don’t purchase from fund raisers to help organizations — I purchase to support the kids.
You’re absolutely right that in many cases these organizations don’t get a tremendous amount of money back for the goods. But most of these fund raising drives do such a good job of creating an incentive structure to drive kids that I feel bad depriving a kid of that sale. To the kid, they feel involved in their organization and feel as if they are helping out (for my Cub Scout troop, it was a pretty important fund raiser) — and they just don’t get that same satisfaction if I try to give them a $20. At least in my book, in many cases the satisfaction the kid gets makes up for any wasted money on my part.
If I really want to support the organization, I’ll buy a box of cookies or a wreath or something, but separately will try to make a direct donation to the organization. Its sometimes quite a bit of trouble to go through, and I’ll be honest that I don’t follow through in the way I always intend to, but thats my plan at least…
By Jen on May 1, 2008 | Reply
I love to buy Girl Scout cookies, which I sold as a child, preteen, and teen. I never buy the Boy Scout stuff, though, because the BSA has terrible discrimination policies, yet for some reason still get government money. In general, I am just glad there aren’t many children selling in my neighborhood.
By SavetotheFuture on May 2, 2008 | Reply
I hated the organizations that came to my school and used us to sell their products. What better way for this groups to make money than to use the kids as cheap sales force. The kids don’t know any better and the adults they sell the products to by them BECAUSE of the kids.
By Funny about Money on May 2, 2008 | Reply
In general I feel it’s exploitive to send kids out to hustle up money. Personally, I not much of a sweets-eater, so if I buy Girl Scout cookies they get thrown away or, at best, they join the jillion other boxes of GS cookies being handed around the office by other buyers who want to get rid of them.
There’s a lot about Boy Scouts that I’ve come to dislike, starting with my son’s experiences. He and his troopmates narrowly escaped being killed when the Scout leaders they were with let them set a fire under a tree and then marched off without extinguishing it properly. They literally had to outrun the resulting forest fire and were very fortunate to escape with their lives. BSA had to pay the Forest Service for the damages caused. This was not the only moronic behavior I witnessed among these “leaders,” behavior only underscored by the group’s discriminatory and obnoxious policies.
And just to reinforce what a Scrooge I am: truth to tell, I resent being panhandled, whether it’s by a cute little kid or a scruffy drug addict. Panhandling is panhandling. It’s a nuisance.
By Roman on May 3, 2008 | Reply
I just donate, it makes me feel more confident that the money ends up where it is suppose to. Plus, the organization i donate to spread the money over several other party’s to its like i am donating to several good causes.
By appfunds on May 4, 2008 | Reply
It`s much more educational for them to buy evenif it is a really useless thing.
By tracy ho on May 4, 2008 | Reply
For me I will donate & help to spread around my colleague to boost up their confident for fund rising purposes
Tracy ho
wisdomgettingloaded
By Tim on May 4, 2008 | Reply
I prefer to just donate the money. I don’t like getting cornered at work to pay through the nose for things I dont really need: popcorn, candy, wrapping paper, flowers, etc.
I’d rather just hand the person a check and see 100% of the money go to the organization rather than part of it buying a product that is not going to be used. The problem is that most people look confused when I want to take this route. During these fundraisers where products are expected to be sold, there doesn’t seem to be an appropriate avenue to just collect cash also.
By guinness416 on May 4, 2008 | Reply
In most cases I take the chocolate/whatever, because I’m usually dealing with a harassed and slightly desperate looking friend or colleague, who just wants the crap out of their home more than the funds raised. Mostly we’re talking about clubs and groups that I would never give to otherwise, so I don’t offer a cheque, I save that for causes that are meaningful to me.
By Mike on May 6, 2008 | Reply
Maybe it’s just me but it seems kind of scummy to make kids into salesmen… I usually don’t buy that stuff. I’d prefer to donate the money to a good cause - and I know local schools are in need, but there are other people in more dire need elsewhere.
By TJ on May 6, 2008 | Reply
Some of you are missing the point. It is not just about the money. You are building more than money for the organization. You are building these kids self esteem. You think putting a check in thier hands gets them excited? No.. It is about getting the sales, which does lead to making money for the organization, but also aids these kids to teach them about responsibility. Also I can tell you first hand, if you send these kids out just asking for a handout, they do not make as much money for the organization. It is easier for people to say no when it is just a handout. My wife was the PTA president at my kids school. They did a fund raiser where they just asked each family to donate to the cause. They brought in about $1200. Later that year they sold products for a fund raiser and brought in over $4000 in actual cash to help the school. People are more willing to give money for overpriced junk than to just give. Also again it makes these kids feel they really achieved something to get a prize for thier efforts. And if someone makes a buck in the process, well it is America folks. That is what we do best.
By Firenze Jewels on May 6, 2008 | Reply
What I hate the most is when corporations try to get me as a CONSUMER of their products to donate. If I’m going to give money, I don’t want them to take credit for “collecting” it.
By GRBerry on May 7, 2008 | Reply
In the U.S., a straight donation is (often? usually?) tax deductible, while a purchase includes goods and services and thus isn’t really deductible. As one who itemizes deductions, a donation results in lower real cost to me and higher real income to the organization. Win-win, for everyone I care about.
By mbhunter on May 10, 2008 | Reply
My organizations always had some kind of goal for the fundraising I did — like a trip. I suppose I didn’t think too much about whether I was being exploited or not (I wasn’t getting paid per se).
GRBerry: It depends on what type of organization it is. Donations to civic organizations are not usually tax deductible.