Car Wash With A Difference

This fundraiser requires a bit of organization but on the day of the “Car Wash” can be relatively easy. Canvas local businesses, either using responsible members of the youth group, paired up with leaders, or you can do it yourself. Come prepared with an example of what you are offering as follows:
A sheet using your church computer or other available computer, prepared by someone with some desktop publishing skills, that has advertising squares, and title at the top saying “******* Church Youth Group, Free Car wash”. It gives the details such as place and time, and a clause saying that the free car wash is redeemable upon presentation of the sheet.
You then ask businesses to donate to the fundraiser, which would then entitle them to be included in one of the advertising squares on the sheet which is to be delivered to homes in the area. You could get the youth to help deliver the sheets or you can do as we did. We enlisted the services of a local direct marketing firm to deliver to 5000 homes in the area for a reduced rate. A local printer also printed the sheets in color at a reduced rate, for inclusion of his company on the sheet. Our local newspaper also included the advertisers in a free ad for the carwash. You can see that this is very appealing to a local business! For a small charge (we said $100-$200 depending on size of their ad square) they get an ad that goes to thousands of local homes, in the newspaper, and their clients see them helping a good cause. We had hardly any cars turn up to the actual car wash but as you can see this didn’t matter at all. One final touch was to issue all sponsoring businesses with a framed certificate to thank them for their support- they can then display this for their customers to see. We raised over $1000, and the youth really had it pretty easy!