Home | Questions | Contact Us | Application

Fundraising with Coffee

The Case for Raising Funds with Coffee

Your Cause and Coffee? Where is the connection?

Chances are, Coffee and your Cause or Charity have nothing in common. Within a larger context however Coffee may be indirectly connected to your cause and here are some very compelling facts surrounding coffee that you might want to consider.

Product Impact on Health Impact on Environment Notes & Concerns
Doughnuts negative neutral calories, fats
Chocolate negative neutral calories, fats
Cookies negative neutral calories, sugar
Gift Wrapping Paper neutral negative paper from trees
Miscellaneous Hardware items neutral negative made from plastics
Vidalia Onions positive neutral seasonal
Coffee Beans positive positive organic beans

As much as we would not want to associate our Cause with trite, everyday food commodities - the case for Coffee can easily be made. Coffee - and especially the Gourmet Variety - is widely accepted and part of the every day small luxuries. Chances are that your members, benefactors and other interested parties in general are coffee drinkers or have coffee drinkers within their immediate family. If your message communicates that buying great tasting Coffee helps the fight against (insert your Cause/Charity) - then Coffee & your Cause have indeed a lot in common!

How does the Coffee Program benefit your Cause?

A Fundraising Coffee Program (FCP) is reflected in a product line with a wide appeal to people with an affinity to your cause that offers a gross margin opportunity from 30% and up to 50% if possible. A major advantage of the FCP vs. other merchandise offerings is, that it is a consumable commodity, which, if it's quality and taste is accepted and maintained at the highest level, will produce repetitive orders and customers for life. This will open up a continuous Revenue Stream for your Cause for the long haul. The following advantages to your Cause are also noteworthy:

Pricing & Product Mix

The initial FCP should consist of a minimum of 3 SKU's up to 9, such as Colombian Excelso, House Blend, House Blend Decaf, Breakfast Blend, Signature, Pacific, French Roast, Brazilian, Costa Rica Reserve. A uniform price point is strongly recommended, although the cost of the various origins/blends can easily vary up to 20%.




Your label design, logo, choice of color, your tag line, your contact information, your story & your favorite coffee blend

When considering a FCP it is important to discuss quality, package size, labeling, current market prices, retail price points etc. with your vendor. We have the experience with these issues and can assist you with designing a successful FCP. The shipping and handling costs are to be considered too. The handling cost is included in the wholesale price of the coffee. It is important to offer competitive shipping rates, especially in this economic climate. We are calculating shipping price schedules based purely on actual cost, as charged by the chosen carrier. We alternate between UPS and USPS depending on cost-effectiveness.

In some cases, the Cause's Organization chooses to subsidize the actual shipping cost, in order to make the offer more attractive. These strategic decisions have to be considered when designing the FCP and must be in harmony with the fundraising goals of the Cause. Supporters of a given cause behave like any other consumers; they see reasonable or even low shipping/handling rates as very refreshing.


Ordering Info and FCP web presence

The offer of the FCP along with the ordering information can be brought to the potential supporter/benefactor in two ways:

Web Presence

HTML e-mail

FCP Expansion

The FCP can easily be expanded, once it has proved its viability. We can expand the line of coffees offered and add more variety and even exotic premium coffees to the line-up. As long as we maintain our quality standard, we can acquire just about any type of coffee. Super Premium coffees like Kona and Jamaican Blue command higher retail prices and yield of course higher margins too.

Another option is to include coffee related items such as logo mugs etc. The possibilities are endless and can even be expanded into small appliances, e.g. coffee brewers.


Reporting & Disbursements

The PayPal Web Payment Standard offers top rated Financial and Transactional Reports. They are absolutely tamper-proof and eliminate the need for time-consuming auditing. Net Proceeds can be transferred electronically to the bank of your choice or checks can be mailed as per your instruction. Sales Reporting is a breeze and customer refunds/credits are easy to issue and record keeping is automatic. The only cost associated with this payment standard is the Merchant Fee. PayPal's fees are comparable to standard Bank Merchant Fees, but include the free usage of the shopping cart and all the transaction reports. We do recommend the use of PayPal, but your organizations preferences can be accommodated.

Quality

Last but not least we would like to touch on the issue of quality. Should your organization decide to offer coffee to its members/supporters, we would recommend you choose a high level of quality coffee. Anything less is asking for trouble with your supporters and your causes image and we would strongly advise against it. Now of course coffee is largely a matter of taste and thus subjective, but there must be an agreement on a FCP that is beyond any doubts.

Cause4Coffee.com is supporting your efforts with a 100% money back guarantee, which we are willing to absorb completely. This will keep your supporters happy and overall quality high.

How to get started - the next steps

Here is what needs to happen in order to get your FCP off the ground and operational:

We look forward to working with you. For any additional questions, please contact us via the contact form.

Home | Questions | Contact Us | Application

Valid XHTML 1.0 Strict Valid CSS!