Be “Green” to raise some “Green”

t happens every year, especially when you have school aged children. They come home with fundraising projects selling things like wrapping paper, chocolate bars, as well as many other things we don’t really need. The problem with many of these products is that most are made overseas and most are not environmentally friendly. In addition many of the companies who sell them do not adhere to Fair Trade labor practices. Until now there haven’t been many alternatives.

The landscape is changing with the introduction of a variety of “green” fundraising companies who sell useful, environmentally friendly products. These are fund raising groups with products ranging from reusable shopping bags to recycled greeting cards and they are eager to help you with your fund raising projects.

Greenraising.com started by a group of eco-minded parents and is in business to help schools and non-profit groups raise money through the sale of useful “green” products. They offer three different options to choose from and a wide variety of products to sell. Option 1 is to hold an ongoing web sale with a special code for your consumers to use for all their purchases. Option 2 allows you to hold a two or three week “sales drive” on their website. This option offers higher profit margins for the sponsoring group and Option 3 allows you to run a recycled paper catalog drive.

E3living.com has a fund raising program that allows your group to sell energy saving products like CFL bulbs, “Smartstrip” power strips, LED holiday lights as well as water saving devices through their fund raising site ECOmmitted.com. You earn a percentage of the profits for each sale and an additional two percent of your total sales at the end of the year.

There are several companies who offer reusable shopping and produce bags for sale as part of their fundraising programs. GreenBenefits.net, EcoBags.com) andWEADDUP.com each has a fund raising program using their own type of reusable bag and each has a different take on how their programs work.

If you are looking for more traditional fund raising project, companies likeMyEarth360.com, Twisted Limb Paperworks and Arbutus Images all offer something you may be interested in. MyEarth360.com sells a variety of “green” school supplies ranging from lunch boxes made of recycled drink containers to pencils made from wood scraps. They will assign a special code for your group to use on their site and offer a percentage of the profits for your group’s fundraising efforts. Twisted Limb Paperworks has stationary, bookmarks and scrapbooking paper all made in the US and all made of 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. Your group can sell the products first and then place the order or purchase product to resell, whichever fits your needs best. Finally, Arbutus Images has greeting cards made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper and printed with soy inks. Your group can sell a box of 8 cards for $15.00 and the profit for your group is $5.00 per box. Arbutus will also donate 10 cents for every box sold to “Trees for the Future” program that plants trees at schools in developing countries, so you are helping in more than one way!

If you want to do something more homegrown, try this out. Have your students or the children in your organization draw pictures of what global warming, the 3 R’s – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle or any environmental issue means to them and then use these pictures to create an eco-calendar. Then your group can sell the calendar to help raise funds. Be sure to use recycled paper for the calendars and you’ll have your own “green” fund raiser. There are many calendar templates available that can be used for this purpose. Just search Google or Yahoo for “calendar templates” to find a template that meets your needs.

As you can see, options are available for going “green” to raise “green”, so please make the extra effort to go “green” this year and you can raise money for your school, organization or special project as well as teach the children in your lives a valuable lesson in the process.

Thank you Gary for another great article. See more here:www.thegreenpathcompany.com