Ideas and methods of fundraising for a Boy Scouts of America Eagle Scout project
Show Notes:
- Crowdfunding sites and Eagle project fundraising (Bryan on Scouting)
- Top 5 Fundraising Tips
- Eagle Scout Fundraising Letters
Transcript:
As mentioned previously in my Eagle timeline video It’s important to note, that until a project is approved, the scout cannot do any fundraising, so make sure the scout has the form, fills it out and gets it approved by council.
Fundraising is an opportunity for the scout to show an aspect of leadership, which is the whole point of the Eagle project, so simply soliciting donations from the community is not allowed.
I say soliciting, as if a friend of the family wants to hand you a check to help with the project, this is fine, but any funds received should provide commensurate value. This means if you have a pancake breakfast you can put up a sign for suggested donation $10 per person, and if your supporters feel they want to toss $20 into the bucket, so be it.
There are two type of donations, those you do with fundraisers and local businesses you can solicit for supplies.
For soliciting donations, a scout should be in Class-A uniform, and ideally have a flyer explaining the project. A copy of the flyer is also good to put into the Eagle packet to help show leadership.,
Eagle fundraisers can take many forms.
Some businesses will let you fundraise at their locations with a flyer or coupon you hand out, where a percentage goes to the fundraiser, and the business gets more customers. You see this a lot with chain restaurants, where anyone who dines on a specified Monday 10% will go to the fundraiser. These can be an easy way to raise funds.
But since it’s usually a small percentage, you may need many of these type to get the funds needed for the project.
Other types include pancake breakfasts of spaghetti dinners. This is great if you have a location with a kitchen and hall to use. Easy cheap foodstuffs like spaghetti and pancakes make it easy for the lion share of the profits to go to a scout’s project.
Car washes are also a popular one, but it’s important to check with council on how they are handled. As if a car gets damaged, someone needs to be responsible, and you may need to get a 1-day insurance policy for the event.
One that has become popular in my troop is t-shirt fundraisers, where companies like teespring will print shirts on demand, and the scout can design it and set the price. Its and easy way to involve relatives who are not local, as the company can ship directly to them.
But whatever the fundraiser, you want to start with knowing how much you need to raise, and have the scout strategize how they are going to get the funds. You are most likely not the first Eagle project in the troop, and it’s a good idea to ask the past scouts how much they typically raises with different ideas.
So if the magic dollar amount is $800, and through your investigations with past Eagle projects give you an estimate on how fundraising efforts go that you can earn $250 with a t-shirt sale, and $400 profit with a pancake breakfast, that leaves $150 that the scout would need to raise.
Potentially the scout raises $75 from local businesses and the remaining funds could easily be a family donation of $75. But if your estimates are high, you may even end up not needing the family donation and potentially even return some proceeds to the sponsoring organization, as all donations must go to the sponsor.
Take what you like and leave the rest, and as we say in Woodbadge, feedback is a gift, leave yours below in the comments, with the hope we can all learn together.
I’m Scoutmaster Dave, and this was all about Eagle Fundraising.
