How to collect payment at a charity fundraiser

I'm organising a coffee morning with games, prizes and a silent auction for charity and want to encourage as many donations as possible. We will have a card reader.

I'm looking for suggestions for other ways to collect payments rather than on every stall. I would rather stall holders have time to do their job properly (e.g. serving a great cup of coffee) and interacting with the visitor without having to worry about cash handling as well.

There will be a tea/coffee/soft drinks stall, cakes stall, raffle, and games etc (besides the silent auction).

If, for example, each stall / activity was £1 it could be annoying to keep having to dig £1 coins out every time you wanted to play a game or buy something. We'll need plenty of change and we don't want visitors running out of cash and not buying anything else.

We were considering giving visitors a card with squares on. When they go to a stall e.g. cakes, the stall holder puts a sticker (that says cake £1) on the card. When the visit the raffle, the stall holder puts a sticker (maybe Raffle £2) on the card etc etc.

The visitors would then hand their card to the door-keepers on the way out and pay, either with cash or by card.

The obvious drawbacks of this are that people could leave without paying or say they've lost their card and there could be a big queue at the end of the morning (although all the staff could help out, that's not a problem except for we'd only have one card reader).

This is the first one I've done so it's all a bit of a learning curve and I would appreciate any ideas :)

Comments

  • rach_k
    rach_k Posts: 2,234
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    I think you're over-thinking it a bit. I've been there, organising school Christmas and Summer Fairs for the last couple of years, but it always works out best just doing things the simple, old-fashioned way (i.e. cash, paid to each stall).

    Visitors will mostly expect to be paying in cash, so although your card readers will be a good addition, I don't think you need to worry too much about people running out of money. I also don't think it's too much to ask adults to serve a good cup of coffee and work out change!

    The best way to keep things simple is to insist that your stalls stick to 50p, £1, £2, £3 etc prices, so you and your volunteers won't need to faff around with anything smaller than 50ps and it's all simple maths. If you have cheaper items, make them 3 for 50p/£1 instead. Give each stall a money tin and money belts so they can choose what is easiest for them.

    If you used a system like the stickers you suggested, somebody would need to sit down at the end and work out how much money each stall made, which is a load of unnecessary hassle. Every stall's volunteers will want to know how well they did and it's good to know for planning future events. Using cash (or properly itemised card payments) on each stall makes it a lot easier. I also think the average volunteer is probably better at handling cash than they are at fiddling around with little stickers, so it really wouldn't be easier for them.

    If you're really concerned that people will run out of cash, have somebody running around with your card reader (give stall holders their phone number), but base it on the stall most likely to take big payments (at our events, that'ss food and drinks).

    Some events use a token system which could work too. You can buy disc tokens or simple rolls of tickets, then make them all worth 50p and people can buy 20 of them by card for £10, then spend as normal on the stalls. That could work alongside cash payments.
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 45,938
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    I was recently at a charity clothes swap where they had a card reader for ticket sales on the door, and the charity also had some merchandise on sale.

    All great, until the card reader stopped working and no-one could get it going again. It wasn't a disaster as not that many people were using it, but it just shows the perils of relying on it ...
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  • Thank you so much. I thought we could do Gift Aid forms if we were collecting lump sums at the end but my worry would be that it could get chaotic, especially with one card machine.

    I like the idea of tokens that people can buy in lump sums. I also like that the stall holders will be able to compete with each other to see how much they raise.

    Thank you so much, I really appreciate your replies .
  • Savvy_Sue
    Savvy_Sue Posts: 45,938
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    jazz_girl wrote: »
    Thank you so much. I thought we could do Gift Aid forms if we were collecting lump sums at the end
    BUT you need to be very clear about what Gift Aid can be claimed on, and to my mind, for sales of tea and coffee and merchandise and entrance charges, it's not automatic.

    do you work for this charity? If you do, talk to whoever is responsible
    for Gift Aid.

    If you don't, do they know you are running this event? You MUST ask them if you are using their name in your publicity for the event. And they should have answers to your questions, and be able to provide leaflets, collection tins / buckets, and publicity!
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  • Fen1
    Fen1 Posts: 1,577
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    A sensible stall has plenty of volunteers, especially a cake stall. Instead of having just the one float tin, it will be divided into however many volunteers there are on the stall, so 3 volunteers would be three tins. That way there's no bunching up around the same tin, which is what causes most wasted time.

    A coffee stand will have one person at the end taking payment and orders, whilst the other volunteers down the line prep the coffee. Or have a cafeteria system in which people load their trays then pay at the end.

    Think how they do it in Starbucks or Costa with the ordering system.

    The tokens will cost you money to buy. Do you really want a percentage of your funds go onto something like that? As a volunteer, I'm not sure if I'd want the token system. At the end of a busy day my colleague and I just want to get home and go through the collecting tins in comfort. Faffing about with tokens at the end of the day is just another layer of complication.

    Whenever I go to an event as a customer I make sure that I have plenty of small change. The card reader sounds like a great idea, but don't rely on it.
  • es5595
    es5595 Posts: 380
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    Slightly different idea, but at beer festivals you pay £5/10 on the door and get a card with 50/100 10p squares. The bar then just uses permanent marker to strike through what you’ve spent.

    You can easily go back and get new cards, and when you leave a refund is offered or you put your card in a box “donating” the remainder to the nominated charity.

    It works really well if you don’t want individual stall holders dealing with cash, it’s done on the way in so reduces queues, the only disadvantage for a charity event is you wouldn’t be able to quantify which each individual stall earnt.
  • Fen1
    Fen1 Posts: 1,577
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    Do you have your paperwork in place, such as public liability insurance? Will you ( as the umbrella charity )or your individual stall holders need hygiene certificates?

    I've volunteered on my own stall within an organised event, so my observation about cashing-up relates to that. If all of the stalls are working for the same umbrella charity, then some sort of stamping method might work as all the money goes back into the same pot.

    With es55's idea: to keep tally on what money is spent where, each stall could have its own colour of stamping pen.

    What type of stall have you volunteered on? What worked/ didn't work on that stall? Running an efficient raffle is s bit different from running a popular Bat the Rat, and those different experiences can inform your decision process.
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