Every holiday season we take a moment to reflect on the journey of the last twelve months and look forward to the ones that lie ahead. Chances are there are a great many people considering healthier ways to live and contribute to their communities. It’s also the perfect time of year for businesses and individuals to look at their own goals and missions for the coming year and how to achieve them. There are many wonderful fundraising ideas available to organizations and Green Benefits offers green fundraising ideas to meet any objective, including:

§  Spice Fundraising with Community Spice Company

§  Stainless Steel Water Bottle Fundraising

§  Reusable Bags Fundraising

§  Personalized Apparel Fundraising

These are just a few custom fundraising ideas to kick off a New Year of fundraising events.  Green Benefits also provides tailored fundraising ideas to meet the specific needs of individuals and organizations. In fact, we thoroughly enjoy fundraising ideas that generate awareness for a particular environmental or social cause. That said, let’s explore some various green fundraising ideas for the coming year.

With a focus on educational systems and local school districts, Green Benefits hopes to attract a younger generation to the environmentally and culturally-aware ranks thus promoting sustainable values of economy, environment, and equity within their communities. Schools are wonderful ways to reach entire communities because both are often intertwined. Kids learn exciting information during the school day and bring that knowledge home with them. Many green fundraising ideas are full of fun information and products that promote conservation and recycling efforts within communities. They offer families, schools, and other organizations a simple, enjoyable, and profitable way to contribute to important causes while instilling sustainable living habits.

Awareness campaigns are another form of green fundraising that address topics of local, national, even global concern. An awareness campaign or event can serve several simultaneous purposes which is why they are a great fundraising idea. An organization can set out on a campaign to raise awareness about a concern or movement by using traditional fundraising ideas, like reusable bags or stainless steel water bottles, to self-promote and encourage others to join in or contribute to the cause. Quite often an organization will produce a custom logo or message to print on a sustainable product and sell their goods to raise money for the cause and gain valuable attention as a committed supporter. Local causes are a very effective way to rally a community and gain exposure to your organization’s goals.

One great example is the Take Back the Tap Campaign for schools. This is a great cause, a great fundraising idea and a great way to raise awareness. Take Back the Tap is a program initiated by Food and Water Watch to help consumers and organizations better understand the importance of eliminating bottled water from our daily lives and why tap water is the healthier, safer, and the more environmentally sound choice. Green Benefits has used this initiative with local universities to help them reduce the use of plastic on their campuses while boosting school spirit with custom stainless steel water bottles and coffee mugs.

Another wonderful fundraising idea can be built on the Green Benefits Spice Fundraiser. Working with Community Spice Company we’ve created a fundraiser to encourage more time at the dinner table and in the family kitchen. Food and meal times have historically been the glue of family life and today’s fast-paced world has diminished this to some degree. We feel it is important to re-instill those values in our communities and what better way to do it than offer tantalizing, premium spices as an original, simple, and widely-loved fundraiser? Let’s bring the family and communities together through inspiring foods and creative kitchens!

There are many other fundraising ideas and awareness campaigns to explore and ultimately make your own. The Green Benefits team is always ready to help you build and create an event and the New Year is the best time to start planning for how you will contribute to your community, health, and our planet.

Congratulations to the The Woodlands High School’s Science National Honor Society in Texas for a successful stainless steel water bottle fundraising campaign. Every year their Science National Honor Society raises money for two charities of their choice. This year they sold our stainless steel water bottles to raise awareness and charity funds for Smile Train and The Water Project.

Smile Train is a charitable organization dedicated to providing life-changing cleft palate surgery to children that would otherwise be unable to afford this crucial expense. Not to mention the various cultural and societal challenges that arises as a result of this crippling disfigurement.

The Water Project is a non-profit entity that works tirelessly to bring safe drinking water and sanitation to communities across the globe that do not have access to these basic human necessities. Even communities living near a water source are not necessarily guaranteed safe drinking water or sanitation methods. Water truly is our most sacred resource and is becoming highly endangered in many corners of the world.

Choosing a stainless steel water bottle to help raise funds for both of these amazing charitable organizations not only raises awareness on a global scale, but also calls to attention the need to conserve locally. Nurturing a local appreciation for water conservancy and diverting further plastic waste from our landfills is reason enough to consider using a reusable, stainless steel water bottle. 

This is why Green Benefits enjoys providing a wide array of fundraising platforms. There are many creative methods beyond stainless steel water bottle sales. For instance, a favorite of ours is the “Take Back the Tap” campaign. Any school can get in on this nationally recognized awareness campaign and they can do it in a manner that is relevant to their own community.

For that matter, there are plenty of options in products to help raise awareness in water conservation and waste reduction. The benefits are often two-fold when it comes to green fundraising. For instance, if one dollar was set aside from the sale of each bottle at a quantity of 250, that’s an easy $250 to give to any charity of choice on top of your projected profit margins. In fact, building this into your green fundraising event transparently may provide even greater selling points. Everyone loves ways to give easily and confidently.

At Green Benefits we give 1% of our total annual sales to OnePercentForThePlanet.org. This organization provides a very effective way for businesses to contribute to environmental conservation efforts globally while creating an alliance of global businesses and environmental initiatives. Therefore any company bearing the 1% logo within their business or online has earned credibility in its commitment to sustainable efforts.

This is true of any organization that commits a percentage of any fundraiser, stainless steel water bottles or otherwise, to a charitable social or environmental effort. The way to a brighter and greener future is in the hands of each individual, each business, each teacher and student.

Thanks to the compassion and combined efforts of organizations and clubs like The Woodlands High School’s Science National Honor Society, individual efforts really can make a difference. 

After many months of efforts, we are proud to report that an article about blocal fundraising is featured in the Jacksonville Oregon local paper.  The article was mostly written by Hillary Brown, Green Benefits excellent summer intern currently back at USC.  The press arrangements were made by our blocal champion in Southern Oregon, Christin Sherbourne of Jacksonville Oregon. 

The article covers the Green Benefits -  www.blocalnetwork.com fundraising program with Jacksonville Elementary PTO, where Christin has secured more than 6 participating local business to offer coupons to the community through blocal.  

The article appears in an edition dedicated to the importance of shopping local and local commerce in general.  We are encouraged hope to see more articles about the importance of local shopping and giving back to the local community.  This article is a perfect example of our commitment to making great things happen in local communities around the country.  And most importantly we are going to be making a positive impact in the fundraising being done in Jacksonville and many more communities as we continue to grow.

To view the whole article – click on the photo of the articles.

Be sure to visit www.blocalnetwork.com  to see some of the great deals lined up for Jacksonville. 

With tighter budgets in schools, fundraising is the best way to keep popular programs. Schools around the United States are suffering from severe budget cuts, now is the time to think about where money is going to come from this fall. The best solution? Eco-friendly fundraising. Not only are green fundraising programs a good solution for needed funds, but they are a chance to promote sustainability in communities and educate children on the importance of taking care of the planet.

School budgets, which typically grow at a slightly higher rate than inflation are currently either growing much slower or staying level. In addition, the drop in states’ revenue from sales tax and recent job losses will affect next year’s budgets. In this economy, there are fewer and fewer options for school activities and programs that cost extra money.

With eco-friendly fundraising programs from Green Benefits, schools and organizations can raise the money they need to give students the same opportunities and privileges as before. Green Benefits offers many programs that will give the opportunity for community education and growth in a sustainable way.

Green fundraisers are a perfect way to start off the new school year, and there are several programs available that can fit any need. Teaching children how to increase sustainability in their community and the importance of the local environment will help them live a greener lifestyle in the future. Some options for green fundraising are selling reusable bags, water bottles, and organic chocolate.

From reusable water bottles to Free Trade organic chocolate, Green Benefits is providing schools around the country with green solutions for fundraising so that kids can help out their environment while helping themselves. Green fundraising, in addition to raising money for school programs, can be used as a learning tool for children. As opposed to selling just popcorn and magazines, green fundraising reduces the carbon footprint of the community as well as raising the needed funds for a school. At the same time, it teaches kids how green fundraising impacts their environment encourages them to lead an eco-conscious lifestyle in the future.

Schools like Ames elementary in Riverside Illinois love the Green Benefits programs because of the positive message to the kids. The parents enjoy it because they aren’t just buying junk for the sake of a fundraiser, but actually contributing to the sustainable movement. Other schools that have enjoyed these programs are the CHS cheer team in California, the BMS band in Indiana, the UHS travel club in Massachusetts and Garfield High School Vocal Music Club in Seattle.

Green Benefits is committed to making a positive difference in the community by helping to increase the environmental awareness through green fundraising. They believe the time has come to act in accordance with sustainably-minded goals and values, and contribute to a brighter future. Schools are in the unique position to give the gift of knowledge, and to empower their communities to act as better stewards of the environment. The team at green benefits is dedicated to helping schools use green fundraising for money as well as raising environmental awareness.

According to Derek VanDyke, founder of Green Benefits, “everything we do has the chance to educate. Marketers often forget the impact they can have, instead of just peddling their products.”

Green fundraising programs through Green Benefits include: a direct selling fundraiser, a catalog fundraiser, and online web fundraiser and the opportunity for non-traditional green fundraising. This company is unique to other green fundraising organizations in that they can create customized programs from pre-approved products. The most popular green fundraising products are reusable water bottles and bags, as well as Free Trade organic chocolate and customized eco-friendly T-shirts; there are custom and non-custom options for designs and logos for all green fundraising products.

Thank you all for the GREAT feedback and compliments at the Wild Wild WACA conference this past week.  Derek, John and the rest of the Green Benefits team are ready to help with your spring Earth Day fundraising events.  For all of you that requested a catalog, we have placed two version for you to download on this page.  They are a high quality and therefore larger PDF and a medium sized PDF.  Both contain the same information, but the photo’s will be more accurate in the high quality version.

In any case, please call us to set-up your fundraising program right away!  1-866-733-3153

High Quality Spring 2009 WACA Catalog
Compact Spring 2009 WACA Catalog

     

Please call us to get your order moving forward.