The
Car Wash
The
Car Wash
PREPARATION
As with almost anything, the amount of preparation you do will be in direct proportion to the success of your fundraiser. Pre-planning preparation is the key between just another car wash and an unforgettable experience. In this section I will discuss the necessary steps you must go through to ensure a successful car wash.
You should pick a date six weeks or more in advance if at all possible. Obviously, if everything could be coordinated correctly, this would be easy. Unfortunately we all know that if it's the end of the year or season and you're trying to raise a couple of thousand dollars, you really have no choice. You may even have less than a week or two to prepare. Don't worry. Simply speed up the time line. Try cutting everything by a third.
Check the Calendar Section of your local newspaper. Are there any major community events occurring on the same day as your planned car wash fundraiser? A conflict of interest may cause a decrease in the same day attendance. A decrease in cars could cause as much as twenty to thirty percent in lost revenue. If, on the other hand, you coordinate a time, date and location that corresponds to the other event, let's say down the street a half a mile or less, you could add fifty percent more cars. You might try to put your car wash fundraiser across the street in a parking lot, gas station, etc. Better yet, ask the other group if you can have your fundraiser in their parking lot. Offer them ten percent of the proceeds if their event is also a fundraiser. How can they say no? This could almost double the number of cars washed.
What about rain? That's a great point. You should have a rain date. Perhaps the following week or two to three weeks later. Three weeks later is good because you may want to do another fundraiser even if it doesn't rain. Your group may need more money. If they had fun or you didn't reach one hundred percent of projected earnings another fundraiser car wash might be the way to go. Make sure that your rain date doesn't conflict with any big events either.
How do you get people to volunteer? This is tough. It's usually the same ten percent of the people who do ninety percent of the work. Since obviously you are one of these, and you don't want to be burdensome to the same people who always do all the work, try to get some one new involved. It's a fun assignment and you will be pleasantly surprised to find that people seem to enjoy working at these types of fundraisers more than they do candy sales, bake sales, casino nights, garage sales, etc. People tend to associate car wash fundraisers with fun. To help get volunteers, announce that you're thinking of coordinating a fundraiser. Name three or four truly mundane ideas. Then say "or maybe a car wash"? The first to agree that this is a worthy idea should be co-chairman of this year's car wash committee. If they are really excited and extroverted put them in charge of public relations/publicity and recruitment. You will need about four to six people on your committee to do a large fundraiser.
You should seriously consider selling presale tickets for your car wash. There are a lot of advantages in pre-selling your tickets such as:
You know about how many people will come to your car wash ahead of time
66% of the ticket buyers never show up but you've already got the money
If it rains you're washed up but not washed out
You will also have use of the money in advance even in the event of rain. Your rain date might be three weeks later yet you have most of the money in your coffers now.
Let's take one of our 1990 car washes. It was for the local high school band. There were one hundred plus students in the band. The average student sold twenty tickets at $5.00 each. The presale ended up about $10,000. That in itself would be great, but it gets better. The day of the event we raised $985.00 in drive-ups. Some of the girls on the drill team waved tall flags and others held poster board signs that brought the cars in all right. We washed 408 cars. Wow, were we tired! We had two solid lines of cars at least fifteen deep all day long. 201 cars were drive-ups with no presale tickets. With tips included that made up the $985.00. That left 207 cars worth of presale with tickets. But you say, "How can that be?" 207 times $5.00 = only $1,035.00. That's right. Since our lines were so long a lot of people didn't claim their tickets or never intended on coming in the first place or forgot or had some thing else to do that day. I believe it was a combination of all these reasons. Whatever the reason, the money went to a good cause. We've had many many fundraisers that have been equally successful over the years.
Now someone will have to typeset these tickets and have them printed. There is probably someone in your group who is a graphic artist or really good with a PC or MAC computer. They'll do fine. The tickets should be eight to ten on a page. You should print them on colored paper so they are not easily duplicated. You should pick a color that matches with your church, club or school's colors. Have the tickets cut. Put the individual tickets into piles of twenty. Put a piece of cardboard or poster board the exact size underneath each stack. Buy some rubber cement. Put about ten stacks of twenty tickets on top of each other and put them in a vice. Paint the rubber cement on the left side of the ticket book and let dry for one hour. Repeat until you have enough booklets for each member. You might want to print another dozen booklets just in case. If the tickets are selling fast, you don't want to run out. That will break your momentum.
You should have frequent ticket sales progress meetings with the people selling the car wash tickets. That way, if sales aren't meeting goals you can help motivate members or reorganize the group.
Tickets can be expensive to print. Ask a local print shop to advertise on the back and become a sponsor in exchange for half price or free printing of the tickets. Most print shops do binding so you may be able to trade for that and save you the time and aggravation of binding the ticket books yourself. Print shops will do a more professional job at binding than you can do on your first time trying. Professional tickets are more presentable and look more official when selling to customers. This will help your group in their selling efforts.
WASH-A-THONS
If you don't want to subject your group to selling tickets because they have been selling tickets to other events and selling candy all year, there is another way to make a lot of money at your car wash fundraiser. Wash all the cars for free. You say, "Hey, wait a minute, we want to make money." That's right. Have your group go around and ask people to get pledges for each car washed. While getting pledges give out free car wash coupons to your pledgers. You may also want to give coupons to those people who refuse to pledge. This will make them feel cheap or guilty. If they come to your car wash they will more than likely donate to your organization anyway.
In wash-a-thon car washes you will ask people for one cent to five cents per car washed. Have family members of pledge drivers sign up first. Normally they will pledge a higher amount per car. If your other customers see high pledges they will be more apt to also pledge a higher amount per car. You should put fifteen to twenty people on a page. Ask pledge drivers to fill out 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 pages each.
We did a car wash like this with the Boy Scouts in Northern California. Four different troops, same car wash. They used the money to travel to the annual National Scout Jamboree. Each young man got an average of fifty-one pledges. The average pledge was four cents each. We washed 262 cars and had a total of 63 boys in the four groups. They went door to door in their neighborhoods in uniforms in teams of two. Do you have a calculator?
63 Boys
X 51 Pledges
3,213 Total Pledges
X .04 Per Car
$ 128.52 For Every Car Washed
X 262 Cars Washed
$33,672.24
Wow! They all had a lot of fun at their jamboree. Remember, when asking for pledges, cute little boys and girls will get pledges more easily. The older they are the more difficult it becomes.
We have also had success with older kids such as cheerleaders, drill teams and 'Say no to drugs' groups. You should also note that if you're not diligent in collecting pledges right away your collection percentages will drop to ten to thirty percent uncollectable. Some of your members will be reluctant to go back and collect. Remember, going back twice is twice the work. You may want to give pledgers an option of paying a flat rate, but be careful. If you collect a flat rate in advance such as $3.00 to $4.00 you may be cutting your earnings in half. In the case of the Boy Scouts versus dirty cars, their average was $8.48 per car. At four dollars average flat rate, they would have lost $4.48 per car washed. Over one-half. Pledges are better but do require an extra trip.
Now does this mean you refuse money? No, don't refuse money. Try for pledges first. If that doesn't work, pull out a different sign up sheet and have them fill that out. Keep those flat rates off your pledge sign up sheets. They will cause others to break ranks and cause you lost revenue. People tend to pledge or donate what other people pledge or donate. It's kind of like follow the leader. If on one page you get a couple of people giving you a flat rate, ten more people will also go for the flat rate when they see that page.
Bringing the troops together isn't easy. First they need to be motivated. Chances are you already have synergy in your group. You need to harvest this synergy to make an effective team. There are a number of assignments to do to have a successful fundraiser. If this is a sports team or other well-organized group, you will already have a support structure which will help tremendously. You will first need to set up a car wash fundraiser committee. Here are the assignments:
Ø Person in charge
Ø Publicity coordinator
Ø Location and site locator
Ø Supplies needed person
Ø Ticket sales captain
Ø Shift scheduler
Ø Post car wash follow up person
Ø Environmental coordinator
Person In Charge:
Pitch the idea to a group and get them to approve it. Find volunteers. Make a time line starting six weeks before and up to one week after the event. Look over the descriptions of other assignments. Make sure you feel confident that each volunteer is capable and willing to do his or her assignments. Regularly check to make sure assignments are being met. Check often. Team follow up is essential. Also, get or make the tickets.
Make sure you feel confident that you can do all this. If not, either get the confidence or explain briefly the car wash fundraiser idea and give this template to a person who you know can do anything. The other job descriptions are as follows:
Publicity Coordinator:
Call all local publications that are applicable and submit information to the Community Calendar sections. Call the radio stations. Make sure they put the event on the Public Service Announcements (PSA's) schedule. Call local reporters and let them know of your event. Make signs. Make wrapped coffee cans for extra donations. Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper two weeks before the event.
Location And Site Locator:
Find a visible high traffic location. Contact property owners. Get insurance for the event if property owners desire such. Discuss traffic flow with the property owner. One week before the event write a confirmation and thank you letter.
Supplies Needed Person:
Round up buckets, hoses, soap, sponges, towels, etc. Collect signs from the publicity person before the event.
Ticket Sales Captain (Coach):
Give out tickets to your group's sales force. Keep a log of tickets given out and money collected. Schedule meetings two times per week with your sales staff. Make sure your log matches with the number of tickets and amount of money they collected.
Shift Scheduler:
Make sure you have enough volunteers to come and wash the cars the day of the event. Have exact names and times and make sure the volunteers know when they are working. Have phone numbers for all your volunteers. Call and confirm with each person the week of the event.
Post Car Wash Person:
Make certificates for the other assigned jobs on the committee. Make a certificate for the gas station owner or the property owner. Send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper publicly thanking everyone for their support. Make sure the car wash site is spotless when the car wash fundraiser is done.
You will be meeting throughout a seven week period. Six weeks prior and one week post car wash fundraiser on a periodic basis. Don't lose control of your meetings. The easiest way to stay in control is to have a list of items to discuss. Try not to stray from the subject matter. If one of your members of a committee is not needed at that particular meeting, do not ask them to be there. You don't want to waste their time. At general meetings such as progress report meetings you will definitely need everyone in attendance.
This is one of the first things that must be done. It's important when selecting a location to remember traffic count and visibility. You need to start selling tickets three weeks in advance and the location must be printed on the tickets. It might take one week to print the tickets. That leaves two weeks or less to find a location provided that you start your preparation six weeks in advance. If you start late, you personally should go out today (now) and secure a good location before organizing your group. Don't necessarily take the first location that comes along. Generally the best locations are harder to get.
Fixed car wash owners have always known that it's best to find a location in the busiest part of town near the busiest intersection. One half of a fixed site car wash's business will come from within a three mile radius. If a mountain intersects that three mile circle and there are no homes on that mountain, then it becomes dead zone where no customers will come from. Same for lakes, rivers, freeways, etc. If that mountain were shaped like a pie within the three mile radius, the percent of potential population that the pie area represents would need to be subtracted from that one half of the car wash's volume. Fixed site car wash owners use very scientific methods in determining the highest profit locations for their businesses. Remember, your group will be car wash owners for one day.
Usually a stores have an umbrella insurance policy to cover just about anything even a special event, but not always. Sometimes they may have such a policy but be unsure of the exact coverage and therefore require you to get insurance for your event anyway. This gives them piece of mind knowing they are covered.
School districts have this type of insurance for all student activities already. You will usually see these types of events at the local high school through out the sunny seasons.
If you are at a commercial shopping center, you will most likely need general liability insurance for your event. 'Event Insurance' will probably run $50.00 to $75.00 but could be as high as $150.00 if additional insurance certificates are requested. Most shopping center property managers will want to re-assign the risk of liability. They will need a letter from the group, a diagram of the layout and washing area and insurance. If you can provide these items, they will probably let you have your car wash fundraiser on their property. It's good public relations for the center and their tenants. They may also be concerned with the soaps you are using on their lot because resurfacing is expensive.
What kind of insurance should you ask for? Ask for 'event insurance' for a car wash fundraiser. The insurance agent/broker will ask you basic questions such as:
ü The date of the event
ü Hours of the event
ü Location of the event
ü How much money you anticipate making the day of the event
ü Will you be moving the cars?
ü How many certificates of insurance will you need?
ü Do you need additional insured certificates?
Some of these questions will be easy to answer such as who, what, when, where and how. You may not have thought about moving vehicles. Your answer should be yes even if you don't move any cars. If a person gets out of there car and leaves the key in the ignition and walks over to buy a soda or hot dog from your fundraiser, then theoretically you are in control of that vehicle. Legally speaking that vehicle is in your care, custody and control and this may require what is called a 'garage keeper's liability endorsement'. How much money do you expect to earn the day of the event? This may seem like your group's business only, but some policies, even event policies, could be based upon gross sales. How many certificates do you need? You may not know this either. Obviously you need one for the property owner. After all, the only reason that you are talking to the insurance agent/broker is because they asked for one. You may want to think about this for a second.
As long as you are buying insurance, what about insurance for your group? You may as well get a certificate for them too. Do you belong to a national group? Maybe they are self-insured or already have insurance for such an event. This might save you some money provided that their limits of liability are in line with the requirements that the property owner has requested. Remember that the limits of liability required of your event are usually negotiable. Gas station owners may settle for $100,000 single limit liability and $300,000 aggregate. If not, have your agent/broker do the work. They can reassure the property owners that the insurance carrier they will be going through is an A+ rated carrier and that they will be fully covered in the rare event of an accident. After doing one hundred plus car wash fundraisers without an accident, I'm confident recommending the $100,000/$30,000 limits. If the property owner will accept this, it's a good coverage number. However, if they want a million dollars of liability insurance you may have to get that instead. Of course it will cost more.
What are the additionally insured certificates? This is a certificate of insurance, a proof of insurance indicating that the property owner is insured by the insurance carrier also. This might be important because if someone is passing by and slips on the water and wishes to collect on a slip and fall injury claim, their attorney would rather go after the rich property owners rather than your non-profit group that has very little money. If your group had hundreds of thousands of dollars you probably wouldn't be doing a car wash fundraiser in the first place. Since attorneys normally get thirty percent of the cash settlement in personal injury litigation cases, they try to go after the big money. If you are part of a national organization such as the Boy Scouts of America then that part of your organization will also be a target, The attorney may not have a problem going after a non-profit. Because property owners and national organizations are frequent targets of slip and fall suits, it stands to reason that they might be a little paranoid. If they are a little hesitant you must realize that it's not your fault. There are just too many lawyers. Property managers are hired by property owners to manage the affairs of their real estate investments. They handle such jobs as fielding tenant complaints, collecting rent and lease monies, maintaining the property and the landscaping and shielding property owners from unnecessary liability. So when talking to property owners assure them that you won't block traffic, won't take any more than the necessary amount of parking spaces or cause them to have any complaints from the tenants. As a matter of fact, you will probably increase traffic and your fundraiser will help business for the center's merchants. Let them know that you won't trample the landscaping. They may want a one page letter stating all of this.
You should print a location, date, time and price on each ticket that you print. You should also have your group's logo in the top left hand corner of each ticket. The tickets should be classy and uncluttered. Keep it simple. You'll be glad you did. Don't forget to put a rain date on the ticket.
We recommend that you keep the hours of the fundraiser to a minimum. Pick a Saturday from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. If you have twenty or more volunteers who will be washing cars, split them into a morning shift and an afternoon shift, ten in each shift. It might be better to have twelve people in the morning and eight in the afternoon. Usually mornings have higher traffic count because people are on their way to somewhere. They will usually be on their way back after 3:00 pm. Don't start your car wash fundraiser before 8:00 am unless you expect your temperature that day to be over 105 °F in the middle of the day because no one will be out at that time.
If you are doing a wash-a-thon type of fundraiser and you want to wash as many cars as possible, break your twenty people into four groups. Four people from 8:00 am to 10:00 am, six people from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm, five people from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm and five people from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. Make sure to wash every last car even if it comes through at 5:15 pm. As long as there are cars, keep washing. Don't stop. You've already got the pledge.
If it's not a wash-a-thon keep the 10:00 am to 2:00 pm operation hours. Even if you have only ten people and you need them for the whole event, four hours isn't all that bad. The average person can handle it. If you are really busy and someone looks like they are struggling, reassign them to a less strenuous job such as:
§ Picking up trash
§ Filling up buckets
§ Hanging up towels to dry
§ Collecting donations
§ Holding signs
§ Directing traffic
You don't want to burn out your volunteers. Make it easy and fun. People from the group will leave with a positive experience. This makes it easy for recruiting volunteers next year. If done correctly your annual car wash fundraiser will get easier and easier. Each year it will generate more and more money for your worthy organization. Keep it up. Be fair to your team
PRESALE/DONATIONS
Whether you chose to have a car-wash-a-thon or presale ticket car wash you should read this section. There is more to preparation than just preparing. We will discuss some nuts and bolts for ensuring that your car wash fundraiser goes off as well as planned. We will talk about:
· Motivation/PepTalks
· Incentives
· Parents’ Help
· Teams
· Divide and Conquer
· Over Lap Problems
· Other Locations
· Spreadsheets/Goals
It’s important to keep your team motivated when selling tickets. Some people will handle rejection better than others. For some, if five people refuse to buy tickets in a row they will want to quit. Keep them motivated. Tell them it’s just numbers and three out of ten people will buy a ticket so if you want to sell nine tickets during week one of selling you will have to ask thirty people. All thirty people won’t say no. If the first five people say no, hand them a flyer and ask them to come to the event if they have time during that weekend. They may get a car wash anyway. Let your demoralized sales person know that if the first twenty-one people say no, thank everyone of them because they are helping you get close to the thirty percent who will say yes and gladly buy a ticket. It’s a numbers game.
When giving a pep talk to your group of sales people, you should use words like:
· Awesome
· Winner
· Strike
· Conquer
· Dominate
These are all intensely positive words. You will need to meet with your sales team once per week for the first two weeks of sales then two times per week for the last week. Ask them how they are doing. Ask and listen. Listen for stories of success as well as failure. Listen to complaints and compliments. Tell them if they are having problems to go in pairs and hit twice as many people. Suggest other possible locations.
You should practice your sample pep talks. They may help you get further ideas. If you are a coach, you may not even need to practice. You are already a master motivator.
There are many incentives you can give. Start a contest for whoever gets the most pledges or sells the most tickets. How about $50.00 first prize, $20.00 second through fourth prize. Or let sales people lower the price from $5.00 to $4.00 after they sell twenty tickets, then to $3.00 after they sell thirty tickets. They’ll get easier to sell and easier to win the $50.00.
Another incentive idea is to make every fifth ticket a different color. You’ll have to make sure to tell your printer in advance. When a member of your group sells that off color ticket they simply keep the money. That’s the same as paying them twenty percent. That’s a good and fair commission. You may want to consider this if you lack a sales force. You can recruit a paid sales force from the local youth employment service. If you are a senior citizen group and your members are a little slower than they used to be, they may not be able to physically go and knock on two hundred doors.
During your pep talks you should single out and congratulate your top three sales people in front of their peers.
If your group is a youth group you should enlist the help of the parents at a general meeting. Tell them of the importance of this fundraiser to your budget. Tell them you need the money and anything the group doesn’t earn the parents will have to come up with. Make sure they supervise their child and allow them to sell tickets, drive them to a location to sell tickets or suggest people or places to sell tickets. For example: "Go down the street to the Jones’ house and ask them. They have five cars. Or maybe after school you can go down to the grocery store and sell at least five tickets. Take a few tickets to your sister’s soccer game or maybe someone at church may buy a few tickets.'’ Parents need to be prepared to provide motivation, support and transportation to help their children with a fundraiser. Even buy a couple of tickets to get the ball rolling or buy the last two if their kid comes up a few short of his or her goal. They shouldn’t buy all the tickets because kids must learn money doesn’t grow on trees. They shouldn’t be spoiled. It may be hard work to tote kids around to do ticket sales but the lesson learned is worth its weight in gold.
Lastly, parents should be given a couple of ticket booklets to take to work. If they are a CEO, middle manager or head receptionist, they can easily sell a lot of tickets. If they work at city hall or at a government agency this can be a great opportunity for your group. Parents can be very creative. You’ll be surprised. I remember one situation where a Vice President dad put in a request for the company to buy five hundred tickets. The CEO agreed because the Vice President had completed a big project on time and under budget just before a big stockholder meeting. At the next general meeting of the fundraiser group the dad delivered a check for $2,500. We proceeded to call the local newspaper and the company received front page publicity. The company distributed the tickets to all 450 employees on a Friday afternoon. What a win-win situation.
One mom convinced her boss to pledge $5.00 per car for her daughter’s fundraiser and then ran off two hundred free car wash flyers with the company’s logo on them indicating it was a sponsor of the event and distributed the flyers to the employees. Fifty extra cars showed up from her efforts making all the other per car pledges worth more to the group. They washed 375 cars that day. So this $5.00 pledge was very significant. And, the boss received increased productivity for the next month because he gave everyone a free car wash. That was one smart mom. She gave credit to her boss and raised money for her daughter’s group and everybody won.
Not every person is a cracker jack sales person. Some people are introverts rather than extroverts. What may seem to come naturally for some will seem like an insurmountable task to others.
If you find that a few sales people are falling behind, put them in a team with an extrovert. If you can’t do that, put them with an introvert. Two introverts together will find success because they will draw upon each other. They will lose fear of rejection and will not be afraid. In the case of kids, they may not tell you that they are totally terrified of knocking on a stranger’s door and asking them for money. Since you don’t have time to fix this problem now, simply put them with an extrovert or perhaps their best friend in the group. This usually works. Whatever you do, don’t criticize or ridicule them in front of their peers. Even simple teasing will only worsen problems. I’ve seen kids go home and cry, stop selling altogether and even quit the group. Remember kids join groups to feel like they belong. If they no longer feel like they belong why should they stay. You may or may not realize it but you can cause psychological damage to a young person by submitting them to something that terrifies them and then ridiculing them in front of their peers for not performing.
It may be wise to start a full-blown assault in ticket sales or pledges. You’ll have to have a game plan. We suggest you ask each salesperson or pledge driver to put a dot on a map of where they live. Try to assign streets near their house for them to target. Be careful not to duplicate streets otherwise you will be competing against yourself. The larger your group the more neighborhoods you’ll be hitting. It’s similar to precinct walking during elections. Each person must commit to knocking on every door in their assigned area. Again, remember that teams might be a good idea. Try to pick between 75-150 home areas per person. If it’s a high income area or a medium income area but is mostly families, 75-150 homes will be ok. Low income areas will need 125-150 home areas. This should net you approximately twenty to thirty tickets or pledges. If you are desperate for cash go on the high side with 150 homes. Don’t bother counting houses. Use your best guess. If you don’t know which areas are high income ask the kids where all the rich people live. They know. It would be better if you drove through various neighborhoods before assigning streets to be targeted by each kid. We suggest getting a big map, put it on a poster board and let the kids put a mark where they live. If you have a roster of homes addresses do this yourself. Then go and assign areas after you do some marketing by driving around (MBDA).
If you don’t assign areas for a small group you may be ok. With a large group you will have some overlap problems. One or more of your pledge drivers or ticket salespeople will knock on doors and the people answering will say they already came here. Even if they didn’t buy a ticket, they will lie and say they did. Even more discouraging, they may say four people already asked me. Don’t come back. Whoops. The question to your salesperson/pledge driver is now where did they start and where did they stop in that neighborhood? This is a dilemma since it will probably be in a high income area. Kids are not stupid. They go sell in the rich areas first. When all their tickets are sold they quit. Since every kid will go to the easy sell areas then get depressed when they don’t sell any tickets there because ‘Billy’ hit all the good areas first, this will be their excuse for not selling any tickets. You will be facing this excuse. Also, if four kids live in the same area, the first kid who is not scared to sell will go out and sell leaving nothing for the other three in that area. The most likely to procrastinate until the last minute will be the introvert who is terrified of selling and when he or she goes to sell in this area, the neighbors will reaffirm the child’s belief that they can’t sell and they will refuse to knock on any more doors. All because your best salesperson already sold there. You should also realize that if they fail at the last minute, it’s too late to send them out in teams, too late to motivate them and it’s too late to help them overcome their fears. Even if you’re a hard liner, "They’ll just have to deal with it. I did when I was a kid," if they fail your group loses money and you may have to do a whole other fundraiser if this happens to too many kids in your group. Be very cautious. This is serious.
Where else can your group sell tickets? There are a number of prime locations and I mean prime locations. Ask the owner of the bowling alley if you can ask bowlers to buy tickets. Same with the manager of driving range at the golf course. Outside of major grocery stores are good. Medical centers where there are individual doctor’s offices are good stops. Casinos are good if you have parental escort. Regional shopping centers can also be great. Pizza places after softball games are good. Ask large corporations to put up a small shoe box for donations or a pledge sheet with a stack of free car wash coupons. Small business clusters, office complexes or high rise office buildings can be good. Soccer fields, baseball, basketball, hockey and softball games work well. Try a local farmer’s market. Service clubs such as:
· Rotary
· Kiwanis
· Optimists
· Elks
· Lions
· Mesonic Masons
· Toastmasters
· Promise Keepers
· Networking Groups
are excellent because lots of people who really care about your community are at these meetings. Some members may even volunteer to take a booklet of twenty tickets and sell them for you at other clubs or at work.
Senior citizen groups and citizen/city sponsored committee meetings are good. How about bingo nights? You should also try car clubs that meet monthly.
If you are a sports team, associated student body or school club, anything associated with schools, then go to:
· Back to school night
· PTA meetings
· High school football games
· Baseball games
· Track meets
· Basketball games
· Wrestling matches
· School District Office (Make sure you have permission from the school district for your car wash first for this)
Craft shows, bazaars, trade shows, chamber of commerce are good places to go. Chambers of commerce have regular:
· Board of Director meetings
· Seminars
· Mixers
· Luncheon meetings
· Breakfast meetings
You should figure out how much money you need to earn from this fundraising event. How many people do you have in your group? Figure out how many tickets you will sell or how many pledges you will most likely receive. Also, how many cars you can wash. Extrapolate these figures out and decide if it is feasible to reach your budget goals. Make sure you know your goals before you start. Let everyone in the group know. Figure out a worse case scenario.
PUBLICITY
PSA’s stand for ‘Public Service Announcements’. Radio stations have to do a certain amount of public broadcasting in order to satisfy their Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requirements. This is good for you because that means that they can announce your car wash fundraiser event on their radio station for all to hear. It’s basically free advertising for you. To get this free advertising, call the radio station and ask for the community service desk or the public relations person. Make sure to list all pertinent information such as:
· Who
· What
· When
· Where
· Why
· How
You should be extremely nice to radio people because radio time is valuable and others also have requests for their events. Sometimes there are many more requests than available time. If you want a spot offer to wash the radio station van for free at your fundraiser. Or give away free tickets on the radio in exchange. If the radio van shows up the D.J. or driver may call on his cellular or PCS phone for a live air link.
"Hi everyone. I’m down here at Gladiator High School supporting the Raze program. Bring your car and get a car wash for $5.00. It’s a great cause."
This will add additional customers and help you make more money. Three to four radio spots at peak driving times during the week before your event on an average local station will net twenty-five to fifty extra cars.
I can not stress enough that it is necessary to be very nice to radio station personnel. You will be glad you did. Usually they are personable, have high energy and generally very easy to get along with so this should not be a problem.
When you call your local newspaper/papers, ask if they offer free classified ads for non-profit groups. If they do, place an ad. Then call back fifteen minutes later and ask for the community calendar section to list your event. If they have a community calendar section call back the next day and ask for the newsroom.
If they don’t have free classified ads for non-profits ask the operator for the calendar section. List your event. Sometimes they will have a form to fill out. Have it faxed to you and fax it back. Be sure to check one week before your event to see if it’s going to be listed if you don’t see it listed to date.
Wait until the next day after faxing the calendar section request to call the newsroom about your story. Perhaps your group is raising money for a special trip to go to the championship playoffs in another state, to attend the National Boy Scout Jamboree, for a cheerleading competition or for a religious event. These stories might be newsworthy. What are you earning money for and how much do you need? A religious event has a good possibility of appearing in the Religion Section, sports events in the Sports Section. Maybe you can hit the front page. Wow! This will give you one hundred more cars. If they refuse to do a pre-car wash story, be gracious. They may have too many other events to cover. If they have space for filler, you may be in luck even if you don’t hit page A-1. Lots of last minute events happen in their industry. You never know. Maybe you don’t get a pre-car wash story but you get a photographer the day of the event. This will not add cars but it really helps the morale of your group and it will make it easier to get volunteers for other fundraising events. It also does wonders for next year’s annual car wash fundraiser.
CABLE STATIONS
Local cable television stations have local news. Car wash fundraiser events make good news the day of the car wash. Car washes with big lines are big news. Pre-wash stories work if the reason for raising the money is newsworthy. That, of course, varies from station to station, region to region and story to story. I can’t tell you what’s newsworthy and what isn’t. I have had lousy stories on t.v. and great stories with no call back. You just never know. You might tell the cable station that both newspapers are coming out on Saturday to take pictures of your event. This will make them want to swoop the scoop and do a story before the event. This could also back fire if not done tactfully. Be careful. I can tell you one thing. If you have a three minute segment on the 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm local news, lots of people will see it.
Word of mouth is still the best advertising. Your group’s members talk to lots of people each day. So keep this event in front of them. You would be foolish not to. But remember you don’t have the only newsletter. All the service clubs in town, corporations, colleges, hospitals, government agencies, PTA’s parent club organizations, etc. all have newsletters. It certainly wouldn’t hurt to ask to have an article or a mention of your event included in their newsletter. Even one paragraph will help you. If every entry in every newsletter nets you five cars, it’s worth it. The contacts you make and the goodwill you receive for your organization is worth the effort ten-fold for later community projects and events. By networking with other people who care, you will better your chance of participating in joint projects, thereby elevating both groups. If a local corporation likes the p.r. you give them, in return you may find yourself being adopted by them as their favorite charity. Always and I can’t say this enough, look for the win-win in every phone call, meeting or discussion.
We helped one group fax all the businesses in town. We turned on our blast fax Windows based program and faxed out a cover letter with a pledge sign up sheet to every company in town. We thanked them in the letter in advance for filling out the form and told them that if they filled out all fifteen lines with sponsors that everyone in their company was entitled to a free car wash at our fundraiser. We were really killing two birds with one stone.
First: Filling out a whole pledge sheet for free. Lots of pledge money.
Second: Invited more cars to the event thus making every pledge worth more to the group because we washed more cars.
It was quite exhilarating to find out that many companies not only filled out the form, but also called and asked for more forms to fill out. Some companies just added additional pages themselves and one person re-created our form using an Excel or Lotus spreadsheet and filled that out too. A few companies reminded us after the event that they had completed pledge sheets and to please come pick them up. We didn’t even know we had these sponsors. Crazy isn’t it.
This particular group we did the fundraiser for was a high school baseball team. They later used these corporate and business contacts to sell small advertising billboards for $500 each to be placed around the perimeter of the baseball fields.
You can get fax numbers in a number of ways such as:
· Buy a CD ROM with this data at a computer store
· Get a list from the local Chamber of Commerce
· Ask city hall business licenses section for a list
Flyers are a great way to advertise inexpensively. Find a local print shop that will advertise on the back in trade for their printing costs or for a minimal charge. Go to soccer fields, softball games, office complexes, bulletin boards around town and realtor mail boxes inside realtor offices. Don’t put them on cars. If a professional organization is helping you such as a mobile car wash or mobile detailing company, hand out their flyers too. Ask Domino’s Pizza and other delivery companies to attach flyers to their boxes or put them in their take out bags. Ask grocery store managers to have box boys put one flyer in each bag of groceries. The local video store, the same thing. Always be on the lookout for good locations to place flyers
DAY OF EVENT
You should call all important people in your group the night before your event. Make sure that you will have all necessary supplies, parent supervision and signage. Have everyone meet twenty minutes before the start time. Have your washer show up five minutes prior to washing. If you think you are going to have a lot of cars then try to find an area large enough for two rows of cars to go through at one time. That should be your wash area. Make sure your hoses reach. Try to get your hose to go all the way around both sets of cars. When things get busy you will be glad you set it up this way. You should have a drying area set up no less than three car lengths from your washing area. This way if someone gets picky with the drying and slows you down, they won’t hold up your washing area. If the washing area slows down, your line will get longer and people will just drive by and not stop in. It’s very important to pick a game plan, layout and traffic flow before you start. If cars start pulling in the wrong way or you try to change what you’re doing mid-stream, you have total chaos and you lose ten to fifteen minutes sorting things out.
Your layout is ultra important and inevitably determines how many cars you can wash. If you’ve done your marketing correctly, have a good location and sold tickets/pledges, you will have unlimited cars to wash. Now you must wash them efficiently. Remember, the more cars you wash, the more money you will make for your group. Your layout will change from location to location.
There are certain supplies you will need such as:
· Soap
· Sponges (2)
· Towels
· Buckets (3)
· Garden Hoses
· Window Cleaner
· Clothesline
· Coffee Can Collection Box
· Clip Boards (2)
· Whistle with Strings (2)
· Stop Watch
· Squeegees (3)
· Chamois (2)
Your soap buckets should be five gallon buckets. You don’t have to buy them. Go to the local McDonald’s and ask the manager for a pickle bucket. They are green but who cares. They are free. McDonald’s will also give you a giant water dispenser full of fruit punch to borrow for the day of the event if you want. Tell the management in advance that you will need these items. Also ask them for coupons to hand out at your fundraiser. It will help their business and you should return the favor.
Your sponges shouldn’t be real sponges but lamb’s wool squares. They look like car wash mitts except they are square and about a foot on each side. You can buy them at Pep Boys, Trac Auto or any large auto parts store. You will need four or five of them.
You will need about 150 feet of garden hose. Put the longest section on last. Hopefully it will be 75 feet in length. People drive over the hose ends and ruin them because they smash the brass fittings. The ends will leak and lower your hose pressure. If you plan on having lots of cars at your event, you may want to buy a ‘y’ garden hose fitting at the hardware store (under $3.00) and then get 300 feet of hose and run two hoses each 150 feet long. Don’t use a plastic hose reel. It gets in the way and gets damaged easily. You don’t want to have to give back a damaged hose reel to the lender especially since it’s someone in your group and it probably came from their front yard.
Have each washer bring three towels. Make sure they are towels that they do not need back. They should be garage sale quality. Don’t use nice bath towels from bathrooms. Custom/expensive towels will get ripped or ruined. Plus, most people use fabric softener when washing these types of towels. Fabric softener streaks windows and slows down the drying process. Use the worst towels to dry rims all day. Nicer towels for chrome, windows and body. When the towels get too wet hang them on your clothesline between two trees.
Don’t buy window cleaner. Buy one pint of rubbing alcohol. Use your squirt bottles. Add fifteen to twenty percent alcohol and fill the rest of the bottle with distilled or reverse osmosis water and put on squirt heads. Buy three squirt bottles. You will only use two at a time but squirt heads are unreliable and you might run over the bottles. You should have two people in charge of windows and chrome. Assign them squirt bottles with window cleaner and one squeegee each. No car leaves without perfect windows and mirrors. Tell them they are in charge and remember mirrors are considered windows. This will increase your ‘tipage’ by ten to twenty percent. Even if the cars are not perfect, if the windows are, it’s a good car wash.
You should time the average wash and average dry. If you are washing faster than drying, take away a wash mitt from the bucket and you will find that extra person moving to another assignment. If cars are drying faster than washing, hand a soap mitt to the average dryer (not the fastest or the slowest). Ask them "We’re getting behind in the washing. Can you go help speed them up?"
Give a chamois to a supervisor in the dry area for dark colored and very expensive cars. He should have a spare chamois for your best worker to use to help with special cars that come through. This extra special treatment should cost more so have the donation can person stand by while you work. Without asking for an extra tip you will increase your chance of getting a large tip by fifty percent, money your group needs and deserves.
When people think about car wash fundraisers, they think of fun, water fights, etc. A few water fights are ok but remember you are there to make money. I’m not saying ‘Absolutely no water fights.’ If you take away all the fun you won’t get hard work out of anyone. If you run your car wash like a drill sergeant you will:
· Break momentum
· Find workers taking breaks
· Wash less cars
· Have no volunteers next year
· Be hated for ruining a perfect Saturday
The easiest way to control a group is to assign tasks that must be done for each person. Since we recommend that your car wash be from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm you should divide your washers and sign holders in half. In other words, if you have twenty-five people in your group, have thirteen work from 10:00 am to noon and twelve people work from noon to 2:00 pm. If you’ve done well at marketing, you will have so many cars to wash that you will never finish. You will be busy and that will cut down on the horse play. If the horse play gets out of hand, start switching people around to do different jobs. Send the culprit to hold a sign on the corner to draw more cars in. Use that high energy in a positive way so your group makes more money. Send the other person to talk to people while holding a donation can. A good person for this would be whoever was the instigator. This manipulative personality trait is exactly what you will need to get more tips. The third water fighter, if there is a third, might now become a dryer.
If you have a new group of water fighters right away have the parent do the spraying. Maybe you are so slow that everyone is bored so they are playing around. Send the next two wildest kids to a local grocery store to sell left over tickets.
I believe you need one parent in the drying area, one in the washing area and one on the donation can. If you have a bake sale, sell hot dogs, etc. you will need another parent in charge of that area. They should expect to work all four hours. Their kids should also work four hours. That makes four to five kids that will remain in check. If you have too many chiefs this could cause a small problem. So be careful.
You should think in advance about who should do which car washing jobs. Taller kids should be dryers rather than washers. Usually cars are dirty on the bottom. Tall people tend to skip behind the wheels down low when they get tired, but you need them to dry on top of mini-vans and utility vehicles. The most outgoing people you should use to hold signs for one hour and switch them to soapers later. They will bring in energy half way through the shift. High energy out going people won’t get tired holding a sign and yelling at cars to stop in to the car wash fundraiser. They will increase everyone’s energy levels.
Your signs should be poster board size, bright colors and hand written in bold black ink. The letters should be wide. Use very few words. The words should be able to be read from twenty to thirty yards away while driving in a car moving at twenty-five to thirty-five miles an hour. You should have CAR WASH in big letters and a positive word such as:
· Great
· Big
· Low Price
· Wow
· Cool
· Best
· Etc.
You will need between eight and ten signs strategically placed around the intersection and a couple down the streets with the highest traffic that lead directly to your car wash fundraiser site, perhaps one-half mile or so away. Make three to four signs half size and use those as hand sign held up by kids on the street corners.
If you have a really strong energy auctioneer/comedian/radio type in your group you can keep everyone hyped during your car wash. When they are not talking, play music such as "At the car wash." It makes for a fun time and customers just love this type of stuff. If you don’t have a P.A. system, get a megaphone and use that. If a customer compliments you on a nice job tell them to say this into the P.A. system so all can hear.
Get a medium size coffee can and wrap it with bright yellow paper. Write ‘DONATIONS’ on the can in blue magic marker. Cut a hole in the top of the plastic lid one-half inch wide by two inches long for people to stuff money in. Also write on the can in smaller letters, but not too small either, ‘THANK YOU’ or ‘PLEASE’.
If you choose to sell hot dogs you will definitely have a captured audience. If you intend to feed your group you should charge them at least fifty cents each to cover costs otherwise they will eat up one hundred percent of your profits. People get hungry washing cars and burn up a lot of calories. If you offer free hot dogs to your washers and let’s say there are twenty of them, they will devour sixty hot dogs, three a piece. This may sound funny but not when you’re trying to make cash for your group. If you charge for them you will need an average of 1.5 hot dogs per washer and you will cover your costs on them. Guestimate how many hot dogs you will sell and add 1.5 times the number of washers to this number. This will give you an approximation of supplies needed. Remember to buy slightly more buns than hot dogs, half a pack or so. Some people will want a hot dog and no bun and some like the bun with no hot dog. Plus you will drop a few or squish a few buns and then no one will want to eat them. Be careful when selling hot dogs. When it gets busy at your car wash you want people to stay in the cars otherwise they will disappear to the hot dog area while their car blocks your production.
A hot dog stand should also have a parent if this is a kid’s group to manage the hot dogs and the money. Kids burn hot dogs, undercook them or give them away to friends. They will also forget to turn off the propane on the BBQ. This will really screw up sales if you run out of propane. No one will want a cold or uncooked hot dog.
This is the hardest type of extra activity to have at a car wash fundraiser. Try to find someone in your group who has run a successful bake sale before – one which actually made money and sold out. If they’ve been through this a couple of times you should use their experience and put them in charge. Have them run the bake sale event separately with different volunteers, monies, etc. Give them a really good location and let them take trays of goodies to people in line or in the drying area. Don’t allow sales in the wash zone. If you allow people to get out of their cars to purchase baked goods have them leave their keys in the car. You’ll need an extra supervisor moving cars, watching for hoses and people moving from the wash area to the drying area. This will allow customers to browse the bake sale layout. It’s ok to have a bake sale and hot dog stand. They work well because someone who wants a hot dog and soda will want a brownie. The bake sale volunteers should be given the utmost courtesy so tensions stay low and everybody works as a team.
If your fundraiser is at a school or church with a cafeteria, you may want to consider a pancake breakfast. The most important thing to remember is to keep the keys for the cars when the people walk in to eat. Then make sure there is plenty of parking for the cars that have been washed otherwise they will stack up and the lot will be full.
The single most important item in the operations side of your fundraiser is to keep the cars moving. Don’t let the line go out onto the street. It will cause an accident or the local police will tell you to move the cars or stop your fundraiser. It’s much better if the police officer stops for a donut at your bake sale or a hot dog at the booth. The easiest way not to get backed up is to move cars through at a steady pace. Fast enough to do a quality job but not too fast to lose tip money. Don’t let your supervisors start long in depth conversations with customers when there are cars in line. If cars start backing rapidly in the entrance area or start of your car wash, then form two lines. If your dryers start backing up, move them further from the wash area and allocate additional dryers, one at a time, until the problem stops. If people in the cars are hanging around after their wash, tell them to park off to the side or out of the way of the car wash proceedings.
Distributing flyers the day of the event is important. If your car wash gets slow, send members of your group to each grocery store nearby and to each fast food restaurant to pass out flyers.
You should have the person in charge count the money with another person so in case anybody thinks there might be missing monies, the exact amount can be verified. Keep donation can money, hot dog money and car wash ticket money separate from drive up customers money. Also keep the stack of tickets received from the customers attending your car wash fundraiser and a count of the number of cars washed. Subtract the number of tickets received from the number of cars washed. Multiply that number by the price of the car wash for the day of the event. This should equal the total money made from car washes. This way no one can accuse anyone of any impropriety.
If the media shows up act uninterested and start talking to customers when they arrive. Pretend that you are very busy and stand near the wash area. If they get a really good picture you’ll better your chances of not getting cut in case a late breaking story takes precedence. It’s important that they get a picture of members of your group actually washing a car. Also interviews of customers saying how great this event is. That is good positive news and you know we need more of it.
As soon as they take pictures and interview your customer(s) discreetly walk away to the donation can area. This is where one of your people is talking to customers about how great your group is. Stand there and the reporter will begin asking questions. Tap them on the shoulder and say "Wait one second, our cars are backing up." Then briskly walk to the far side of your car wash. The reporter will then have no choice but to interview your donation person and another customer. By this time the story will be getting big with great quotes and information about your club. When they finally talk to you (the person in charge) give them a great quote about what great team work and how thankful you are for all the generous people. Bingo! You’re in. Everyone will read that story and next year’s car wash will be great plus this publicity will unite your group and make other fundraisers easier to get sponsors for.
If a radio station comes by let them interview the kids in the group and the adults with the most energy. They will easily draw additional people to your event.
If you are doing a wash-a-thon car wash you must count the exact number of cars so you know how much to collect from your pledgers. For whoever counts cars, this will be their only job. Don’t let them get side tracked or help you wash vehicles when you busy or someone needs to run to the bathroom. In cases of large groups every car missed could be $100 or more in missed revenue. If you have a member of your group in a wheel chair, this might be a good job for them. Make sure that whoever does this job realizes how important it is.
I don’t recommend vacuuming cars unless you have a lot of extra people to do the work. You’ll also need a lot of extra room. Vacuuming takes a long time and once you start you’re committed to vacuum everyone’s car that wants it. You’ll get mini-vans with Christmas tree pine needles from two years past and customers who expect every needle removed. Whatever you do, if you decide to provide vacuuming do it after the car wash not before. Also do it out of the way so the wash only customers can leave otherwise you will create an incredible bottle neck when you get to that mini-van I mentioned.
If you vacuum you will also be expected to clean the inside windows. Again, more people will be needed for that. If you vacuum you’ll need an electrical outlet. If you only have two outlets and you have a P.A. system, that means only one vacuum can be used even though you will probably need three. Use shop vacuums not house vacuums. Your group’s members will not appreciate getting their house vacuum back all bent up or not working at all. Do not run three vacuums and a P.A. system on one electrical outlet. You’ll blow a fuse. And then have no power. If you are at a gas station, then the owner or manager of the station will be upset at having to reset the circuit breaker every fifteen minutes. You may destroy your chances for another car wash there in the future. If you run a P.A. next to a vacuum, the vacuum noise will drive you nuts and you can’t hear yourself talk. When you have to adjust the P.A. system too much you will get a screeching sound.
Remember if you’re limited on space forget the vacuuming. If you bring a vacuum just in case someone may request or demand a vacuum, then you will end up vacuuming and once you vacuum one car you’ll end up doing more. So decide before the event whether or not you will vacuum. If you decide to vacuum make sure you can vacuum three cars at once and have room for five cars to wait.
If you vacuum the cars the day of the event you will need to add to your list of supplies:
·
Three 25 foot or
longer extension cords – find the outlet
before the event. You may need longer extension cords.
· Three (or more) shop vacuums
· Three extra window cleaner bottles
· Carpet brush
· Carpet spot remover
You will also need another supervisor so no customers attempt to accuse your crew of having items missing from their car.
POST CAR WASH
Good locations for fundraiser car washes are hard to come by. If you don’t clean up the area and leave it free from trash and debris you not only hurt your group’s future car washes at that location but also other groups in your city who may also need money as much or more than you do. You should also wash down the area with a hose or pressure washer if possible to clean off any mud. Make sure when rinsing the parking lot that you follow the BMP’s in Chapter Two.
Make sure that if anyone wants any of their towels back that they go and get them. Collect all the other towels and save them for your next car wash. Make sure to untie the clothesline you used to dry the towels. Don’t cut it down. There should be no evidence that it was ever there.
Tally up the number of cars washed, ticket sales and donations. Let everyone know how much they earned. This is a form of instant gratification. Remember this is a country built on capitalistic value. By announcing the money made and an ‘ata-boy’, members will feel good about what they have done. The money represents success. Everyone wants to be a winner. Tell them they are winners. You did it! No excuses. You just did it. You accomplished something great through team work. If your group can do this, they can do anything. If you are a sports team you’ve united your team. If you have an upcoming game, you have a much better chance to win. If you’re another kind of group you’ve built unity and confidence in the group and a ‘We’re in it to win it’ attitude.
You should send thank you letters to the following people that have helped you with your group’s car wash:
· The owner of the property where you did the car wash
· The printer who printed the tickets
· The insurance broker that provided the liability insurance if you bought it
· Any corporate sponsors
· Water Quality Control government workers
· Your committee members (if you are a national group have the regional director sign the letter)
You may want to give certificates to some people that made your fundraiser possible. If you give one to the insurance agent or gas station owner, buy a couple of inexpensive frames and frame them. They will proudly display them in their offices. They will think of you each time they see them. Have the person that designed your tickets make the certificates. You can buy special paper from Office Depot, Staples or OfficeMax quite inexpensively. If you have a local stationery store, ask for a twenty percent discount and mention them in your next newsletter. Maybe you can give them a free business card ad in one of your programs for a free package of blank certificates. You should also give certificates to your committee members. Present them at the annual banquet.
Be creative and think of something extra special for thanking the property owner. Maybe a plaque for their wall. Nominate them at the local Chamber of Commerce for an award. Call county officials and tell them of the property owner’s unselfish act. Remember big property owners such as shopping center owners have a lot of political clout. Getting a county supervisor or city council member to recommend them for an award, proclamation or certificate of appreciation is a piece of cake. It also makes the property management company look good. You’re making friends and it can only help you and your group next time.
Try to find a reason to thank a city employee or a city council member. Did they help your fundraiser in any remote way? Present a certificate to them at a city council meeting.
Send the local fixed site car wash owners an apology letter for taking all their business away that weekend. Explain that it’s an annual event. Thank them for their understanding in this matter. Tell them your group’s members promise to continue to patronize