Every year we put on a rummage sale to help raise money for camp...usually we end up making around $5000 each year. But this isn't your typical on-the-front-lawn type of sale.
First...we get a PRIME location to hold it. Ours is in the parking lot of a supportive church that is on the main drag in town.
Second...we collect items several months ahead of time. We ask a local storage unit business to donate a large unit (sometimes two) for two or three months ahead of time. Then we start asking folks for their gently used, functioning items....key words GENTLY USED and FUNCTIONING. I have no qualms about inducing-guilt into people enough ahead of time that they don't donate their crap that we can't really sell. We sometimes have folks go around ahead of time to yard sales and ask for their leftovers (again making sure to ask only for the good leftovers). We have sent flyers out to our mailing list asking for donations.
We have ended up with a lot of great items...furniture, cars (yes, cars!) and countless other household items. A couple things that we do avoid: exercise equipment-unless it is quality, it won't sell; appliances-again unless it is truly a new item...it may not sell and then you are stuck with a dumping fee; and organs (not body parts...but the musical kind!). Don't know why, but we have had multiple people try to give us organs. We made the mistake of taking one...it didn't sell...so we said never again. One option on the questionable items: if the donor is someone you know well, you can accept the donation with the condition that they take it back if it doesn't sell.
Third...we ask local businesses to donate any clearance or overstock items to our sale. They get a write off (sometimes more than what they would end up selling the items for) and we get GREAT yard sale items (people love new things at yard sales!). This actually came about by accident...we had a Young
Lives supporter and former committee member who worked a local business that asked one year if we wanted all these items. We, of course, said, "YES!" They ended up donating around $8K worth of retail items. We thought, "Why not ask other businesses?"
Finally, we sell our hearts out. It does help to have a sales person who can sell and haggle a bit. Generally, we don't even price everything. We did for years, but stopped the last couple and made just as much money...so we figured why go through the hassle of tagging everything. We do tag large items with a fairly high price. We also make sure that it is well known with signs and flyers being handed out that this is a fundraiser.
Oh, one last hint, that we implemented last year. Every year we would hold our sale at the beginning of June...hoping and praying we would make enough for camp and hoping and praying it wouldn't rain on us (it doesn't stop raining in the Seattle area until after July 4th). Finally last year, we got smart and decided to hold our rummage sale in August. That way we didn't have to worry about rain AND we would have the money in the bank for camp for the next summer. We would have an idea how much there was well in advance and could plan accordingly...holding other fundraisers if need be.
Please feel to contact me (
Amy Bonzon) if you have questions.
Lindsey Patchell (Southern Division Coordinator) recently shared her wisdom on camp trip leading in a podcast with lots of great hints, ideas and tips!
