Page 357 - One Thousand Ways to Make $1000

chapter tWelVe
RAISING MONEY FOR CHARITY
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URING the depression there were so many demands upon people to give to
charity that most of the time-honored methods of raising money proved
inadequate. Churches, which had always been able to depend upon an annual
bazaar for funds, found that the decline in spendable income reduced the net
proceeds from such undertakings very substantially. Carnivals, once the main
source of funds for American Legion posts and similar community
enterprises, failed to draw nickels and dimes in the needed volume. Even the
“Charity Ball” lost its pull. Yet the need for money was greater than ever, and
those responsible for raising the funds had to resort to new innovations.

One outstanding development was the so-called Goodwin plan, which had
quite a vogue for a time. The Goodwin Corporation of Chicago arranged with
a group of manufacturers to list their products in a special catalog. These
catalogs were distributed in quantities to church workers and others with the
understanding that a commission would be paid by the Goodwin Corporation
on all orders sent in for products listed in the catalog. Thousands of charitable
institutions took up the plan, but it met with opposition on the part of local
merchants. They looked upon it as a competitive activity which was taking
business away from their stores. Naturally the merchants boycotted the
products of the manufacturers who went into the plan, and soon the
opposition became so pronounced that many discontinued using it.

This experience serves to illustrate one important point that should be given
consideration in any kind of money-raising activity for charity. Is it going to
interfere with the business of local merchants and business men to whom the
community owes allegiance? For example, one of the first things most
churches decide to do when they put on an affair is to get out a souvenir
program and sell advertising to the local merchants at “all the traffic will
bear.” Little or no thought is given to the value of the advertising to the
merchant. The common attitude of the promoters is that they have been doing
business with these merchants for years, and this will be a good way for them
to reciprocate. They overlook the fact that in most cases such advertising is a