Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Equal Exchange

If you have kids in school or even just know any school aged kids you probably get sick of the endless fundraisers.  As an active PTA parent, I know these are annoying but a much needed way for schools to raise money for field trips and other things that are considered "extras" in times of tight school budgets.  While brainstorming how could we make these more purposeful (cause let's face it, a lot of this stuff is overpriced JUNK) I heard that my daughter's yearly fundraiser was going to be FAIR TRADE and it nearly stopped me in my tracks.  I eagerly volunteered to handle the fundraiser since I feel so passionate about fair trade.  The name of the fundraiser they used is Equal Exchange.  Having never heard of them before I did a little research about them first.  Were they for real?  And yes, they are for real.

Working with Equal Exchange was positive.  There was excellent and responsive communication and they have an easy spreadsheet to talley orders and create your order to the company.  The only difficult thing was that the orders do not come sorted by student seller as some fundraising companies do.  This just means planning for time to go through and sort each order and getting some other parents to come help.

I think a great way to increase sales with this fundraiser would be to partner it with education on what Fair Trade is and why it is important.  Not only may that help increase sales but it may introduce people to Fair Trade that have never even heard of it before.

Some of the items available from Equal Exchange.
So, if you are looking for a fundraiser idea for your group, they are a good option to consider. They sell everything from chocolates, coffee and wrapping paper to unique gift items from Ten Thousand Villages.   http://www.equalexchange.coop/equal-exchange-fundraising

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