If your church is like most, some of your church fundraising activities are growing a little stale, or may not be bringing 
in the amount of money you need to complete a project. For decades, people have been depending on the old stand-by’s – bake sales, cookbook sales, car washes, giant yard sales, and donations – to raise the funds they need for the youth group, new altars, even a new fellowship hall. Unfortunately, it may take a bit more than these trusted activities to raise the money you need. Here are a few ideas that will help breathe new life in to your church fundraising efforts.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for a while, you have probably heard of discount cards; if you haven’t tried them out for yourself, you cannot realize the incredible profits you are missing out on! Even in tough economic times like we are in right now, these cards sell like crazy – because they really offer value to the customer. Naturally, church fundraising becomes much more exciting to those in your congregation who participate when they realize they can do something that is easy and really brings in the funds you need.
How can you use discount cards in your church fundraising efforts? Here are a few great ideas:
1. When you’re holding a bake sale in town, display the cards on your tables in a prominent place, so they will catch the interest of those who buy baked goods from you.
2. Sell them along with the church cookbook, or have the teenagers offer them to customers when they are holding a car wash to raise funds.
3. Even if you sell cookie dough, candy bars or some of the other common items popular today for fundraising, take the cards along with you and show them to customers! When they see how much money they can save, they will be persuaded to buy.
4. Sell the cards on their own! People love to save money, especially when times are tight – and fundraising cards offer incredible savings on food, haircuts, family activities, oil changes for the car, lots of products and services that 
everyone spends money on on a regular basis. Since the price is only $10 and the cards are good for one year, people realize they are going to save substantially more than they paid for the card.
There are literally dozens of different ways you can sell discount cards, and the profits really are amazing when compared to other items. The one single aspect of the cards that really make them an exceptional church fundraising item is that they are probably the one item that offers the customer real value that they can see for themselves.
Another reason you may want to use discount cards for church fundraising is that they do not require the planning and work that most other activities do. The company you order the cards from takes care of getting the merchants in your area to participate, prints the cards up, places your church name or logo on the front – and you do the selling!
Mark South
Easy Church Fundraising