What’s the Secret to a Stress-Free Fundraiser Pickup Day?

One of the most important days of your fundraiser is your flower pickup day. If your pickup day is chaotic and stressful, it can leave your participants frustrated. If your pickup day is organized and well-staffed, it will leave your participants looking forward to next year’s fundraiser.

In this blog, we’re going to share some of our best tips to make your pickup day as stress-free as possible. A little planning goes a long way in making the day easier for your whole group. Let’s start with what you should do before your pickup day even starts.

Our Tips for a Stress-Free Pickup Day

Advertise the Day, Time, and Location of Your Pickup Day

Make sure all of your parents know when and where your pickup day is. If parents miss pickup day, you’ll have a lot of unclaimed flowers and frustrated customers. We recommend sending reminder texts and emails throughout your event to create a sense of urgency. If your group has a social media account, you can post reminders there too. Sending plenty of reminders keeps pickup day from feeling like a surprise when the day finally comes.

Bring as Many Volunteers as You Can and Give Them Jobs

The more volunteers you have on pickup day, the better. But it’s not enough to have a lot of volunteers; you should also give them specific jobs. You’ll need:

• Volunteers to unload flowers and organize them into groups
• Volunteers who can direct traffic and answer questions
• Volunteers to run the check-in table
• Volunteers to pull orders
• Volunteers to help carry orders to cars
• Volunteers to help clean up at the end of your event

Put Up Plenty of Signs to Direct Traffic

Before pickup day begins, think about how cars and people will move through your pickup area. Put up plenty of signs so people know where to park and where to walk to pick up their orders. Try to create a simple path from your parking area to your check-in area to your order pickup area to your exit. We suggest you assign at least one volunteer to just guide traffic and answer questions.

Have a System for Filling Orders

When your sale ends, you’ll need to print and sort your pull slips and order slips from FundraiseIt.org. We recommend you organize these alphabetically so you can quickly find each parent’s order as they arrive. Some schools like to prepull each individual order and box them, while others like to pull each order as parents arrive. We’ve seen both systems work, so it’s up to you. However, we recommend you at least prepull your larger orders to avoid delays.

Have a Plan for Leftover Items

Chances are, you’ll have some unclaimed orders at the end of the day. You’ll want to have a plan for these leftover flowers. We recommend putting together a plan to decide:

• How long you’re going to hold unclaimed orders
• Who’s going to contact these families about their missed pickup
• Where leftover orders will be stored
• Which team member will keep track of them
• How to label unclaimed items so nothing gets mixed up
• What to do with flowers that are never claimed (donate them, use them as thank-you gifts for donors, etc.)

Give Yourself a Review at the End of the Day

Pickup day doesn’t end when the last car leaves. Before everyone heads home, you should take some time to account for leftover orders and clean up your event space. It’s also smart to talk about what worked and what didn’t. Maybe your layout worked great, but your parking plan didn’t. Maybe you needed a few more volunteers at your check-in table. These little notes can help you improve your next fundraiser pickup day.

FAQs About Pickup Day

How much time should we leave between flower delivery and the start of pickup?

It depends on how many orders you have and how many volunteers you have to sort them. It also depends on if you want to pre-pull orders pull them as parents arrive. In general, we recommend you give yourself at least an hour to an hour to unload and sort your flowers before families arrive.

How can we keep the flowers looking their best until people arrive?

Try to sit them in a cool, shaded area. We know this isn’t always possible, but it’s ideal to keep them out of direct sun and strong winds for long periods of time.

What else should we review at the end of our pick-up day?

Here are some more questions you can ask at the end of your pickup day to improve your event management and time management skills for your next successful fundraising event:

• Did our setup take longer or shorter than expected?
• Were our pickup instructions clear enough?
• What questions did people keep asking throughout the day?
• Was our pickup location easy to find?
• Did traffic flow well?
• Was parking a problem?
• Did we have enough signs and were they in the best spots?
• Did our lines move at a good pace?
• Were orders easy to find quickly? Why or why not?
• Did we have enough volunteers?
• Overall, were our parents and volunteers happy?

Contact JOCO Growers to Schedule Your Own Flower Fundraiser Today

So, there you have it! If you follow these guidelines, your flower fundraiser pickup day will be as smooth and stress-free as possible. To recap, make sure everyone knows when pickup day is, bring as many volunteers as you can, organize your volunteers by giving them specific jobs, have a system for filling orders, have a plan for unclaimed orders, and make sure you talk about what went well and what didn’t afterwards.

Contact JOCO Growers today to learn more about our flower fundraisers. We can help you organize both spring and fall flower sales to help you meet your school’s fundraising goals. Call our office or send us an email to schedule your next flower fundraiser.

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