What if a nearby organization sells discount cards?
Short Answer: This should not affect the outcome of your discount card fundraiser in any meaningful way as long as the other group is largely distinct from your organization. For example, a high school sports team selling discount cards is unlikely to impact the discount card fundraiser of a youth sports organization.
Long Answer: It is perhaps counter-intuitive to think that another organization selling discount cards will not significantly impact your organization’s discount card fundraiser, but it is nevertheless true. There are several reasons why this is so. First, even the most successful fundraiser conducted by an organization with hundreds of members will rarely penetrate more than 5% of the available local market. Therefore, from a purely mathematical perspective, it stands to reason that two large organizations conducting a fundraiser at the same time will share the same customers no more than ¼% (.05 x .05 = .0025) of the time.
Second, many people will purchase discount cards simply because they want to support the youth organization selling them and, since discount cards that are sold by two different organizations are likely to offer two different sets of discounts, many people will purchase a discount card from each youth organization. Remember, people aren’t really buying the discount cards per se; they’re really buying the discounts. Finally, members of a youth organization will almost always sell the number of discount cards they are told to sell if they are participating in a mandatory fundraiser, or they will sell the number of discount cards they are motivated to sell if they are participating in a voluntary fundraiser that is offering incentives. This is true because the market of available customers for discount cards is so large that your fundraiser participants won’t be daunted by the few people who are not interested in purchasing them, and your members will either sell what is mandated or they will sell the number of cards they are motivated to sell in order to earn the incentive that is being offered.
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