Successful Fundraising Ideas for Groups and Clubs

Coffee Mugs Tumblers and Water Bottles Fundraiser Idea

How to create a successful coffee mug fundraiser

The idea with this fundraiser is to sell coffee mugs, tumblers, or water bottles with your own custom messaging to support your team, club, group, or organization. Ideally, you’ll want sell all 3 to have the best chance at success. What makes these items unique is that they will have a photo of your team, or something that represents your cause, printed onto each mug. If you represent an animal shelter, the mugs can have photos of animals. If you represent an elementary school, the mugs can have photos of artwork created by your students. If you are fundraising on behalf of a school or youth sports team, you can print quotes and / or images that are relevant to the sport. It’s up to you and what your group represents.

You can get a variety of coffee mugs, water bottles, or tumblers printed in bulk for anywhere between $3 and $10 each depending on quantity, materials, style, and size, at any one of the many online promotional printing companies. You can then sell the drinkware for $15 to $30 each (depending on style and size), with all profits going to support your organization. If you order through an online promotional products company, you will have to purchase minimum quantities to get good wholesale rates and you still need to fulfill your customer orders. Your other options for ordering product is to purchase blank sublimation-ready mugs, water bottles, or tumblers in bulk, and print the designs yourself using a sublimation heat press machine designed specifically for cups and bottles which you can purchase on Amazon for between $100 and $200 dollars. The process is really simple. The benefit to doing the printing yourself is that your not stuck with a bunch of designs that aren’t selling well and the blank sublimation drinkware costs much less than purchasing your items pre-printed from a promotional products supplier. With both of the above mentioned options, you will still need to handle packaging and fulfillment. If you don’t have the resources to handle fulfillment, we recommend going with a print-on-demand company. Your cost per mug or bottle will be a lot more, however the company handles all of your printing and fulfillment and there are no minimum orders. To increase your profits with print-on-demand, just raise your sales price.

In order to sell your items online, you’ll need to have a website where people can see what you offer and be able to place orders. If you don’t already have a website, you can easily set one up on platforms like Squarespace or Wix. Both offer e-commerce functionality.

Promotion is everything. If you want to be successful with this type of fundraiser, you’ll have to get the word out. These products won’t sell themselves. Use social media platforms, email newsletters, and community bulletin boards to spread the word! Be sure to mention that all proceeds go to support your organization. You have the option to make this a short-term fundraiser or sell all year long.

You can add to the fundraising fun by asking people who make a coffee mug purchase to post a picture of themselves on social media holding the cup or bottle for a chance to win a grand prize.