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A T-shirt fundraiser is a fun way to raise awareness about your cause and generate funds simultaneously. Whether your goal is to raise as much awareness as possible or generate maximum funds, you probably want to know:
Suggested Selling Prices For Your T-Shirt Fundraiser
Considering the above factors has led various fundraising platforms to suggest specific selling prices for your fundraiser T-shirts.
Harmonizing the suggested prices to account for base costs produces the following guidelines for selling price for your T-shirts:
A simple short-sleeve unisex T-shirt — $20 to $25
A long sleeve shirt — $25 to $30
A sweatshirt or hoodie — $35 to $40
A premium T-shirt or multi-colored design should be priced higher, at around $30.00 to $35.00 for a short-sleeve T-shirt.
Pricing your fundraiser t-shirts using whole numbers will make it easier to accept cash as a payment option.
Fundraiser supporters typically donate about $40 toward a cause so that you can charge more for a premium product.
It would be best if you didn’t try to sell premium products to a target market that doesn’t have that much disposable income.
The Base Cost Of Producing T-Shirts For A Fundraiser
The cost of producing shirts is the base cost and affects your profit margin, with a higher base cost meaning a lower profit margin per shirt. However, you will be able to charge more for a higher-quality or fancier shirt.
Factors that affect the cost of printing shirts are as follows:
- The quality of material – higher quality material costs more.
- The length of the sleeves – long sleeves cost more to produce than short sleeves.
- The number of colors in the design – simpler designs with one to three colors are cheaper to produce than full-color designs.
- The number of locations printed – printing only on the front will cost substantially less than printing the front, the back, and sleeves.
Less expensive t-shirt blanks mean a lower base cost, which means more profits.
Using Print-On-Demand for Fundraiser T-shirts
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In the old days of T-shirt fundraising, you had to pay a company to print a certain number of shirts for you, and then it was up to you to sell them. Doing so meant you had the headaches of dealing with orders and refunds or returns, but you might also not sell all the shirts.
These days, most online fundraising platforms don’t require you to print the shirts upfront and then sell them, potentially leaving you with unsold inventory.
Instead, the shirts are printed when customers place their orders, a model known as print-on-demand.
More significant sales volumes are regarded as the same as a larger print run in a traditional model and results in a lower base cost. If you use a print-on-demand company like Blue City Tees you can print front prints, any number of colors for as low as $9.00 per shirt for a ring-spun cotton t-shirt like Bella Canvas 3001 which are super popular and comfortable.
If you take 100+ fundraiser shirt orders, your cost will likely be lower using a screen printer to fulfill the order. If you have 50 or less t-shirts at a time, you can definitely do much better with print on demand. Whether you print 1 or 20 shirts, your cost is the same.
Selling more shirts also means creating more awareness about your cause and generating more funds. But how do you sell more shirts?
How to Sell More Fundraising T-Shirts with Social Media
According to the 2021 Global Trends in Giving Report, “Female donors are more likely to make a donation because of social media marketing, while male donors are more likely to give because of email messages.”
There are several ways to help your t-shirt fundraiser get more visibility. One of the best is social media. Most everyone has a good number of facebook friends. By creating a simple Fundraiser page on Facebook (Meta), you can invite your entire facebook follower list to “follow” your page, which will bring a lot of organic visibility to your cause.
In addition, there is now a Facebook fundraiser page where your fundraiser can be listed for free in a “non-profit marketplace” of sorts.
You can also create a Facebook post and boost the post for a few dollars a day to get paid visibility on the cause. If your fundraiser is local-centric, you can geo-target that location to make sure the right people see your fundraiser. If your fundraiser is national, but it is for teachers, for example, you can target teachers in the U.S.
With the power if influencer marketing, you can have an influencer promote your fundraiser on Instagram or TikTok. Both platforms do well with non-profits and fundraisers and are a great way to sell more fundraiser t-shirts.
Should You Lower Prices on a T-shirt Fundraiser?
Pricing your shirts lower, so you get increased sales volume, results in increased profit per shirt because of reduced base cost due to the greater number of shirts printed.
But you want to make sure your prices are high enough to give your fundraiser enough ROI.
Knowing what your sales goals are will help you decide on the right price.
Should You Use a T-Shirt Fundraising Platform?
There are quite a few companies who specialize in working with churches, schools, and non-profits on their t-shirt fundraisers.
Keep in mind that if you are considering using a fundraising platform, they tend to come with added fees and costs. Such fees can cut into your profits, resulting in a higher selling price for your t-shirts.
If you do decide to use a platform, choose one that’s free or inexpensive to use. Some platforms will even allow your supporters to add a donation to the price, increasing the earning potential of your fundraiser.
Conclusion
Depending on your target audience, fundraisers can often price t-shirts at or higher than a standard retail price because people are willing to pay a bit more toward the cause. Whatever you do, make sure your prices give you plenty of margin for the non-profit you are raising funds for.
Lastly, I think t-shirts are great as fundraisers because when someone stands for a cause, the shirt shows the support of the wearer, and it brings more eyes to the cause. Think about it, a person wearing a message on a shirt is like a walking billboard for any non-profit.