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Marketing/business classes are in a unique position when it comes time to raise funds. All student
organizations need funds to operate, and DECA chapters are no exception. You can find sales and event
ideas to raise funds all over the place. (One good book is the newly published The Bucks Start Here,
by Lyn Fiscus and Earl Reum. See www.leadershiplogistics.com.)
Since marketing and business revolve around sales and profits, your classroom work not only makes
fund–raising a legitimate part of your classroom work, but teaches your student DECA members to be
exceptionally skilled at raising money.
Here is a list of kinds of fund–raisers and how they teach.
At the bottom of the list are a few different ways to obtain funds that relate to your
curriculum, but that you might not have considered.
(We have left out grants and your school store. The school store deserves its own category.
See www.schoolbasedenterprises.com and the School–based Enterprise section of this resource.)
| 1. Sell Products |
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Sales, with all that it entails, is a part of your curriculum. Market
surveys, supply and demand, calculating cost and profits, promotion, the principles of
salesmanship, the steps to making a sale, financial record keeping–these are things you
teach.
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No marketing/business teacher should fall into the trap of thinking like the
advisor of an extracurricular club. Those "clubs" merely sell something to make money without
studying the process. You and your members are professionals.
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Resources: You can easily peruse DECA's Sales & Marketing companies for products that
suit you. www.deca.org/mainsmpage.html
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Competitive Events: The Technical Sales Event (a Marketing Representative Event) teaches about sales presentations.
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Of the Chapter Team Competitive Events, the Learn and Earn Project and the Community
Service Project often involve various kinds of selling.
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| 2. Sell advertising |
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One product you can easily sell is advertising. Businesses like to contribute to projects
that put their name before potential customers, whether on T-shirts of chapter members who are doing a public
activity, in a school publication, or on display ads at sports or community events.
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Advertising is a major component of your curriculum. Raising funds in this way teaches a
lot about how and why businesses promote themselves.
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The Chapter Team Event Creative Marketing Project is an excellent resource for teaching
advertising concepts.
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The Marketing Representative Advertising Campaign Event teaches the principles of advertising
with from 1 to 3 members presenting an ad campaign backed up with fact sheets rather than a complete written
manual.
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| 3. Raise funds by conducting events |
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DECA chapters hold talent contests, fashion shows, golf tournaments, dances, etc., to
raise funds.
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| Resources: |
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See the "Chapter Clips" section of the DECA student member magazine, Dimensions for many creative ideas.
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A classic article listed under "Learning through Fundraising" at www.deca.org/advcornerresources.html
spells out the marketing tasks a chapter performs when it undertakes a community event. It shows how the events
relate to your curriculum.
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The Community Service Project, a chapter team event, is an appropriate teaching vehicle to pair with
event management.
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4. Build relationships with businesses: how mature chapters combine curriculum,
business partners, and fund–raising.
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When you go to the Chamber of Commerce (your chapter can become a member of the Chamber or
you can simply ask to present) or contact businesses individually, you don't have to simply ask for funds-you
can earn them. Businesses often can use marketing research, and you want to teach these techniques to your
members. A nice win-win.
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Conducting this kind of research or building a publicity campaign for a business is
educational for your members, but it also has value for the business. Once you have done them a favor,
they will be open to helping you in other ways, from financial contributions to materials, classroom
speakers, and help with members' competitive events training. These relationships can last a long time.
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Competitive Events that can help you connect with businesses for mutual benefit:
Public Relations Project: A Chapter Team project. You can help a school organization or
a business improve its PR efforts and write the project up for event competition.
Marketing Research Projects:
Many small businesses don't have the resources to do marketing research. You can help.
One advisor called it, "helping these little guys out." Those businesses, including some large
corporations, will be grateful and will be likely to help support your program financially
(and with materials, classroom speakers and event judges as well).
These events in the areas of retail marketing, general marketing, business and financial
services, and hospitality and recreation fit your classroom objectives like a glove.
The sections of the MR Event outlines read like units of your curriculum: describing a business
and its community (geographic, demographic, socioeconomic); research—surveys and secondary sources;
developing a campaign or promotion. In addition, each year a new topic is chosen to teach about
another area of marketing/business concern. This year the topic is Green Marketing.
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