When people think about car wash fundraisers, they think of
fun, water fights, etc. A few water fights are ok but remember you are there to make
money. I’m not saying ‘Absolutely no water fights.’ If you take away all
the fun you won’t get hard work out of anyone. If you run your car wash like a drill
sergeant you will:
- Break momentum
- Find workers taking breaks
- Wash less cars
- Have no volunteers next year
- Be hated for ruining a perfect Saturday
The easiest way to control a group is to assign tasks that
must be done for each person. Since we recommend that your car wash be from 10:00 am to
2:00 pm you should divide your washers and sign holders in half. In other words, if you
have twenty-five people in your group, have thirteen work from 10:00 am to noon and twelve
people work from noon to 2:00 pm. If you’ve done well at marketing, you will have so
many cars to wash that you will never finish. You will be busy and that will cut down on
the horse play. If the horse play gets out of hand, start switching people around to do
different jobs. Send the culprit to hold a sign on the corner to draw more cars in. Use
that high energy in a positive way so your group makes more money. Send the other person
to talk to people while holding a donation can. A good person for this would be whoever
was the instigator. This manipulative personality trait is exactly what you will need to
get more tips. The third water fighter, if there is a third, might now become a dryer.
If you have a new group of water fighters right away have the
parent do the spraying. Maybe you are so slow that everyone is bored so they are playing
around. Send the next two wildest kids to a local grocery store to sell left over tickets.
I believe you need one parent in the drying area, one in the
washing area and one on the donation can. If you have a bake sale, sell hot dogs, etc. you
will need another parent in charge of that area. They should expect to work all four
hours. Their kids should also work four hours. That makes four to five kids that will
remain in check. If you have too many chiefs this could cause a small problem. So be
careful.
You should think in advance about who should do which car
washing jobs. Taller kids should be dryers rather than washers. Usually cars are dirty on
the bottom. Tall people tend to skip behind the wheels down low when they get tired, but
you need them to dry on top of mini-vans and utility vehicles. The most outgoing people
you should use to hold signs for one hour and switch them to soapers later. They will
bring in energy half way through the shift. High energy out going people won’t get
tired holding a sign and yelling at cars to stop in to the car wash fundraiser. They will
increase everyone’s energy levels.
Your signs should be poster board size, bright colors and
hand written in bold black ink. The letters should be wide. Use very few words. The words
should be able to be read from twenty to thirty yards away while driving in a car moving
at twenty-five to thirty-five miles an hour. You should have CAR WASH in big letters and a
positive word such as:
- Great
- Big
- Low Price
- Wow
- Cool
- Best
- Etc.
You will need between eight and ten signs strategically
placed around the intersection and a couple down the streets with the highest traffic that
lead directly to your car wash fundraiser site, perhaps one-half mile or so away. Make
three to four signs half size and use those as hand sign held up by kids on the street
corners.
If you have a really strong energy auctioneer/comedian/radio
type in your group you can keep everyone hyped during your car wash. When they are not
talking, play music such as "At the car wash." It makes for a fun time and
customers just love this type of stuff. If you don’t have a P.A. system, get a
megaphone and use that. If a customer compliments you on a nice job tell them to say this
into the P.A. system so all can hear.
Get a medium size coffee can and wrap it with bright yellow
paper. Write ‘DONATIONS’ on the can in blue magic marker. Cut a hole in the top
of the plastic lid one-half inch wide by two inches long for people to stuff money in.
Also write on the can in smaller letters, but not too small either, ‘THANK YOU’
or ‘PLEASE’.
If you choose to sell hot dogs you will definitely have a
captured audience. If you intend to feed your group you should charge them at least fifty
cents each to cover costs otherwise they will eat up one hundred percent of your profits.
People get hungry washing cars and burn up a lot of calories. If you offer free hot dogs
to your washers and let’s say there are twenty of them, they will devour sixty hot
dogs, three a piece. This may sound funny but not when you’re trying to make cash for
your group. If you charge for them you will need an average of 1.5 hot dogs per washer and
you will cover your costs on them. Guestimate how many hot dogs you will sell and add 1.5
times the number of washers to this number. This will give you an approximation of
supplies needed. Remember to buy slightly more buns than hot dogs, half a pack or so. Some
people will want a hot dog and no bun and some like the bun with no hot dog. Plus you will
drop a few or squish a few buns and then no one will want to eat them. Be careful when
selling hot dogs. When it gets busy at your car wash you want people to stay in the cars
otherwise they will disappear to the hot dog area while their car blocks your production.
A hot dog stand should also have a parent if this is a
kid’s group to manage the hot dogs and the money. Kids burn hot dogs, undercook them
or give them away to friends. They will also forget to turn off the propane on the BBQ.
This will really screw up sales if you run out of propane. No one will want a cold or
uncooked hot dog.
This is the hardest type of extra activity to have at a car
wash fundraiser. Try to find someone in your group who has run a successful bake sale
before – one which actually made money and sold out. If they’ve been through
this a couple of times you should use their experience and put them in charge. Have them
run the bake sale event separately with different volunteers, monies, etc. Give them a
really good location and let them take trays of goodies to people in line or in the drying
area. Don’t allow sales in the wash zone. If you allow people to get out of their
cars to purchase baked goods have them leave their keys in the car. You’ll need an
extra supervisor moving cars, watching for hoses and people moving from the wash area to
the drying area. This will allow customers to browse the bake sale layout. It’s ok to
have a bake sale and hot dog stand. They work well because someone who wants a hot dog and
soda will want a brownie. The bake sale volunteers should be given the utmost courtesy so
tensions stay low and everybody works as a team.
If your fundraiser is at a school or church with a cafeteria,
you may want to consider a pancake breakfast. The most important thing to remember is to
keep the keys for the cars when the people walk in to eat. Then make sure there is plenty
of parking for the cars that have been washed otherwise they will stack up and the lot
will be full.
The single most important item in the operations side of your
fundraiser is to keep the cars moving. Don’t let the line go out onto the street. It
will cause an accident or the local police will tell you to move the cars or stop your
fundraiser. It’s much better if the police officer stops for a donut at your bake
sale or a hot dog at the booth. The easiest way not to get backed up is to move cars
through at a steady pace. Fast enough to do a quality job but not too fast to lose tip
money. Don’t let your supervisors start long in depth conversations with customers
when there are cars in line. If cars start backing rapidly in the entrance area or start
of your car wash, then form two lines. If your dryers start backing up, move them further
from the wash area and allocate additional dryers, one at a time, until the problem stops.
If people in the cars are hanging around after their wash, tell them to park off to the
side or out of the way of the car wash proceedings.
Distributing flyers the day of the event is important. If
your car wash gets slow, send members of your group to each grocery store nearby and to
each fast food restaurant to pass out flyers.
You should have the person in charge count the money with
another person so in case anybody thinks there might be missing monies, the exact amount
can be verified. Keep donation can money, hot dog money and car wash ticket money separate
from drive up customers money. Also keep the stack of tickets received from the customers
attending your car wash fundraiser and a count of the number of cars washed. Subtract the
number of tickets received from the number of cars washed. Multiply that number by the
price of the car wash for the day of the event. This should equal the total money made
from car washes. This way no one can accuse anyone of any impropriety.
If the media shows up act uninterested and start talking to
customers when they arrive. Pretend that you are very busy and stand near the wash area.
If they get a really good picture you’ll better your chances of not getting cut in
case a late breaking story takes precedence. It’s important that they get a picture
of members of your group actually washing a car. Also interviews of customers saying how
great this event is. That is good positive news and you know we need more of it.
As soon as they take pictures and interview your customer(s)
discreetly walk away to the donation can area. This is where one of your people is talking
to customers about how great your group is. Stand there and the reporter will begin asking
questions. Tap them on the shoulder and say "Wait one second, our cars are backing
up." Then briskly walk to the far side of your car wash. The reporter will then have
no choice but to interview your donation person and another customer. By this time the
story will be getting big with great quotes and information about your club. When they
finally talk to you (the person in charge) give them a great quote about what great team
work and how thankful you are for all the generous people. Bingo! You’re in. Everyone
will read that story and next year’s car wash will be great plus this publicity will
unite your group and make other fundraisers easier to get sponsors for.
If a radio station comes by let them interview the kids in
the group and the adults with the most energy. They will easily draw additional people to
your event.
If you are doing a wash-a-thon car wash you must count the
exact number of cars so you know how much to collect from your pledgers. We have two
sheets in the Appendix Section of this book that you might want to use. For whoever counts
cars, this will be their only job. Don’t let them get side tracked or help you wash
vehicles when you busy or someone needs to run to the bathroom. In cases of large groups
every car missed could be $100 or more in missed revenue. If you have a member of your
group in a wheel chair, this might be a good job for them. Make sure that whoever does
this job realizes how important it is.
I don’t recommend vacuuming cars unless you have a lot
of extra people to do the work. You’ll also need a lot of extra room. Vacuuming takes
a long time and once you start you’re committed to vacuum everyone’s car that
wants it. You’ll get mini-vans with Christmas tree pine needles from two years past
and customers who expect every needle removed. Whatever you do, if you decide to provide
vacuuming do it after the car wash not before. Also do it out of the way so the wash only
customers can leave otherwise you will create an incredible bottle neck when you get to
that mini-van I mentioned.
If you vacuum you will also be expected to clean the inside
windows. Again, more people will be needed for that. If you vacuum you’ll need an
electrical outlet. If you only have two outlets and you have a P.A. system, that means
only one vacuum can be used even though you will probably need three. Use shop vacuums not
house vacuums. Your group’s members will not appreciate getting their house vacuum
back all bent up or not working at all. Do not run three vacuums and a P.A. system on one
electrical outlet. You’ll blow a fuse. And then have no power. If you are at a gas
station, then the owner or manager of the station will be upset at having to reset the
circuit breaker every fifteen minutes. You may destroy your chances for another car wash
there in the future. If you run a P.A. next to a vacuum, the vacuum noise will drive you
nuts and you can’t hear yourself talk. When you have to adjust the P.A. system too
much you will get a screeching sound.
Remember if you’re limited on space forget the
vacuuming. If you bring a vacuum just in case someone may request or demand a vacuum, then
you will end up vacuuming and once you vacuum one car you’ll end up doing more. So
decide before the event whether or not you will vacuum. If you decide to vacuum make sure
you can vacuum three cars at once and have room for five cars to wait.
If you vacuum the cars the day of the event you will need to
add to your list of supplies:
- Three 25 foot or longer extension cords – find the outlet
before the event. You may need longer extension cords.
- Three (or more) shop vacuums
- Three extra window cleaner bottles
- Carpet brush
- Carpet spot remover
You will also need another supervisor so no customers attempt
to accuse your crew of having items missing from their car.
