Selling Camp Cards

[caninecrew]

Is it acceptable to sell camp cards on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat. I was also wondering if this would differ on the way it was presented, including a video, or if its the parent or scout themselves posting.

Thanks for the help,

Samuel

[thrifty]

what's a camp card?  I assume its one of those plastic cards that has coupons to various local vendors?  Our school athletics program does something like that.  I don't see anything wrong with this.  Assuming I am correct in what they are, my opinion is that you are advertising the fundraiser on social media.  The customers are still dealing directly with you or another parent/scout/leader when purchasing the card.  Our troop and many others in the area advertise our fundraisers on our local media websites.   

Our troop doesn't post pics of the scouts online, its just usually a flier and details.  Something else to consider, is this a Troop fundraiser or a council fundraiser?  If the troop is doing this under the radar of the council then posting online might draw unwanted attention from council.  Its unlikely but possible.  Our council doesn't care, but maybe yours would.

See if this helps you.  It's specifically about fundraising.  I haven't read it lately.  https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/financeimpact/pdf/cfd-manuals/policies_and_procedures.pdf

[MikeS72]

1 hour ago, thrifty said:

Something else to consider, is this a Troop fundraiser or a council fundraiser? 

In most councils camp cards earn money both for the council and the unit.  Here in Central Florida scouts can earn free Cub Day Camp, or a free week at the council summer camp.

The cards are sold for $5, $3 of which goes to the council and $2 to the unit.  We credit our scouts with $2 for every card they sell, so even if they do not sell enough for a free week of summer camp, they can lower their total cost.

[SSScout]

Yep, "it depends".  Each Council sells a different CampCard.   Here in Murlin,  the Unit in effect BUYS the campcards (at $2.50 each)  and sells them for $5. The headline discount is "$5. off at Safeway, " and discounts at Jersey Mikes,  Harris Teeter, etc.   The unit can do what they want with their share.

  I have heard tell that in some councils, the Unit share is "automatically" credited to the Scout's  summer camp bill, hence the name "CAMPcard". The Unit in essence never sees the money, it is divvied between the Council and the Scout.  

[ItsBrian]

Our council raised the prices to $10 last year... so much harder to sell. 

[awanatech]

15 minutes ago, ItsBrian said:

Our council raised the prices to $10 last year... so much harder to sell. 

That would make it much tougher to sell. Ours are still $5, the Council keeps $2.50 and the Unit keeps $2.50.  Most of the Units around here apply the $2.50 to the Scout's account.  If a Scout sells a certain number of cards, they can earn scholarships to various camping options at our Council Camp.  If they earn a scholarship, they still get the $2.50 from each card added to their Scout account.  Selling 100 cards will earn Free Cub Day Camp or BSA Climbing or Shooting Weekend, 200 cards earns either BSA Summer Camp or Winter Camp, etc.

[thrifty]

well, it seems like everyone is selling camp cards except us.  Interesting.

[JasonG172]

On ‎3‎/‎14‎/‎2019 at 10:36 AM, caninecrew said:

Is it acceptable to sell camp cards on social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat.

Sure it is, we have several scout parents that do this for their scout.

17 hours ago, thrifty said:

well, it seems like everyone is selling camp cards except us.  Interesting.

Sorry to here that Thrifty, curious what is your Council ?

[thrifty]

Lake Erie formerly Greater Cleveland. Not going to lose any sleep over it, I just find it interesting.  I wonder why they aren't in our council because I would think the council is aware of them.  Or maybe not.  We have popcorn and maple syrup!  The troops in the area also have their pancakes, spaghetti or other fundraisers because popcorn doesn't sell enough to support the troop.  We do ok.

[T2Eagle]

33 minutes ago, thrifty said:

Lake Erie formerly Greater Cleveland. Not going to lose any sleep over it, I just find it interesting.  I wonder why they aren't in our council because I would think the council is aware of them.  Or maybe not.  We have popcorn and maple syrup!  The troops in the area also have their pancakes, spaghetti or other fundraisers because popcorn doesn't sell enough to support the troop.  We do ok.

next door in Erie Shores, we don't have them either.  Not sure if they're any more or less effective than any other fundraiser.

[malraux]

3 hours ago, T2Eagle said:

next door in Erie Shores, we don't have them either.  Not sure if they're any more or less effective than any other fundraiser.

They are better in some ways. Camp cards people want to buy, whereas popcorn you're really selling. 

[awanatech]

3 hours ago, malraux said:

They are better in some ways. Camp cards people want to buy, whereas popcorn you're really selling. 

This>>> Popcorn is always a hard sell for my Scouts.  I have very few who actually participate in the popcorn sale.  However, I always have people asking when we will have camp cards and they seek us out to buy them.

[Buggie]

So @thrifty  and everyone else, like someone in my troop stated when I said I wasn't going to be picking up cards to sell this year, "Well then, do you want to buy one?" 😁

It's usually a struggle to find a good venue that the scouts as a group can sell the cards at. We have always aimed for the camping outlet places in the OKC metro here, the big giant places and the smaller venues close to the troop's meeting spot. It does fairly well, but we're competing for the spots that all the other troops in the council are trying to get into. However last year the sporting goods and camping gear chain store we normally went to declined all BSA groups because they weren't on the camp card. Above my pay grade to figure out why they weren't, as that's between them and the council. (we did tell the council though)

But that loss allowed us a new discovery. We hit upon a grocery store outside of our normal haunts who welcomed us with open arms. We did gang busters there, with only a few comments on why a troop from B Town is doing in M City. This year though, that grocery chain is not excepting any one selling anything at their stores because another youth organization held a sale where one of the adults tripped, fell, injured themselves, and then the chain was sued. I don't have the details of who sued, insurance company or adult. I suspect the company did the lawsuit, because that's how they do things and not the adult doing it themselves. In the story being told to me, it was the adult who was dong the lawsuit, yet I think the story is biased because of bad blood with that adult's youth organization. In any case, we're back to the big outlet chains again. 

The big problem my son had is selling fatigue. Everything he was involved in had some sort of fundraiser, and in the case of the HS band, multiple back to back fund raisers. We had to spread out where he sold for which fundraiser so that folks wouldn't immediately start walking away when he approached. With each successive year, he got exhausted from having to do it over and over again on top of all the extra curricular activities he was selling for. 

[Liz]

Our district (maybe even our whole council) doesn't even bother with Popcorn sales. The district fundraiser consists of Camp Cards in the spring and chocolate and meat sticks in the Fall. 

My daughter sells the camp cards door to door and she loves it. Last year I didn't think she was ready developmentally for booth sales, but I think she's ready to try it this year. 

Veering a little off topic: For chocolate and meat sticks, this fall she put on her uniform, made some signs to tape to an old baby stroller frame, and we went downtown to sell snacks to all the Pokemon Go players on two "Community Days" which, if you're not familiar with PoGo, are in-game events that get tons of people out together playing Pokemon. The second time we had to scrounge around and ask for partial unsold boxes from other members of the Pack to get sufficient candy and meat to sell... and we sold out long before the event was over. I posted in a local Pokemon Go facebook group to let people know where we'd be and a picture so they'd know who to watch for (and so they'd bring cash). Several people told us they'd seen us on Facebook and had been watching for us.