Could/Should/do we have the energy/is it worth/does anyone care to head up a garage/rummage sale to help fund…(insert specific committee, insert specific tool, expansion, insert maker scholarship fund here)
we could sell off some of the odds and ends around here (if we have much), people clear out personal cabinets and donate piles of stuff to sell.
Problems:
Lots of them - organizing it, someone organizing it all, advertisement, what do we do with the stuff not sold, just general effort it would take to pull something like this off Pros:
Everyone cleans out corners and gets rid of stuff they don’t want and donates it to the space, tools can be sold off before the expansion so we don’t need to worry about moving them, could be a deep clean for the space
Could be held in the empty warehouse for ease (if we have certificates that people can actually go in) again…problematic
Questions:
Is it worth the effort? My moms church makes about $1,200 off a yearly sale it’s truly odds and ends and by the end they give people boxes and tell them to fill them for $5 just purge of stuff.
Do we really need to do this?
Probably not but still it’s an idea
Why am I always coming up with half-baked ideas?
Recently, I’ve realized that I have collected way too much stuff over the years. In addition, I’ve just inherited my mother-in-laws stuff since she passed. This amounts to a lot of redundant and unwanted items to dispose of. I’ve researched how to dispose of it, sell or eliminate the clutter/stuff in the last few months.
Here’s the essentials of what I’ve discovered. This is the priority list for disposing of your stuff.
Keep what you must (pictures, mementos, letters etc)
Sell what you can (ebay, Amazon, mercari, letgo, craigslist, garage sales, estate sales, etc)
Donate what charities will take
Recycle what you are able to
Throw away the rest.
Every means of resale takes a cut ranging from 60% for some estate sales, to just a few dollars to pennies for each item. Garage sales have the lowest cost of sales (if your selling it yourself), but they also get the lowest price for your goods. Garage sale shoppers know how to bargain usually and are looking for give-away prices. Craigslist comes with its own set of risks and costs.
I like the idea of donating to DMS and then holding a giant garage sale. The donor can take a fair market donation for their items, and there are programs to help determine this, and DMS gets the actual cash.
We also have the space to hold such a sale in the parking lot. One of the worst aspects of holding a garage sale yourself is the security aspect of losing your property to thieves. Believe it or not some people will let shoppers into their homes to go to the restroom, wash their hands etc only to find out they’be been robbed. It also usually causes a traffic jam in your neighborhood which is undesirable.
I guess I like the idea, but it is a helluva lot of work. We’d need lots of volunteers and lost of stuff to make this worthwhile.
I agree on the hell-a-lotta work. I honestly don’t have the energy to pull something like this off right now. Family/holiday season gearing up/triathlon training gearing up.
This is not a plan I would support with “Half Baked” interest by the person or persons suggesting it.
The main reason is that once items are left on our property, DMS will defacto become the party required to dispose of the items. Disposal often cost more than volunteer time, it can cost us funds directly in addition trash pick ups and specialty disposal for items with issue of being tossed in the regular trash.
If the interest is enough to guarantee that DMS isn’t going to be on the hook for disposal, then you have my fly by support to host the event.
Been involved in church, school, and scout troop rummage sales for 16 years now.
And auction-type fundraisers.
Both are tales about Organizer(s) and Everybody Else.
Auction-type fundraisers
are intense work for weeks-to-months by 1-2 Organizers.
always “seem” like less work to Everybody Else because EEs are not the organizers who do the bulk of the work.
Organizers begs EEs to solicit donations from companies, create auction items, bring food, set up, turn up, bid, clean up, make sure all auction bids paid for. Organizers are up against EEs with busy lives who must find time to create auction items and solicit businesses. Soliciting businesses is uncomfortable for many EEs.
Organizer puts in an unbelievable amount of time to find a location and any catered food.
Organizer stores all donations at her house.
Organizer curates all the donations and develops the displays.
Organizer usually ends up personally filling in the gaps where an EE didn’t volunteer.
auctions “raise” money, but after expenses (location rental, catered food, auction display stuff, table decorations, advertising, etc) their profit margin can be low. Always ask what was spent vs what was raised.
Rummage sales
are intense work for 2-3 days by a vast team of Everybody Else.
always “seem” like more work because people remember their personal garage sales. But group rummage sales are a case of many hands make light work.
Organizer picks a weekend, names the date donations can arrive, and solicits two days of team labor from EEs. Puts ad in Craigslist and on Facebook (in our case flyers at some like-minded businesses). Gets change. Schedules Salvation Army, etc, to pick up leftovers.
rummage sales’ profit margin is high relative to the low expenses (no rent, no catering, no display stuff, no table decorations).
after the first year, a system is in place making it turnkey to run the sale annually.
everybody happy that they can donate their castoffs and reclaim space in their homes.
If annual event, people save up their castoffs for our rummage sale.
I had been making the case for rummage sale fundraiser to our troop for 3 years. No one believed me. Until they had one last year…the Moms Who Do Everything were relieved at how little time it took. They would much rather pitch in for two days than deal with a prolonged effort to sell popcorn.
I had a similar thought. I’m going to begin a purge in the machine shop. We’ve got odds and ends and old rusted tools in drawers and duplicates of other stuff. But I don’t just want to throw it away. I was trying to think of a good way to let people buy what they want and put the money to one of the DMS funds. either way, it will help organize, lighten our load, and let us take an inventory of what we actually have. I’ll be storing things under the table until we can figure out what to do with them. I hope this works out. cheers!