King Fundraising reviews

1537896775

Marlene Jacobs

google

Hi Marlene, thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. When a group contacts us about a Yankee Candle fundraiser, we follow Yankee Candles published guidelines for which groups they allow to do a fundraiser with their programs. I checked with our office staff and reviewed the guidelines with them again after receiving your review. When we encounter a group that doesnt meet Yankee Candles guidelines, we may recommend some ways to help them reach their fundraising goals, but most of the time Yankee Candle is one of the best options for most small groups, as there are no order minimum requirements, they have an excellent online store component to the fundraiser, and their shipping rates are only a portion of the actual shipping cost. If you have any questions about Yankee Candles guidelines for which groups they will allow us to offer their program to, please contact our office at 1-800-541-1463 for a more thorough explanation. Please also let us know what group you are with, as we dont see anyone in our system by your name. We are glad to help when we can.

1537898823

1

My peers and I were interested in doing a Yankee Candle Fundraiser. King Fundraising tried everything to get me to switch products (programs) that I wanted to sell. Given that I had a small group I assume their profits are higher on other programs. This left a bad taste in my mouth and we chose a different fundraising company instead. Could be a fluke thing but I do not think Yankee Candle would be very happy about this. Parents liked the idea of candles, instead we were forced to go a different route. Not pleased..

1521398572

Skylar Harrison

google

Skylar, Im sorry to hear that your child had a negative experience with the fundraiser. We provide each school with a tiered prize program so students can earn more and higher quality prizes as they sell more for the school. These prizes are pre-approved by the school and designed to motivate greater levels of participation from the students and families. We would be glad to speak with your principal about any concerns the school may have about the schools experience. The schools are our customers, and the principals are always trying to make sure they are making the best choice for their community. We have close ongoing conversations with each of our schools, which means if there are any concerns, they will bring it to our attention to correct and/or improve. Currently, all of our schools have given us positive feedback regarding both the schools pre-approved prize programs and overall professionalism in working with King Fundraising. We have frequent conversations with our principals and PTO presidents, and we have not heard of your concern until this public review. For other people reading this review and our response, the owners at King Fundraising as well as others on our staff are former educators and have an unique understanding how important these fundraisers are to the schools, as we have had to rely on these fundraisers ourselves for our own classroom needs in the past. As a company, we strive to provide a well-organized, professional, courteous, and exciting fundraising experience for our schools. We will continue to look for quality programs to offer our schools so all the students will have the best possible experience we can offer. We strive to set ourselves apart from other fundraising companies in providing up to $1800 sign-on bonus opportunities, sell-out bonuses for our chocolate program, free products to help further increase profitability, ample complimentary samples for the schools to enjoy, and often over $1,000 in free prizes, depending on fundraising programs. Reasons other schools choose to work with King Fundraising over other fundraising companies, are as follow: * Professional, courteous, timely communications via phone call, text messages, emails, and in-person meetings * Exciting, motivating, multi-media kick-off presentations to help increase student participation in the fundraiser * Well-organized, turnkey fundraising programs with catalog fundraising packets delivered by teacher classroom, Sponsor Guides with custom announcement for principals, pre-written reminder notes, and pre-addressed/pre-paid shipping label for sending in order forms at the end of catalog fundraisers * Catalog product orders delivered pre-packaged by student * FREE delivery opportunities * Guaranteed delivery date and time * Our delivery team stages and organizes the boxes for the school so the schools staff and volunteers can spend more time greeting parents * Easy-to-understand reports to show schools which students qualify for the various post-fundraiser prizes on the parent letter * Provide assistance with coordinating the prize day events (i.e., sending an itinerary for our limo to lunch experience, scheduling magic shows, BMX Bike Shows, and Game Truck events) * Reconciling any remaining details at the end of the fundraiser in a timely manner We hope our response will provide a better idea for the level of professional service we provide our schools. If your school has any concerns, we will be glad to address them with your principal.

1524788044

1

My childs school did a fundraiser with this company. Needless to say it was horrible. The two men that run this company are not in it to help the schools They only want your money. The prizes they give the children are junk, it is a scam to use kids to line their pockets. Would give zero stars if I could. Stay away from these people.

1510872226

LeeAnne McPhaul

google

Thank you, Mrs. McPhaul! We always enjoy seeing how excited your students get when we tell them about the prizes at the kick off. We are glad we can provide a professional and rewarding experience for your school.

1524764865

5

Working with Peter and Kenny was a great experience. They make everything so easy. Peter is always checking in with me to make sure that we have everything we need. We never have to worry about small details because it is already taken care of. Peter is always available to answer any and all questions. Best fundraiser experience ever!!

1596816209

Lizzy Donlin

google

Thank you for the 5 star review!

1527551154

5

We love working with Kenny and/or Peter! They are very efficient, quick, completely professional, and take care of every last detail for a great fundraiser. Thank you guys!

1509803118

Hope Binegar

google

Thank you for your feedback. As we wind down a very busy school year, we are assessing all our programs. We are glad that your fundraiser with King Fundraising was your largest sale and that our sponsor guide helped. The students had a great time in the kick off with the music, interactive presentation, and videos to motivate them to help with the fundraiser. What you are describing in the way of wrapping up the fundraiser and planning delivery was an issue we have addressed with the gift catalog supplier. We agree that 5 weeks is too long for a school to wait to receive their catalog orders. Because of the long turnaround time and other challenges inherent in any gift catalog program (regardless of which fundraising company a school uses), we have decided to discontinue this program from our fundraiser offerings. We dont want anyone to think we do business that way. To clarify our delivery time frames for our current program offerings, our cookie dough, tumblers (stock designs), popcorn, and bed sheets programs all have a 2 week delivery turnaround, and our chocolate program normally delivers within 3 to 5 business days. To avoid any delivery timing issue for gift catalog items in the future, we offer an online store program, which provides a 5 to 10 business day delivery -- directly to the customers homes. The online program can be easily combined with any of our catalogs and chocolate programs. (Catalog orders are shipped to the school.) Regarding billing, the main issue had to do with how the schools online store profits were paid. We apologize for any unintended confusion, as it took us awhile to realize what exactly you were questioning. Apparently, based on your previous fundraising experience with another company, you were accustomed to receiving a credit on your catalog order invoice for the online sales profit, whereas we were handwriting a check for online store profits to provide your school. We have since changed our policy to simply crediting the online store profits on the catalog product invoices as well to help further streamline wrapping up the fundraiser. Regarding your school's delivery experience, King Fundraising helped coordinate a delivery time frame for the day of delivery with the 3rd party trucking company, spending quite a bit of time making phone calls on the schools behalf. We sent 2 representatives to your school the morning of delivery to help unload and organize the approximately 30 boxes. We provided recommendations for helping to make the process run smoothly when parents picked up orders. We stayed engaged with your school through this process to help provide as best of a delivery experience for gift catalog products as any fundraising company can offer. Most fundraising companies rely on 3rd party trucking companies for delivery for any of their programs. King Fundraising is one of the only fundraising companies that can offer schools a guaranteed delivery date and time with our delivery team staging and organizing the boxes for our schools for our cookie dough, tumblers, popcorn, and bed sheets programs. As a side note, we have effective ways to work around any concerns for refrigeration for the frozen products. We have a high success rate and consistently receive positive feedback from our schools that use our cookie dough and other frozen products. We will be glad to provide references to those schools for anyone interested in raising money with our cookie dough products. Hope, we wish we could have been more accommodating to your schools needs. Unfortunately, the delivery turnaround time was out of our control. We have remedied that issue by discontinuing the use of this program. Our new line-up provides all of our schools with well-organized, motivating, turnkey fundraising programs with a quicker delivery time frame and our delivery team handling the unloading, staging, and organizing the boxes for our schools using our catalog programs.

1524787578

2

We met with King Fundraising in the Spring on 2017 to look into a new company. We were looking for an easier company to deal with. Explaining to them what we needed (easier distribution and easily contacted). We walked through a variety of fundraiser cookie dough, chocolate, popcorn, wrapping paper, but we have done well will a gift catalog. So we asked about a gift catalog. We were shown the option. Strongly suggested cookie dough, but refrigeration is a problem. We went with a gift catalog, called Winter Wonderland with an online option. The packets came with a notebook to keep up the flow of the winter wonderland. They came out and did a launch. We did just under $10,000 our best fundraiser in our schools short life. We counted the money and sent off the forms. We have been trying to run down information ever since. It took 5 weeks to process the orders. Billing was a small issue and not clearly explained. Since they use a third party for this catalog, the third party is set to issue us a check for online orders. We now have a delivery date, but instead of King Fundraising coordinating delivery we have a large truck delivering the orders that will need to be unloaded by volunteers...not the Royal treatment we expected and more hassle than last year for a lower %. We went with the lower % company because of the promise of being easier. We kissed 5% bye. Upsides: 1) Limo, the kids are going to love the Limo. 2) Binder - it had daily announcements ready to go. 3) Kick Off - The kids liked the pre-video. I can't speak for the cookie dough and other programs they offer. But I would not recommend them for the gift catalog. They use a 3rd party and it just doesn't run as smooth.