Sure! We’d love to! Just click HERE and provide some basic information about your fundraiser. (Who? What? When? Where? Why?) How many participants? Age range of participating artists? Where do we send the materials?
No time for that? Call us and leave your telephone number and an e-mail address to contact you later. DONE! It’s that easy.
To get your fundraiser started, all we need is for you to give us certain information to set up your fundraising account – point of contact (POC), POC phone number, a shipping address for the materials, name of the school or organization, grade levels (or age range of artists) included, and the anticipated number of participants.
LET’S GET STARTED! Click HERE.
Based on your responses, we will assemble a package of fundraising materials for your school or organization. Your package is normally mailed out within 4 working days of your decision to participate in My Art Cards fundraising. The package will be tracked and delivered by USPS and will take 1-5 working days by ground to arrive at your location.
My Art Cards fundraising materials include:
- At least 1 “Designer Sheet” (with order forms printed on the backs) for each student plus an additional 20% of extra designer sheets. The additional sheets allow for student “do-overs” as well as provide a means for siblings, parents and school staff to participate by creating their own art cards when the materials come home for review and order placement.
- At least one zip lock plastic bag per student participant.
- At least one full color “Thank You/ Receipt” card per participant (for parents to record the reference number of their child’s art while they await their finished cards.
- A sample suitable for display of mixed cards and envelopes.
- A sample suitable for display of “My Masterpiece,” an 8.5 x 11 inch enlargement of the child’s artwork placed in an 99% acid-free, museum quality mat board.
- A set of administrative paperwork (4 sheets) that includes a simple checklist for the coordinator and the necessary tracking/order placement forms for the school’s consolidated order.
- A window cling for the front door of the school to remind parents of the return/turn-in date for the artwork and their order payments.
- A Microsoft Word file template of a fundraising letter that can be completely customized for your fundraiser. This letter is normally signed by the principal or fundraising organizer, then Xeroxed and placed in each zip lock packet with the children’s art when it is sent home. The letter explains the fundraiser to the parents as well as let them know that this is an “official” fundraiser sponsored by the school and it is also used to set the selling price for your school’s fundraiser.
The overall timeline proceeds as follows:
- Coordinator reviews and organizes the material for distribution to each classroom, and customizes the fundraising letter and has it copied. (1-3 days depending on the size of the school)
- Materials are distributed to the classroom(s) and the teachers have each student create art on their forms. The entire school — even large ones — allocate 1 week or less for the teachers to work this into their schedules (not a problem if the principal and teachers are on board). (Allow 1 week for large schools, a few days for smaller schools)
- The artwork is sent home for parental review/order placement with the packaging/marketing materials. The parents are generally given 1 week to review their children’s artwork, create additional artwork of their own, and place their order. (1 week)
- Teacher’s consolidate their classroom orders and turn them into the Fundraising coordinator. (2 days)
- Fundraising Coordinator, consolidates all of the classroom orders, processes and deposits the checks from the parents, and cuts a single check to My Art Cards for the entire order. (1-3 days)
- Order is shipped to My Art Cards for fulfillment–from your school location back to New Braunfels, TX (2-5 working days)
- Cards and My Masterpiece creations are manufactured, inventoried, and boxed for shipping. (15 working days)
- Shipment is sent via UPS,FedEx, or USPS ground service to your shipping location (1-5 working days)
- Fundraising coordinator distributes boxes/orders by classroom to the teachers. Teachers distribute to the children via normal school procedures for sending materials home. (1-2 working days)
Timeline Summary: From the time that you tell me that your school wants to participate to when you get the materials is less than one week. School’s typically take 2-3 weeks total to create the art, take the orders from the parents, and ship the order with the completed art back to us. We create your Note Cards and Masterpieces within 15 working days of receipt of the order and check, and ship them back to you. Within 1-2 days after they arrive, you can distribute the materials to complete the fundraiser.
Fundraiser administration and materials preparation is easily accomplished by 1 coordinator and 1-3 helpers (for assembling and distributing the materials to the classrooms).
We provide all the note card templates for the students, siblings and/or parents to create their artwork. Our templates are specifically sized to allow the artists to not only create original artwork, but also to be able to incorporate photographs (photo-collage elements) as they create their cards. By having specifically sized forms, the photographs and artwork will not be distorted in the Note Card/My Masterpiece manufacturing process.
After the master art is created, it is sent home for review and ordering by the parents inside a zip lock bag that we provide to keep the art safe. An explanatory letter of the fundraiser, extra designer sheet (in case a sibling or parent would like to design a card too), and a Thank You/Receipt card are also placed in the zip lock bag. The order form for My Art Cards and My Masterpiece is on the back side of each designer sheet. Parents fill out the order form and place it and their check or cash payment inside the zip lock bag and send it back to the student’s classroom.
The original artwork and the parent’s check are returned to the school in the zip lock bags that we provided to keep the artwork nice and to keep the check with the order. The checks are removed by the Fundraising coordinator deposited in the school’s account; THEN the school writes a check to My Art Cards for their cost of the cards/masterpiece order. The profits of the fundraiser remain with the school at all times. There is no risk to the school, and the only expenses to the school are reproduction of the Customized fundraising letter (about .03 per student) and the shipping cost of sending the original art back to My Art Cards for processing (usually $10-$20).
Mixed cards normally do not sell as well to parents as cards created by their own children—however, non-parental purchases by teachers, local businesses and school boosters can be a source of additional fundraising sales. Parents normally purchase boxed cards of their own child’s art–not mixed boxes. Some schools have selected 20 pieces (or 5 pieces with 4 cards of each) of art from the ones created by the students and ordered in increments of 20 mixed boxes (one or each of the 20 originals placed in the 20 boxes, or 20 mixed boxes with 4 cards of each of 5 originals). In addition to non-parental sales, these are occasionally ordered by the school at cost to be given as appreciation gifts to the teachers, principal and key fundraising personnel for making the fundraiser possible.
Each box of My Art Cards contains 20 note cards and 20 envelopes. The note cards arrive in a gift box with a ribbon. The note cards are 8.5” tall x 5.25” wide when flat, and fold to 4.25” tall x 5.25” wide. Each card has a place on the back for the artist’s signature. The school/PTA may elect to place a small statement underneath the signature, i.e. “Thank You for Supporting Proctor Elementary Programs” or something similar. The cards are professionally produced on premium, brilliant white card stock that has high gloss finish on the outside to make the art “pop” and are un-coated on the inside to allow hand-written notes from all types of writing instruments. There are no messages pre-printed on the inside of the card.
Each My Masterpiece, takes the “front-side” art and dramatically enlarges it to 8.5” x 11”. The enlarged artwork is then printed on the same premium, brilliant white card stock and placed inside an 11 inch x 14 inch, 99% acid free, museum-quality, ebony matte with backing. The Masterpiece is then placed inside of a glassine envelope to protect it from fingerprints. Hang it on the wall as is, or place it inside a standard 11” x 14” frame that is available very reasonably at numerous stores. It is a lovely way for parents to display pride in their child’s art. These make excellent gifts too (just like the boxed note cards).
My Art Cards
Parent’s Cost: $20 – $25 per box, actual price set by you based on desired profit margin and your assessment of the school community’s affluence (from $1.00 per card to $1.25 per card).
School’s Cost: $15 per box (including delivery to your fundraiser’s address).
Profit: $5 to $10 per box (up to 40% profit margin).
My Masterpiece
Parent’s Cost: $20 – $30 per Masterpiece (retail equivalents cost about $45).
School’s Cost: $15 per Masterpiece.
Profit: $5 – $10 per Masterpiece (up to 50% profit margin).
The galleries are representative of some of the art cards created for previous fundraisers. The galleries provide an interesting source of ideas, techniques, and styles used to create art cards, as well as presenting typical artwork of various grade-levels all the way down to nursery, preschool and kindergarten. You may note that bold colors created with colored markers, crayons, and paints work wonderfully, whereas pastels (light blue, light pink, light yellows created with crayon or colored pencils do NOT reproduce as well). Photo collages and photo-drawing combinations are very popular and make beautiful one-of-a-kind cards. They work well particularly well for preschool fundraisers.
