TOPS Scholarship Requirements by Award
There are several scholarships for high school seniors and college students within the TOPS program, so you just have to figure out which one is right for you. As long as you have decent grades, you should be able to fit into one of the following categories:

• TOPS Honors Award:
  • Eligible applicants: Graduating high school seniors
  • Minimum GPA: 3.0
  • Minimum ACT score: 27
  • Minimum SAT score: 1220
• TOPS Opportunity Award:
  • Eligible applicants: College freshmen
  • Minimum GPA: 2.5
  • Minimum ACT score: 20
  • Minimum SAT score: 950
• TOPS Performance Award:
  • Eligible applicants: Graduating high school seniors
  • Minimum GPA: 3.0
  • Minimum ACT score: 23
  • Minimum SAT score: 1070
• TOPS Tech Award:
  • Eligible applicants: Technical college students
  • Minimum GPA: 2.5
  • Minimum ACT score: 17
  • Minimum SAT score: 830

Consider each of these awards carefully and determine which one is right for you. If you find one that fits your life, grades, and test scores, you should find a way to apply for it.

Award Amounts for TOPS Scholarships
Award amounts vary in this program by school. The program is designed to cover the cost of tuition, so higher priced schools will come with higher awards. You have to keep that in mind when you start looking at colleges because this scholarship may allow you to pay for a better education at a school outside of your home town. Here is a chart showing how your award amounts may vary by school:

• Baton Rouge Community College: $2,112
• Bossier Parish Community College: $2,112
• Delgado Community College: $2,112
• Grambling State University: $3,510
• L. E. Fletcher Technical Community College: $2,112
• LAICU Institutions: $3,242
• Louisiana Delta Community College: $2,112
• Louisiana State University at Alexandria: $3,468
• Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge: $4,552
• Louisiana State University at Eunice: $2,018
• Louisiana State University at Shreveport: $3,502
• Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center at New Orleans: $4,702
• Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center at Shreveport: $4,846
• Louisiana Tech University (Quarters): $3,885
• Louisiana Technical College Campuses: $984
• McNeese State University: $3,392
• Nicholls State University: $3,450
• Northshore Technical Community College: $1,422
• Northwestern State University: $3,446
• Nunez Community College: $2,112
• Our Lady of the Lake College: $846
• Proprietary and Cosmetology Schools: $951
• River Parishes Community College: $2,112
• South Louisiana Community College: $2,112
• Southeastern Louisiana University: $3,464
• Southern University at Baton Rouge: $3,510
• Southern University at New Orleans: $2,944
• Southern University at Shreveport: $2,024
• SOWELA Technical Community College: $2,112
• University of Louisiana at Lafayette: $3,440
• University of Louisiana at Monroe: $3,478
• University of New Orleans: $4,102

Explore TOPS scholarships a little further and get your apps in as soon as you can. If you decide to attend school in a different state, you can simply decline the award and look for other scholarships to help you out. Hopefully you can find something that works for you no matter what.

How Contest Fundraisers Work

Let’s say that you want to raise money for Habitat for Humanity and all of your other fundraisers haven’t worked so far. You could hold a contest for people to come up with ideas for homes, and the top prize could be to have the winner’s designs used in an actual home that Habitat constructs. You’d have to get this approved of course, but it would be a nice way to raise awareness about the organization and still raise money in the end.

Where would the money come into play? That could be up to you. You could make every person pay a small fee for entering the competition, or you could ask local architects to help you sponsor the event. The publicity you get from the contest may encourage people to donate money toward your cause, or it may make them want to volunteer with Habitat in the future. You just have to see what happens when it happens.

You can obviously apply these theories to other organizations. I just wanted to show you what contest fundraisers are all about. Hopefully you can now see the benefits that may come along with this kind of program.

How to Set Up a Contest Fundraiser

In order to set up a contest fundraiser, you need to have a creative contest in mind and a set of prizes to offer. Make sure that whatever you choose goes with what you are trying to raise money for. You may have an essay contest with a prompt related to your organization of choice. You may have a dancing contest to raise money for your dance team. You may have a cycling contest to raise money for just about anything…You just have to think about what you want to do and then go for it.

Promote the crap out of your contest fundraiser, and encourage people to make donations along the way. Even if you only charge $2 for every entry, you could make a lot of money in donations from other people. If you spread the word about the fundraiser on Facebook, Twitter, etc, you will have a better chance of getting a good turnout. Marketing is key in this kind of fundraiser, so you may even want to see if you can get the media involved. It only takes one ad on the news to launch your success.

If you end up making a lot of money from the first contest fundraiser, try to turn this into an annual thing. Then people will actually get excited about it, and they will learn to anticipate it year after year. The sororities in my home town used to make big floats to display on their lawns, and they got a lot of money in donations from people just walking by. This became so much of a hit that they literally started doing it every year. You can launch a similar tradition for your organization and see what comes of it.

If you think you have what it takes to run a makeover fundraiser, this should be a lot of fun for you. Here are some hair, style, and makeup tips to help you make people look their best under your care.

Getting Supplies

If you are going to do a makeover fundraiser, you need to have a way to actually make people over. There are tons of options for doing this, so you really just have to figure out how far you want to go with the idea. Ideally, you should find a salon in your area that will donate time and materials to you. The salon may like the idea of marketing their business because they may get repeat customers if they do well on the hair. The stylists there can take care of the hair for your makeover participants, and then you can take care of the hair, nails, or whatever else you want to do. Gather whatever supplies you need to do the makeovers and store them away for the big day.

Spreading the Word

When you have everything you need for the fundraiser, spread the word about the event. Advertise in whatever way you can, telling people that they can pay X amount of money for a head to toe makeover on a certain day. If you let them know where the proceeds for the fundraiser are going, you may be able to attract enough people to raise whatever you need. Don’t forget the internet, as that may be the biggest traffic driver that you have access to.

Setting up Shop

Setting up the makeover stations is going to take a long time, so make sure you plan for this early. You will need to establish a chain that people can go through for their makeovers, starting with the hair and ending with the makeup. Once someone gets through with his or her hair, he or she may head to a spray tan booth or directly to the makeup counter. Men won’t need more than an eyebrow tweeze at this point, but women can receive the full treatment. Make sure that you have enough makeup and hair products to sustain the crowd you think your fundraiser is going to draw. Then you can put the chain to the test, just to make sure everything works efficiently.

Holding the Fundraiser

When you have all of the puzzle pieces in place, all you have to do is go through with the fundraiser. Make sure that everyone shows up early, and open the doors for the madness. You need to have a greeter of some sort to take people’s money before or after the makeover, and you need to have a way to control the crowd. A numbering system may be the easiest way to do this, but you could try whatever method you wanted to. As long as people are moving through the door looking better than they did when they came in, you’ll be just fine.

Have a little fun with a project like this and see what happens. If it turns out to be a success, you could make it a regular event. Just follow the tips above, and you should have no trouble raising money for your business.

Get a Venue

You are going to need a space that is big enough to house however many children you think will come to the fundraiser. This place needs to have enough open area so that one person can look over multiple children at once. Ideally, you may want to use part of a gymnasium if you can block off the stairs and put padding on the ground. If you have a conference room or something like that that you can clear out, you could do that as well. It all depends on what your plans are.

Have Enough Sitters

Make sure that you have enough people from the organization to watch over the kids you expect to come to the event. You may only need one person for every four or five kids, but you may need more if they are really young or really rambunctious. You have to make sure that the parents feel comfortable in the care you are providing for their children. You can do this by having a sufficient number of sitters on hand to watch over the kids.

Plan out Activities

Try to pick some fun activities to do while you’re watching the kids. That way they all stay in one area and they’re easy to watch over. You may have a group painting to do or perhaps a game to play. You need to think about the activities that different age groups will like, just in case you have a range of ages to care for. The toddlers may only like blocks while the big kids like something more stimulating for their minds. You have to make plans according to the kids you will be watching for the night.

Pick a Price

You need to have a flat rate to charge all of the parents when you watch the kids. If you’re going to watch them for several hours, I don’t think $50 per child is a crazy price to ask, especially if you are doing this on a holiday. That is what these people would pay a day care service if it was open, so you might as well get close to that money for working on a holiday. If you let the parents know that their money is going toward a good cause, they should be willing to pay whatever portion of their medical administrative assistant salary it takes to get their children taken care of.

Advertise

The only thing you have left to do now is advertise the event so parents know where to come and how to reserve a spot. You can do this at local elementary schools or day cares, just to get the word out where it matters most. If you can visit a few PTA meetings to discuss the fundraiser, you may be able to generate some donations on the spot. Spread the word enough, and you will have a successful fundraiser in no time.

Buying the Tote Bags

Before you can do any sort of decorating, you obviously need a set of tote bags to work with. You can buy blank ones at your local Hobby Lobby, or you could order a set of them online. They should be less than a buck a piece, so you can buy a huge set for a small amount of money. Get different sizes or colors if you want, but make sure to look in the clearance areas of any stores and websites you go into. They are sometimes the portals for great crafting materials in general.

Painting the Tote Bags

One of the easiest ways to spruce up blank tote bags is to add paint to them. They are made of canvas after all, so they hold paint really easily. If you have an artist or to in the group, you could have those people draw cool artwork on the bags. If you’re all a little drawing challenged, you could stick to handprints, words, shapes, and other elements that are simple to paint. Try to use paint for fabrics if you can, just to ensure that it is not going to bleed on you. If you get something that is somewhat thick, you should be able to make a good impression with your paint job.

Bedazzling the Tote Bags

There is nothing wrong with adding a little bling to your tote bags. You could buy rhinestones to glue onto the bags, and then they would be all shiny on display. You may want to put a picture of a crown and use the stones as fake jewels on the crown. Get creative with it, and bedazzle as much as you want. You are the one that has to be happy with it in the end.

Ribbon-izing the Tote Bags

One of my favorite things to do when I decorate tote bags is to put ribbons all along the side of them. To do this, all you have to do is punch a hole on the edge so that it creates a hole in the front and a hole in the back (not one big hole that spans the two). Then tie a ribbon through the holes in a cute little bow. If you do this all along both sides, you can really make a tote bag look like a million bucks.

Take some time to think of a really good decoration idea, and follow through with it. This may not be easy to do at first, but you should be able to find something you can do if you think hard enough. Worse comes to worse, just autograph the bags and try to sell them that way. Hopefully your group members will have enough stalker friends that will want to buy those from you in the future.

If They Don’t Look, You Don’t Ask

A lot of people try to stalk other people when they walk by, and that is not the best approach in the world. If someone walks by you and refuses to make eye contact, that is because the person does not want to be bothered. You need to respect that so you don’t come across as too pushy. If you just go out and talk to people without them acknowledging you, you will end up looking desperate. At that point, you might as well beat people up in the parking lot for money because you will get the same resentment overall.

Mention your Cause

People are a lot more willing to donate when they know what their money is going towards. Rather than just asking for donations in general, ask for donations for a specific group, cause, or event. Tell people that the youth soccer team needs new goals or you are trying to raise money for an educational trip to Europe. If you are raising money for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital, you can mention that as well. People will whip out their check books if they know their money is going to a good cause. You just have to make sure that cause is known.

Prove Some Incentive

Instead of asking for money out of the blue, you may want to think about giving people a reason to donate. Perhaps you will give them tickets to something if they make a donation, or maybe you will feed them pancakes or cookies of some sort. This is all up to you, but it is nice to provide some sort of gift in exchange for money. This doesn’t have to be super expensive on your end. It just needs to be enough to show that you appreciate the support and you plan on using it for good reasons.

Use Special Tactics

I would never tell you to con people into donating money, but there is nothing wrong with using a few tactics to get money out of people. For instance, you could use some little kids to help you ask for donations because people are more likely to go to them than they are to college students. If you are running a car wash around a college campus, you could use some hot women to lure the men into paying for their car to be spruced up. Little tricks like that will go a long way in helping you reach your fundraising goals. You just have to think about an effective plan and execute it accordingly.

If you are in genuine need of donation money, someone out there will respond. You will not get the money from being overly pushy though, so you need to keep your demands in check. A subtle but effective asking technique will go a long way in helping your fundraiser. You just have to test the waters and see what works for you.

“I got my swim trunks, and my flippy floppies…”

Alright alright. Enough of the nonsense. In the summer time, people love to wear flip flops. They will invest a ton of money in cute shoes to expose their toes, so you might as well use this to your advantage. You could have a really cool fundraiser selling funky flip flops you can make as a group. The process does not take long, and it doesn’t cost a lot of money either. If you do it right, I guarantee you will make a profit in the summer. Here is a quick guide to flip flop fundraising that you can follow when swimming season hits.

Materials Needed

• Pairs of flip flops (however many you need)
• Matching fabric (ribbon works too)
• Scissors (or a fabric knife)
• A ruler
• Time (not a lot of it)

Assembling the Flip Flops

Once you have all your materials in place, you can start tying strips of fabric around the thong of the flip flops, creating a cool little fringe that most people will go nuts for. Cut out strips of fabric that are one inch thick and three inches long. You can make them longer or shorter based on the thickness of the thong and the overall look you are going for. Take one strip and tie it in a knot around the thong with the knot on the top. If you do this over the entire shoe, you should end up with something that looks like the image on this post. You don’t have to do any sewing or anything else along those lines. You just have to tie and go. The process really couldn’t be any easier.

Selecting the Design

You have to come up with the overall look that you want for your flip flops. Do you want to express school spirit or do you just want something people will want to wear? You can think about a color scheme you want to go with or maybe even a certain print that you want on the shoe. Then you can pick out the materials to use accordingly. I found that the best looking flip flops tend to be the solid colored ones with two different fabrics on them, one solid and one graphic. You can choose to use whatever you want though. Just make sure the shows and the fabric look good together because people won’t buy them if they don’t.

Buying the Materials

You don’t have to spend a ton of money on materials for this project. You can get flip flops in most dollar stores, and those should be enough for at least the base of your project. We used to get the clearance ones from Walmart and Target at the end of summer every year because we would repurpose them when the time came around next summer. We had to hold the shoes for a while, but we got them for like $1 a pair sometimes. Think outside the box and try to find a bulk lot of flip flops at a low price. Then you will have a better chance of making money off your show project.

You can also get clearance and scrap fabrics to use for the shoes. Check the leftover bin at local craft stores because you never know what you may find. You could even go too consignment shops and garage sales to find cheap clothes that could be used for the project. Scope out your options early on and you will be able to raise a lot of money with your flip flip fundraiser.

Making Fleece Blankets

You don’t have to sew around the edges of a piece of fabric to turn it into a fleece blanket. You can use the tying method, which involves putting two pieces of fleece back to back and tying the ends together. To do this, you need to cut strips of all the edges that are about an inch thick and maybe three inches long. They still need to be attached to the blanket, so don’t cut them off all the way. Just make slits an inch apart from one another so you end up with something that looks like tassels. Do this on both pieces of fleece you want to use for the blankets.

When you have everything cut out, you can put the two pieces of fleece together and start tying corresponding “tassels” in a knot. Do this all the way around, and you will have a cool looking edge that replaces the need for sewing. You can make the blankets as big as you want to, and you can use any fabric that you want as well. You could have one side with the Ashworth University logo on the front of it and the other side with a solid complementary color. That is all up to you.

Selling Fleece Blankets

Once you have a decent amount of blankets to sell, you need to market the hell out of them. Try selling them on campus or at sporting events where people will be most likely to want them. If you have any outdoor sporting events going on right now, you could put them out there for a really quick sell. People will do whatever it takes to stay warm at that point, so you should have no trouble selling a decent supply of blankets there, especially if people know the money is going to a good cause.

The price that you sell the blankets at is entirely up to you. Think about the money you spent on materials, and then do what you can to double that or more. Most people will probably pay around $20 for a blanket if they know it is for a fundraiser. They may not pay quite that much if they think someone is just out and about selling blankets. Make sure to advertise your organization so that people know where the money is going to go. They may even throw in an extra donation if they care enough.

Making fleece blankets can be a lot of fun, and it will allow you to make some decent money with little effort on your part. You just have to think about creative options like this, and you can usually squeeze out money just for being unique. Warm up the club bank account with fleece blankets this winter. You won’t regret it.

Find the Right Gag Gifts to Sell

There are tons of stupid products out there to choose from, and they can all lead to money if you have buyers lined up for them. Having a successful fundraiser is all about having the right products to sell. Here are some of my favorites:

• Pocket Chair
• Tiddy Bear
• Potty Putter
• Pootrap
• TV Hat
• UroClub
• Hawaii Chair
• Neckline Slimmer
• Meatball Magic
• Flowbee

There are tons of other products to choose from out there, and any one of them could lead to some decent money for you. You just have to look through some as seen on TV merchandise and see what you think would sell well. You might be surprised by how many of these dumb products there are in the world.

Buy or Price the Products

You can either choose to buy the products you want to sell and try to get rid of the stock, or you can just price the products higher than what you could buy them for and get them after you receive an order. Either option could lead to money in the long run, but the second one has less of a risk. The only benefit of the first one is that you could give people their gag gifts right then and there. They would not have to wait for you to get the products in. Worse comes to worse, you could get “double the offer” for free and sell each of them for regular price. Then you are essentially doubling your money through the fundraiser.

Market the Products

Once you have everything lined up to sell the products, you need to spread the word about your funky new fundraiser. Try to get other people to look at the products you have to offer, no matter how ridiculous they may be. You could even model the products on campus, just so people know what they could be getting. If you have a stand of TV hats and a girl actually wearing one out in public, you are bound to draw attention. Attention leads to donations every time – guaranteed.

Repeat the Process

If you have a lot of success with your first gag gift fundraiser, you should think about doing another one in the near future. Your group could be known for their funky and outrageous sale items. As long as you plan everything out right, you should be able to make a lot of money selling gag gifts for your organization.

Websites for Posting Fundraisers

I personally love the idea of running a fundraiser online because of the sheer amount of people you can reach out to that way. If you want to spread the word in an easy and effective way, there are plenty of sites out there that you can actually use to post your fundraiser online. Listed below are some popular sites that you can use to post your fundraising project online.

• Just Giving
• Chip In
• Crowd Rise
• Donors Choose
• First Giving
• Given Gain
• Just Give
• Network for Good
• Razoo
• The Point

Websites for Managing Fundraiser Money

Another aspect of running a fundraiser is managing the money associated with it. This can be hard to do if you do not have a good program to reference. You have to keep on track with your money though, or you may run out of funds before you actually raise some. This list contains some common money monitoring programs that you can use to track the progress of your fundraisers.

• Black Baud
• Blue State Digital
• Charity Advantage
• PayPal
• Click and Pledge
• Convio
• Donor Perfect
• eTapestry
• Service U
• Democracy in Action

Websites to Donate Fundraising Money to

If you are having trouble finding a charity to donate money to, one of the options below may help you out. This should give you a chance to plan out your fundraiser to benefit a cause you like. You may even decide to donate money to more than one charity. Here are some places to keep in mind:

• Child’s Play
• Mercy Corps
• Toys for Tots
• American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
• Best Friends
• Communities in Schools
• Doctors without Borders
• Donors Choose
• Edu Relief
• Food for the Poor
• Habitat for Humanity
• The Humane Society
• Kiva
• ONE
• Oxfam
• Red Cross
• The RSBP
• The Sea Shepherd
• United Blood Services
• World Wildlife Fund

Check out the fundraising websites above, and you could soon be on your way to a fantastic fundraiser in the future.