In DotCom era, point and earnings delays can be risky. Getting your just rewards in traditional fundraising has always been fairly simple. Sell enough candy bars and you ve got some sizable earnings. But with the recent influx of Internet fundraising options and the growing popularity of saving programs like Campbell s labels and General Mills BoxTops, the distance between your group and its earned rewards seems to be growing. In many cases, groups now have to wait three months or even a year to see earnings.
Some programs even allow points to be banked, further lengthening the time between work and reward.
The big deal is that there is no guarantee that you ll get your cash or rewards. Your volunteers will be seriously discouraged if they work hard toward a goal only to learn that the hard work has been for naught. In most cases, it s not a problem. Large companies will go to great lengths to avoid the public relations nightmare of leaving schools out to dry. But today, when new program operators can pop up with just the click of a mouse, the risks involved in these programs are increasing.