I love a chocolate bar as much as the next guy.
I'd buy the whole box from every adorable child hawking chocolate outside every supermarket in town, if only my waistline and cholesterol could survive it.
I still get magazines that pile up.
I imagine they are sad from not being read, but I can't help ordering more every year because of my neighbor's annual magazine fundraiser.
If you are a friend of mine and fall ill, you may just get one of the several "get well soon" cards I still have left from my nephew's greeting card fundraiser in 1999 (he's 22 now).
I think I have Rugrats wrapping paper from my other nephew's fundraiser the next year.
Don't get me wrong, I know these fundraisers are key ingredients to many school and PTA annual coffers, but there are some more creative avenues to fundraising and a few that offer more benefits as well as raising funds.
It's not that I don't appreciate and support these causes, but there is one fundraising program I think about all the time.
It is a Prescription Drug (RX) Discount Card that is being distributed by charitable, veteran and educational organizations not only as a fundraiser, but as a community service.
Every dollar that organization raises means a family saved 10's to 100's of dollars on a necessary prescription medication.
Every month when I buy my son's three prescription medications, I am grateful for the savings.
According to a 2012 report, Prescription Discount Cards are earning over $5 Million per month for the organizations providing them to their members and their community.
If this reflected only the minimum saved, then that means Americans already using these cards are saving over $50 Million a month on prescriptions for their families.
The need for such service-oriented programs will continue to be important as consumers and providers figure out health care reform.
Over 44 million Americans still have no insurance coverage.
Millions more have insurance coverage with high prescription deductibles rendering them uninsured for prescriptions until they have already spent thousands.
Of course, no fundraiser is any good unless people are buying or in this case, using the program.
To effectively implement an RX Card Fundraiser, organizations need to take the time to help their members know how to use the card.
It may be a little extra work upfront, but the benefits to those getting the prescription savings are well worth some pre-distribution education.