Fund Raiser Competition Sick & Tired Of It!

[Buzzie8]

Almost every weekend July through October they have car wash fund raisers in the parking lots of a storage facility and a nearby Arby's. The storage facility is directly across the street from my wash and the Arby's about a 1/4 mile away. I pay taxes, sewage (their soap goes into the storm water), a huge bank loan, and everything other expense that goes along with owning a car wash. I have not done anything or talked to anyone for four years now but I am tired of it. I want to get a plan of attack together including offering some type of fund raising that will work with my wash but if that doesn't work I want to figure out a way to shut them down without looking like I am not a community "player". I know they recently had a summit of all of our local sewage authorities about the harms of soap water going into the storm water. Anyone who has succesfully broached this problem in their community, your comments would be greatly appreciated.
Buzzie

 

[soapy]

The WCA website has a few good ideas for doing charity wash programs. A few ideas are donating a SS bay for the charity to use. I like to let them sell my wash tokens for the automatic. I let them keep 1/2 and I keep the other 1/2 to cover expenses.

 

[MEP001]

I agree with the ideas of getting them to use your wash somehow. They're likely to make more money and won't need to do so many "parking lot" washes, and it will bring awareness of your business and show that you support for the community. Other than a slight loss of income during the charity wash, it's win-win.

 

[johnny]

if you had self serve only,what price would sell tokens for
looking for suggestions.
50% off
25% off
etc

 

[Jim the car wash guy]

One of our washes is right next to an AutoZone. They hosted charity washes until we met with the manager and said we would be offering coupons to the O'Reilly's down the street to every person who used our facility to wash. He got it and quit. We did the same thing with a local Burger King near another wash. McDonalds was just across the street.

Generally speaking, the managers are smart people just trying to be nice to some local group. They really don't want to rain on your parade. They will realize the mistake they are making once you deal with them--or a regional manage--directly, honestly, and logically. It has been quite a few years now and no charity washes at either place.

Then, try to work with the charity groups. You may be surprised at how open they are to working with you and how often you will see them in your wash. Good Luck!

 

[Bubbles Galore]

I would approach the charity groups and explain the positives of using your wash vs. another location.

If you really want to stir things up, get the DEQ involved and explain that all the soap, road grime & effluents are all draining into our streams and rivers. That will shut them down really quick. I have a friend that worked with his city board to make charity carwashes get permits to hold one. The city's stipulation is that the wash must be held somewhere where the water won't drain into the storm drains, it must drain into a sanitary sewer line. Just my .02

 

[buda]

Charity Washes

As someone posted, many of the regional car wash associations have developed excellent "charity car wash programs" to assist their members in counter-acting the prolific number of parking lot car washes being done all over the country. This is a positive step which is th way it has to be handled.

While legislatively these washes are illegal and in violation of the Federal Clean Water Act, no local politician is going to go on record as "getting after" the local cheerleading squad or girls basketball team or the band wanting new uniforms, etc.

We spoke with both city and state water people on this subject and they were really frustrated that they could not get the city council or state officials to really move on this matter, and it came down to it being a "politically sensitive" issue as explained above.

What you need to do is contact the officials with a charity wash program where you provide the fundraising group with tickets for your top wash package, they sell keep 50%and give you 50%. It is win-win for everyone.

Contact the local authorities with this program and many will assist you in promoting the program.

Regards
Bud Abraham

 

[Danny]

I don't know if this is a good or bad way to handle a situation. I know of a location that called the fire department because "someone was washing chemicals down the gutter and into storm drains". The fire department shows up and tells them that they can't wash the chemicals into the storm drains and if there is any drought/water consvation plans in the area they will let them know about that also.

 

[Patrick H. Crowe]

In my view there is one clearly superior way to do charity washes, only one.

There are very serious problems with letting a group use a bay or bays to do the work. I'll limit myself to two: 1. Suppose there is heavy rain? 2. Suppose the kids (others) not only fool around but damage a car - - I had a $110 piece of chrome ruined on a '68 Ford at such a wash.

Here's the solution, plain and simple. A brief explanation of the way the water goes into the streams (in most cases and is therefore environmentally unsound).

Then give (perhaps sell) the group discounted tokens which they can sell and keep the profit. I did this many times. Can you possibly imagine the publicity, when at the end of Mass, the pastor announces that the youth group is selling car wash token in the back of the church at Crowe's for car wash - -right south of the church?

I claim you can't buy that sort of endorsement dor love nor money.

Patrick H. Crowe

 

[raisetheprice]

I can count on every Saturday in the summer either the Golden Chick or Pizza Hut doing it. Both my immediate neighbors. The kids usually give up around lunch time and aren't very busy anyway. If it's kids...I try to remain calm. But sometimes I see some fraternity doing one. Grown men raising money for their fraternity parties I suppose. That gets me really uncalm.

I will try the manager approach to put a stop to it permanently.

 

[Chiefs]

You have to develop your own charity wash program and promote it to every elementary school, middle school, high school, local churches, etc. Once you devlop such a program and make it successful, nearly everyone in the community will rally to you due to your exceptional participation in the community.

If you try to swim upstream and get them shut down and the word gets out as to who complained - and it will - you will have done yourself far more harm than good. Take less money and co-opt charities - you'll end up being the good guy and getting the publicity and good will from it. Make lemonade!

 

[Red Baron]

There are a lot of pitfalls to allowing your bays to be used for a charity wash, Pat mentioned some of them. I won't go into detail because I've blocked that bad memory out of mind mind. lol Suffice that almost 1 year later I'm still trying to get rid of 6400 tokens I bought for the event and I'll never do it again.

 

[supersuds]

I have sent the city many nasty emails. I have also sent them for the these hand wash staions that pop up in random parking lots which are not for charity. It is unbelievable that they are allowed to remain open.

 

[Waxman]

Try the State level.

In many states there exists a Dept. of Environmental Protection. This agency is responsible for monitoring and reducing the illegal discharge of wash water into the groundwater.

If your emails fall on deaf ears with a city or town, maybe it's time to contact your state's DEP. In my state, your name is kept confidential when a violator is reported.

 

[bigleo48]

I have kids in school and they're always trying to raise cash for various activities. Some of the most popular ones involve selling stuff (like gift baskets) for companies who specialize in marketing via schools.

Anyway, I'm thinking about doing one for the kids and would involve going around with order sheets and taking orders. I would set it up as tokens for the self serve & pet wash and codes for the IBA. The I'd pay the kids a % on sales. This is likely to take place over xmas shopping period, so it would make a good stocking stuffer. What I like about it the most, is that there are no kids showing up at the wash!

Has anyone else done it this way? Pros and cons?

BigLeo

 

[MEP001]

I've considered something similar. We were recently approached by a teacher who wanted to use a bay on a Friday afternoon to hand wash cars. We offered them tokens for free to sell at face value and to keep all the profit, but she said no; she wanted to make it a group event. My suggestion was to make the token sales a group event, which I found out later they were already doing by pre-selling coupons for their charity wash. I suspect she wants the fun of the wash more than anything else.

If this comes up again, I want to offer them only the tokens, and to sweeten the deal I was thinking of offering a prize (Maybe a $100 bike) for whichever student or team that sells the most, and they could make that an excursion on their own time.

I also don't like the idea of a fairly large group of kids at the wash for a number of reasons.

 

[Jeff_L]

I'm sure we all have a million different ideas for charity washes. Why you do them depends on what you're trying to accomplish. It could be to help raise money for the organization, promotion for your wash, meet the public, etc.. Whatever it may be, one should fit the tools (wash cards, codes, tokens, coupons, etc.) to the end goal.

Personally for me, I love having the kids out front waving at cars and holding up signs. I then mandate that the parents wash the cars in the bays and that parents & kids dry the cars after the wash. I give them half my wash for a set amount of time on a Saturday or Sunday. This allows me to accomplish several things:

1. Meet the parents & public
2. Give back to the community
3. Advertisement
4. Provide instructions to parents on how better ways to wash a car
5. I'm sure there's more...

As a parent of 3, I really don't want my kids coming home with yet another fundraiser which I feel entitled to buy something from them....times 3! However, I can see everyone's different points on this thread, and all have very valid reasons for doing it the way they do.

 

[Kevin James]

Over the years we have been involved with Charity car washes for the Cub/Boy Scouts, High School Cheer leaders etc. We have made upwards of $1500 on a nice Saturday. When we have a carwash it?s an event not just a car wash, free pop, hot dogs, burgers etc. we have a good time. We have been contacted by some of the local car washes asking us to not do a charity carwash. They have asked us to buy tickets or coupons to use there car washes instead of holding the carwash at the school. With selling there tickets/coupons the kids don?t make nearly half as much as they would if they were to do the carwash themselves. I remember one car wash operator who generously offered to sell us coupons for his $8 wash for $6 in books of 25 that were nonrefundable, he was insulted when we told him no way and turned us into the city. There isn?t a city official that has big enough ?Gonads? to tell the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts or the Church youth group that they can?t have a charity car wash. So they came up with a ?Charity Car Wash Kit? it consists of a sump pump, garden hose, plugs and power cords. You put the sump pump into the storm drain/catch basin to pump the wash water into the sanitary drain system, nearest toilet. The kit is free to use, sometimes they will come out and help you install it.

 

[Red Baron]

Just as the car wash owner needs to think it through and understand the interests/needs of the charity, it cuts the other way too. In our small town the last charity wash they had was on the first nice Saturday after 2 weeks of cruddy nonwashing weather. Their charity wash probably took $600-$800 out of my pocket. Is that fair to a small businessman who has investd a lot of money in a small town? I think it's shortsighted on their part, frankly.

In the smaller town people have to be more careful about stepping on each others' toes. I'd love to build some RV storage here -- there's a 3 month wait to get an RV storage slot. But doing so would step on the toes of a local business owner and good guy. That wouldn't matter as much in a larger town, I suppose, but it does here.

Obviously I would never complain about this to the city as that would be business suicide in a small town. Just the same, when a charity car wash is coming up I've been tempted to tell them I'll just write them a check for $500 if they don't have it, coz that's probably how much I'll be donating to them indirectly anyway because of the lost business.

 

[Earl Weiss]

FWIW I will give coupons for a free exterior wash to charities and if I see parking lot washes I offer this option. They can print and sell coupons redeemable for 1 week. (I pick the week to make sure we only have one at a time.) some combine it with a raffle ticket. AFAIAC it is goodwill and my cost is the incremental cost of putting a car thru the tunnel. The customer may buy extra services, and I may even make some new customers and enhance my overall image.

My experience has been a low redemption rate for these tickets . If they sell 1000, maybe 200 will come in.

I try to expalin the benefits this way. What type of revenue can they hope to generate? 100 cars at a day long hand wash at $10.00 with a potential downside of a kid getting hurt, a car being damaged or a rain out plus environmental issues. If you have a group of 25 kids let them each sell 20 tickets minumum to friends, family as well as using them as presents etc. Some will sell a lot more. If they sell them for $3.00 each they made $1500.00 minimum without the downside.