Food for Fund-raising

Today at church, two other friends, Ming Fung and Nicole, and me were a team trying to sell food to members of the church in an effort to raise some funds for the coming Avalanche camp. The event was highly successful and we passed our target by a 100 dollars! That is quite a big margin, considering our target was the humble AUD$75. We thank God that He led us to such a successful event.

The fund-raising activity reminded me alot of business. Trying to sell food to people is like trying to conduct a business and making profit. People have to be convinced that they are paying their money's worth before buying the food. We have our competitive advantages, such as, lowest cost provider(all the food served is the donation of our fund-raising team so zero cost), no overhead cost(everyone is a volunteer), excellent food(prepared by malaysians for malaysians) and a duopoly position in our 'market'.

When our competitor closed their shop for a break, in effect we are running a monopoly at that time. We could raise our prices and still get sales without fear of a drop in unit volume. However, because of ethics we did not do that, instead we passed on our low cost structure to customers in the form of low prices and at the same time provide extraodinary profits for ourselves.

Our pricing structure was excellent, instead of limiting people to pay a certain amount for our food, we said to them, "pay whatever you want". This strategy is excellent. Firstly, if we set a price, and some younger people might have a willingness to pay which is less than the price, we end up not having any sale. And if people are willing to pay more, we would miss some of the economic surplus by charging them too little. Hence, pay whatever you want or pay whatever you think the food is worth is the best stratey yet.

Nonetheless, we should not forget that this event is a fund-raiser. Even though the elements of a basic business do work in progress here, we should not forget that this event is being led by God. And that we can't think everything into our hands and should let Him guide the event. I give God the glory for that.

Overall, this week's fund-raising was excellent! Next week is my turn to prepare the food. Wish me good luck as I am going to make the most fabulous tastilicious egg-sandwiches!