Charity Car Wash Running Successful Events
By Ryan Carlson

A webpage for a fictitious car wash promoting charity credentials.

As a small business in a community it is important to find ways in which to be known for something more than just “doing a good job.” The primary goal of a marketing campaign is to establish your “brand” and cause potential customers to identify with your business. The reasons behind a charity car wash event are twofold. You are either just a great person with the desire to do something special for a group or organization that yourself or a family member is involved with or you’re looking for ways in which to build visible goodwill within the community.

MORE THAN SOAP AND WATER

Charity car washes are wonderful marketing events that have the opportunity to drive new customers to your business. Even more importantly, they give your business a way to stand out from the competition.

The idea is to have new customers visiting your car wash facility see your business for more than just a place to get a clean car. Customers that came to your business because of a charity fundraiser know that with each car wash they buy from your business they are supporting a cause or organization that they believe in. In this way your business is set apart from a competitor who offers similar services at a similar price and at an equivalent level of clean.

Partner with the Right Organizations
It’s important that you choose the right organizations to “partner” with in these kinds of promotions. Are they trustworthy? Are they well organized? If dealing with youth, do they have active supervision?

The second thing to consider is whether or not the organization you’re partnering with will appeal to the goodwill of the general public? Does this particular organization have supporters willing to turn out for an on-site event or buy washes?

Questions to ask the organization:

• How many people in your organization will be involved in promotions?
• What kind of advertising will you be doing for the fundraiser event?
• What are your expectations?
• What have you done before with other companies?
• Who is the primary contact person?
• What is your preference concerning the type of promotion (on-site or off-site)?
• How will I monitor and measure success of the fundraiser?

It’s very important to get as much information up front about the group you’re going to be working with and ensuring that the logistics are taken care of. Far too many fundraisers fail because there was not equal buy-in from both parties. You need to be especially diligent when working with youth-based charity wash events to limit your liability. I’ve had operators say that working with youth organizations that do not have proper supervision is like “herding cats” when it comes to putting the plan in motion.

OFF-SITE PROMOTIONS

There are a number of ways in which you can engage organizations and treat them as an off-site sales force. Your options will be limited by the tools and technology available to you.

Book Sales/Token Sales
A basic “low-tech” approach is having the organization go off-site and solicit people in the community to buy car washes. This is a lot like selling cookies or magazine subscriptions with the exception that people are not being asked to buy things they probably don’t want. The other added benefit of selling car washes for a local business is that unlike the case with the above-mentioned products the profits are not going to a multi-national corporation. The money stays local.

Using books, token notes, or tokens has its limitations — they can only be redeemed on a single service. As a result, businesses that offer more than a single service can only promote one of their services instead of promoting the entire location.

Code Promotions
Operators who have automated entry stations that have the ability to generate codes can create a fundraiser “coupon code” and track the use of that code. For every use of that code a few dollars goes to the charity group. The difficulty lies in getting the user to remember the code and use it consistently. The other issue is that if the code is a discount code, word spreads, and by default you’re giving away that discounted wash for as long as the code is valid. It’s a double-edged sword, right? You don’t want to prevent the fundraiser from being very successful by setting an expiration date too early, but you don’t want to permanently drop your wash price by $2 just because everybody in town knows about the code. The second thing to consider is that for a long-term discount to work, you really should be getting something in return.

Gift Card Sales
Gift card sales are very similar to book sales or token sales with the exception that they can be re-loaded once their value is depleted. This means that you are building in the opportunity for customers to come back to the car wash once their initial block of washes has been used up. Another advantage to consider for wash locations that have multiple services — such as in-bay automatics and self-service bays — is that a single card can be used to buy different services (check with your gift card provider; not all card systems will tie multiple services together).

One thing to consider about an off-site fundraising program is that it should be something that can go on ‘auto pilot’ once you have things going. Not all gift card programs have the ability to be configured for fundraising support. Advanced gift card systems have options for fundraising support to handle things like ongoing tracking of fundraising supporters. Other features to look for are return-on-investment tools and the ability to configure special programs within software to minimize data entry and busy-work.

ON-SITE PROMOTIONS

Some of the best fundraising promotions get people involved on site to generate interest and excitement around the event itself. Many on-site events will encourage patrons to be more generous than they might have been when interacting with a soulless pay station or code box.

Wash Day
This is an example of a charity wash everybody in town knows about, where you have lots of activity at the wash — participants on site washing cars for donations, or driving business with signs on the side of the road. In the case of in-bay automatics and express washes a percentage of the business generated for that day will go to the fundraiser. This requires a lot of supervision and, when youth are involved, parental participation.

Competitions
This variation on a fundraising event pits two groups against one another with a big cash prize (donation) at the end for the team that generates the most business, washes the most cars, sells the most washes, brings in the most in donations, etc. Competition drives participants to push harder when they know a prize is on the line.

There are a lot of variations of the on-site promotion, and even off-site promotions that lead up to an on-site promotion. Success depends in large part on partnering with the right organizations. Charity groups that are well organized have a huge opportunity to raise a lot of money, and for the car wash business there is a lot to be gained. Remember, your primary goal is to be more visible and known as a community-friendly business. Most of the money you will make will come from the future car washes purchased by the fundraiser supporters.

MANAGE IT RIGHT

It’s easy to get carried away by the excitement of the event and the consequent opportunities. As with every other endeavor, you cannot neglect the administrative necessities and chores that ensure a hiccup-free fundraiser.

Put Your Plan in Writing
It is critical that you put your plan in writing, put your agreements with organizations in writing, and get signatures to agreements that set out the promotion’s terms. There is nothing worse than ruining a relationship because of a miscommunication over minor details.

You should also be pre-packaging your fundraising opportunities and creating a flyer, a handout, or a page on your website outlining the fundraising opportunities you offer.

Feedback
After every fundraising event or promotion, be certain to gather feedback from your staff, the organizers of the event, and the participants of the event. This will help identify gaps in your planning, missed opportunities, and unexpected problems. Apply the lessons learned at the next fundraiser. The more events you do, the more successful you will be at it.

Get the Word Out
To have a successful fundraising event, do your own advertising in addition to anything the organization your partnering with is doing. Using letter boards, handing out flyers, and informing your “regular customers” will help generate the goodwill you are looking for and help shape your customers’ perceptions about your business. The organization you’re working with will often have their own advertising budgets available for these events — schools have butcher paper and paints, non-profits have copy budgets for flyers.

Lastly, tell every news outlet in your area that the event is happening, especially if the partner-organization is noteworthy as a “good cause.” Your local papers, television stations, and radio stations will always be looking for news to fill their pages/time. Leverage social media such as Facebook or Twitter — advertising on these outlets is free. Having the participants of the fundraiser (especially true of youth organizations) spread the word on the Internet is an amazing way to get “reach” and raise awareness. If you have a website, set up a special page that you can direct people to and participants can link to on their Facebook status.

Choose good partners, ask the right questions, use the right tools, and promote the event effectively and you will greatly improve your standing in the community, generate goodwill, and improve your bottom line by attracting new customers to your business.

Ryan Carlson is the director of marketing for WashCard Systems and an industry expert on consumer buying trends and car wash promotional technologies. Ryan is the host of the car wash industry podcast Wash Ideas Weekly and speaks regularly at trade shows about successful car wash marketing and the application of new technologies for successful business operations. Contact Ryan directly at ryan@washideas.com or visit www.washideas.com for more information.