Fundraisers are made - and broken by the people who volunteer to work them.

Unfortunately, fundraising directors rarely consider how the fundraiser they decide to use might affect their volunteers - and ultimately the success of their fundraiser. 

If your group's members don't feel good about the product they'll be offering their friends and neighbors - let alone acquaintences or complete strangers - for a donation, either they won't work your fundraiser with the enthusiasm necessary to really succeed, or they won't even volunteer to begin with!

• If your fundraiser requires volunteers to ask people for money for some over-priced product that not too many folks really want or need, you're putting your volunteers in the awkward position of having to choose between wanting to work the fundraiser to support your organization, on the one hand, but not wanting to impose on people to give them money for that kind of product, on the other hand.
  
  
• Don't put them in that position.   Pick a fundraising program that allows them to feel good about what they're doing - a "Golden Rule"-type of fundraiser that allows them to give more to donors and their families than they're asking from them.  The better the volunteers feel about it, the more enthusiastically they'll present the fundraiser to prospective donors - friends and strangers alike!