Things 4 Good
Updates on our family’s candle‑making fundraiser for charity. I share insights on costs and materials, celebrate the growing impact and donations raised over four years, and invite readers to help us choose new scents.
- You can see the early inventory trend drops quick which is a reflection of preorders that folk sent in.
- True North was the first scent to sell out and sold just as fast as Winter Wonderland until they were all gone.
- Just Crackle was popular with people buying many candles as gifts.
- Old Fashioned had more than other scents but still sold out quickly.
- Apple of My Eye underperformed and was the least popular scent until the end when there wasn’t as many options.
- Winter Wonderland seems to sell faster when it is on display and people can see there are so many of them. On Saturday we kept 5 of each candle on the table and added more as they were sold. The rate of sales were slower. On Sunday there were 30+ of them on the table. Do people buy more when they see there are so many?
- We sold out! Inventory went negative? Indeed we ran out of candles and I sent an email to let folks know if they were still planning to come. We did have a few people show up after we were out and I realized I had a couple dozen candles downstairs I had poured for myself. I brought them up and we kept raising more money for our causes!
Making more candles for the Things 4 Good Candle Fundraiser for next week! I got the labels a little faster so we can put those on before pouring making it a bit more efficient. ⏱️
Making Things 4 Good candles!
Spent the morning ordering materials for our Things 4 Good Fall Fundraiser and candle scents and vessels are more “out of stock” than I’ve ever seen. Luckily I have some vessel inventory, but not enough. Might be a scramble this year. I wonder if Makesy inventory issues are tariff related? 😬
I love the scent and crackle of our Things 4 Good candles. For my birthday my sister got me a candle warmer. I didn’t know that this was a thing and gave it a go. It worked really well! The wax performed very similar to burning and the scent was great. Another way to enjoy our candles.
POAP 7276968 at Things 4 Good Scent Survey.
Had a Things 4 Good candle scent survey today. Figuring out new scents for next year’s event.
How much does a Things 4 Good candle cost to make?
Now that we have the fourth year of the Things 4 Good 2024 Fall Fundraiser behind us I thought it would be fun to really figure out how much a single candle costs. We’ve sold them for $25 every year. I know that we raise more money than we spend. But I’ve never done the math to figure out what the materials cost per candle. Obviously our labor is free. That is part of the fundraiser.
Most of the items in the candles have a single price. However the vessels and scents vary, and in some cases a lot. The iridescent and metal coated vessels are more expensive. Scents can range wildly in price. I also buy the larger quantities. Here is how the cost breaks down.
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| 12 oz Vessel (12 pack) | $4.75 - $5.75 |
| Soy Wax (44 lbs) | $3.36 |
| Candle Scent (16 oz) | $1.45 - $3.50 |
| Wooden Wick (100 pack) | $0.28 |
| Wick Clip (100 pack) | $0.12 |
| Candle Label (15 per sheet) | $0.23 |
| Warning Sticker (24 in roll) | $0.16 |
| Total | $10.35 - $13.40 |
I usually time my orders to get things at a discount with a deal so the real cost is probably $8.28 - $10.72.
For the Things 4 Good sale we cover these costs. All $25 of the donation goes to the charities. But it is interesting to see where the costs are in the production.
Things 4 Good Four Year Impact
We’ve now done our Things 4 Good Fall Fundraiser for four years. With the amazing support of this community we have raised $22,739 for non-profits! Thank you so much. ❤️
Opening the sale to the public via the Mt. Olivet Holiday Boutique was a great way to get to a lot of new people with a nearly 50% jump in candle sales this year!
Organizations that we’ve supported over these four years include Constellation Fund, Free Bikes 4 Kidz, Appetite for Change, Feed My Starving Children, United Help Ukraine, Agate Housing + Services, Save the Snakes, Free Guitars 4 Kids, American Prairie, Heart to Care Tanzania, Food Recovery Network, Oceanites, SynGAP Research Fund, Water to Thrive, Sprint to Cité Soleil, and World Central Kitchen.
Things 4 Good 2024 Fall Fundraiser Insights
We had a great time hosting our 4th annual Things 4 Good Fall Fundraiser. We raised $7,010 in donations for our four non-profits. I also like to take a look at the data from the sale to learn more for next year.
We made 252 candles in preparation for the sale. We had 72 Winter Wonderland, 36 Old Fashioned, and 24 of the other six scents. We really had no idea what to do for inventory since this was the first year we sold to the public at the Mt. Olivet Holiday Boutique.
We had 78 candle purchases which is a huge 42% jump from last year. On average people purchased 3 candles, down from 4 last year. However averages don’t tell the story. Most people got one candle, and there are a smaller number of people that get a large number — usually as gifts for the holidays. We had 5 transactions for more than 8 candles, accounting for a whopping 76 candles, 30% of our inventory.
This year we had eight different scents, the exact same as last year. We renamed Plain Jane to Just Crackle, and it was similarly popular for folks wanting an unscented candle. We did fine tune the scents though and increased the scent load on some of them. Here is a look at rolling inventory as sales were happening.
Some observations:
We offer folks a number of ways to donate and again Venmo was by far the most popular method, 3.5 times more popular than cash. More people knew what Zelle was this year. I continue to be surprised at how few people have Apple Pay setup. Three checks! I did not offer a method to pay via crypto this year. We’ve only ever had one candle sale in all the years we’ve done it using Bitcoin Lightning.
We are already keeping notes for things we want to do to make next year’s Things 4 Good Fall Fundraiser even better. Send us an email if you have any suggestions!
Also see 2024 Fall Fundraiser Results.