As a child, your brain comes up with these great ideas, great business ideas. I am so proud of my daughter this week. Her school is raising money through a World Walk- walk a thon. They entice the kids with prizes, cheap little trinkets to encourage (bribe) them into guilting their parents and grandparents into supporting the cause. My seven year old set a goal to raise $150. She then calculated that she could get there if her three grandparents kicked in $50 each. Sweet!! I was in the clear… until grandparent one started her off with $25.
Game on– now we had to make up the difference. She was able to convince the other two sets of grandparents into $35 and sat at $95. I smiled and saw this as an opportunity to give her a chance to learn a little a lesson or two on fundraising- namely first offers are jumping off points and matching gifts are win-win. I offered to match her $35 donation if she could get grandparent one up from $25 to $35. It was fun to see a seven year old with all the confidence in the world make that return call and try to explain the matching scenario. It worked and she found herself at $140. Her goal was just around the corner. I had purposely left her a bit shy of the goal to see how she would solve this… her solution… a lemonade stand. If you have ever had the opportunity of overseeing a lemonade operation then you will know what I am referring to. First, a quick stop at the grocery store for ingredients, then home to bake the cookies, get out the table, chairs, paper cups and napkins and design the signage. When all this was complete we moved out to the sun and commenced the sale. These little girls (a sister and next-door neighbor) were great salesmen, waving at every car and yelling “cookies and lemonade”. Success, they did it, and $10 worth of goodies. Of course, I bought $4 personally and spent another $16 on the ingredients (love that buy high and sell low strategy).
All kidding aside, it was truly special to spend that time with my daughter. It was great to see her set goals, work hard, learn lessons and ultimately come out victorious. I made my donation(s) to the World Walk this weekend for three reasons: 1) I believe in helping out the school and giving the local kids in our area a quality educational experience. 2) I love the joy in a kids face (my kid’s face) when they accomplish their goals and 3) I gave her an entrepreneurial experience at a young age that will hopefully foster a confident desire to learn, strive and grow more. Here’s to another glass of $1 lemonade (you can buy it for .25 cents, just talk with my daughter).