Gift Wrap Fundraisers for Schools, Teams, and Nonprofits: Easy Holiday Sales
A gift wrap fundraiser is one of the easiest ways for schools, teams, churches, and nonprofits to raise money in the fall, because you’re selling something people already need to buy. Many families wrap presents in December. When your group is the one offering the paper, along with candles, chocolates, and gifts, supporters say yes without feeling pressured, and your sellers don’t have to work nearly as hard.
This guide covers what a gift wrap fundraiser is, how much you can realistically raise, the three ways to run one, how it works for different kinds of groups, and a step-by-step plan for getting it right the first time. Along the way we’ll show you how Fundraising Zone‘s Winter Wonderland fundraiser fits in, with no upfront costs, no minimum order, and up to 50% profit.
Table of Contents
What is a Gift Wrap Fundraiser?
A gift wrap fundraiser is a product sale where your group sells wrapping paper and holiday items from a catalog or an online store and keeps a percentage of every sale as profit. Instead of asking people for a donation, you’re offering something they already plan to buy in October and November anyway. That’s the whole reason gift wrap works so well as a Christmas fundraiser idea: nobody has to be talked into it.
The mechanics are simple. Your group signs up with a fundraising company, hands out catalogs or shares a link to an online store, and your sellers (students, players, members, volunteers) take orders from family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers for two to three weeks. At the end of the sale, the orders are submitted, the products ship, and the group keeps its share.
How much money you can raise
Gift wrap fundraisers can run on zero upfront cost. You don’t buy inventory, you don’t pay for catalogs, and you don’t pay for the parent letters or order forms. Supporters pay when they order, you submit the orders along with the product cost, and the difference is your profit. If the fundraiser doesn’t go the way you hoped, you aren’t stuck with boxes of unsold paper.
Profit is usually a percentage of total sales, and with Fundraising Zone’s Winter Wonderland program the percentage climbs as you sell more: 40% on sales up to $2,500, 45% from $2,501 to $5,000, and 50% once you pass $5,000. Online orders earn a flat 40%, and straight donations through the catalog earn 70%.
Here’s what that looks like in practice. Most items in the Winter Wonderland catalog fall between $12 and $22, so an average order of about $15 per item is a safe planning number. A youth team with 25 kids who each sell 5 items brings in roughly $1,875 in sales and clears about $750. An elementary school where 150 students each sell 3 items reaches about $6,750 in sales, which pushes you into the 50% tier and puts around $3,375 in your account. The jump from 40% to 50% is why it pays to set a group goal rather than just letting the sale run.
Types of items typically sold
Gift wrap is the anchor, but a good holiday catalog gives supporters plenty of other reasons to order. The Winter Wonderland catalog has over 150 items. On the wrap side, that means jumbo 40 to 44 square foot reversible rolls for $15, three- and four-roll packs, flat sheet sets, 24-count gift tag packs for $10, a roll cutter, and a storage tote for keeping it all organized. Beyond paper, the catalog carries Yankee Candle 22 oz jars in ten scents, chocolates like dark chocolate sea salt caramels and peppermint bark, kitchen gadgets, cookie and soup mixes, tea towels, throw blankets, totes, and $12 mystery gifts.
That variety matters more than people expect. A grandparent who already has wrapping paper will still buy a candle or a box of cherry cordials, and that’s an order you’d otherwise lose.
Main Types of Gift Wrap Fundraiesrs
Gift wrap fundraisers come in three formats, and the right one depends on how your group communicates and how far your supporters are spread out. Fundraising Zone’s Winter Wonderland fundraiser can run any of the three ways, so you’re not locked into one approach before you know what your group needs.
Online. Each seller gets a personal online store link to share by text, email, and social media. Supporters order and pay online, and their items ship directly to their door, so nobody on your end handles money or sorts boxes. Online orders earn a flat 40% profit. This is the format to lean on when your supporters are out of town, your group is small, or you want to avoid door-to-door selling entirely.
Catalog. This is the traditional version. Sellers take a printed catalog and order form to family, friends, and coworkers, collect orders and payment, and turn in their forms at the end of the sale. Everything ships together to your organization, sorted by seller and labeled, and you hand out the orders. Catalog sales earn the tiered 40 to 50% profit, so this is where the bigger margins live.
Hybrid. Most groups end up here. Sellers use the catalog for the people they see in person (the grandparents, the coworkers, the neighbors) and share their online link with everyone else. You get the higher margins on catalog orders and the reach of online ordering, and relatives three states away can still support the group. Fundraising Zone provides both the printed catalogs and the online store with every Winter Wonderland fundraiser, so running hybrid doesn’t cost extra or require anything separate.
How Gift Wrap Fundraisers Work
The basic process is the same for every group, but the details of who sells, who buys, and how you hand out orders change depending on what kind of organization you are. Here’s how it typically plays out.
Gift wrap fundraisers for schools
Schools are where gift wrap fundraisers started, and they still fit schools best.
- The PTA or PTO signs up, picks a two to three week window in October or early November, and sends catalogs home with students along with a parent letter (Fundraising Zone provides these in English and Spanish). Parents take the catalog to work, share the online link with relatives, and kids ask the neighbors they already know.
- Because every family needs wrapping paper before December, participation tends to be higher than with a product people have to be convinced to buy. A prize program helps too, and Fundraising Zone lets you choose between prize incentives for sellers or a 2% cash back option for the group.
- When orders arrive, they come pre-sorted by student and labeled, so distribution is a matter of sending boxes home by classroom rather than a weekend of volunteers sorting in the gym. Schools with a few hundred students regularly clear the $5,000 mark, which puts them at the 50% profit tier.
Gift wrap fundraisers for teams
Teams have a built-in advantage: a small, motivated roster and parents who talk to each other constantly.
- A travel baseball team, cheer squad, or dance company can run a gift wrap sale in a couple of weeks between practices, with the coach or team parent handling sign-up and the group text handling everything else.
- Set a per-player goal (five to eight items is realistic) and tie it to something concrete, like covering tournament fees or new uniforms, because parents sell harder when they know what the money is for.
- Hybrid works especially well for teams since families often have relatives out of town who are happy to order online and have items shipped straight to them. Orders ship sorted by seller, so handing them out at the next practice takes ten minutes.
- For a 20 player team, $1,500 to $3,000 in sales is a reasonable target, and there’s no minimum, so even a small squad can run it without worrying about hitting a threshold.
Gift wrap fundraisers for churches
Church fundraisers work because the congregation is already gathering every week, which means you have a built-in kickoff, a built-in reminder, and a built-in pickup day.
- Announce the sale from the pulpit or in the bulletin, put catalogs in the lobby, and have youth group members or a committee take orders after services for two or three Sundays.
- Many congregations use gift wrap sales to fund youth mission trips, a food pantry, or a building project, and that purpose should be front and center in every announcement.
- The catalog’s candles, chocolates, and kitchen items tend to do well with an older congregation that may already have wrapping paper on hand. Online links let members share the sale with family who don’t attend. When orders arrive, set up a pickup table after service one Sunday, and the sorted, labeled boxes make that a one-person job.
Gift wrap fundraisers for nonprofits
Nonprofits, booster clubs, scout troops, and community charities can run gift wrap fundraisers even without a large captive audience, because the product sells itself to the general public.
- Your board members, volunteers, and families each take a catalog and an online link and work their own networks, which is far easier than asking the same people for a cash donation again. The Winter Wonderland catalog also includes a $25 donation option that earns 70% profit, so supporters who don’t want products can still give.
- Set a clear timeline, since nonprofits without a weekly meeting rhythm need firm start and end dates to keep momentum. Online ordering is a good primary channel here because supporters are often scattered and direct shipping means your volunteers don’t have to coordinate a distribution day.
- Since there’s no upfront cost and no minimum, a small organization can test a gift wrap sale one year without risk and scale it the next.
How to Run a Successful Gift Wrap Fundraiser
Groups that raise the most money aren’t necessarily bigger or more organized. They just get a few things right: they start early enough, they give sellers a clear goal, and they remind people more than once. Here’s the process from start to finish.
Step 1: Pick your program and set a goal
Decide which format you’ll run (online, catalog, or hybrid) based on how your supporters are spread out, and pick your catalog.
For a holiday sale, choose one with real variety so supporters who don’t need wrap still have a reason to order. Then set a dollar goal and work backward to a per-seller number. If you want to raise $2,500 with 40 sellers at 45% profit, that’s about $5,600 in sales, or roughly 9 items per seller. Tell everyone that number and what the money pays for. Vague fundraisers raise vague amounts.
Step 2: Get approval and lock in your dates
Get written approval from your principal, league, pastor, or board before anything else, and put your sale dates on the calendar.
For holiday gift wrap, the window matters: you want orders in by early to mid November so products arrive with time to spare before the holidays, since delivery typically takes two to three weeks after orders are processed. That means kicking off in early October to early November. Keep the sale itself to two or three weeks. A longer sale doesn’t raise more money, it just lets people put it off.
Step 3: Request your free kit and set up your account
Request Fundraising Zone’s free kit, which ships within 24 hours and includes sample catalogs, order forms, and a guide to running the sale, or sign up online in about two minutes with no credit card.
An account manager will reach out within a business day to confirm catalog quantities, your dates, and whether you want the prize program or 2% cash back. Give them an accurate seller count so you have enough catalogs. Ask about your online store setup at this point so the links are ready on kickoff day, not a week later.
Step 4: Kick off with energy
The kickoff sets the tone for the whole sale. Hold a short assembly, team meeting, or announcement where you show the catalog, explain the goal, and tell sellers exactly what they’re raising money for.
Send home the parent letter the same day, with the sale end date in bold and the online store link included. If you’re using prizes, show them. Kids and parents who leave the kickoff knowing the goal, the deadline, and the link will start selling that night, and the first 48 hours usually produce a disproportionate share of orders.
Step 5: Promote through the whole sale
Most fundraisers get a burst of orders at the start, go quiet, and then scramble at the end. You fix that with a midpoint push. Send a reminder text or email a week in, post the online link on your group’s Facebook page and in the parent group chat, and share a progress update (“We’re at $1,800 of our $4,000 goal”).
Encourage parents to post their child’s link on their own social media and to take a catalog to work, since coworkers are the most overlooked buyers in any gift wrap sale. One more reminder two days before the deadline catches everyone who meant to order and forgot.
Step 6: Collect orders and submit
On the final day, collect order forms and payment envelopes, and give yourself two or three days of grace for late orders because there will be some.
Check each form’s math against the money collected before you tally, since this is where most errors happen. Confirm the final count with your account manager and submit your order. Payment for the product is due before shipment, and your profit is the difference between what you collected and what you owe, so having the forms reconciled makes that step painless.
Step 7: Receive and distribute
Your order arrives in two to three weeks, delivered inside your building and sorted by seller with each order labeled.
Check the shipment against your order forms as soon as it arrives and report anything missing or damaged within a week. Then pick a single distribution day. For schools, that’s sending boxes home by classroom; for teams and churches, it’s a pickup table at the next practice or service. Because the sorting is already done, this step takes an hour instead of a weekend.
Step 8: Thank everyone and share the results
Close the loop. Send a thank you to sellers and supporters with the final number raised and what it’s going to pay for, hand out any prizes promptly, and note what worked and what didn’t while it’s fresh.
Groups that announce results and show the money in action have a much easier time the following year, because supporters remember that their order actually did something. Then put next year’s dates on the calendar.
Looking for more in-depth guidance? Check out our guides on winter fundraising ideas and gift wrap fundraising ideas.
How Working With a Gift Wrap Fundraiser Company, FundraisingZone, Works
Fundraising Zone has been running product fundraisers since 1965, and the Winter Wonderland program is built so a volunteer coordinator with a full-time job can run it without the fundraiser becoming a second one. Here’s what you can expect once you sign up.
- Request a free kit or sign up online. Request a free kit here. The kit ships within 24 hours with sample catalogs, order forms, and a guide to running the sale. If you’d rather skip the mail, online sign-up takes about two minutes with no credit card.
- An account manager contacts you within one business day. They’ll confirm your seller count, sale dates, catalog quantities, and whether you want prizes or the 2% cash back option, then set up your group’s online store.
- You get everything you need at no cost. Full-color catalogs, order forms, collection envelopes, and parent letters in English and Spanish are all free. There are no upfront costs and no minimum order.
- Sellers work both channels. Printed catalogs for in-person orders, personal online store links for everyone else. Online orders ship directly to the buyer, so those never touch your hands.
- You earn 40 to 50% on catalog sales. 40% up to $2,500, 45% up to $5,000, and 50% above that. Online sales earn a flat 40% and donations earn 70%.
- Shipping and sorting are handled. Orders over $2,500 ship free, are delivered inside your building, and arrive sorted by seller with every order labeled. Distribution takes an hour, not a weekend.
- Real people answer the phone. Support is available 24/7 at 1-800-645-6550, and if something arrives damaged or missing, you have a week to report it and they fix it.
Start Your Gift Wrap Fundraiser Today
Gift wrap fundraisers work because you’re selling something people are going to buy anyway, and the Winter Wonderland catalog gives them 150 reasons to buy it from your group. There’s no cost to start, no minimum to hit, and no inventory to worry about.
Request your free kit and it will be on its way within 24 hours, or sign up online and have your account set up in about two minutes. If you’d rather talk it through first, call 1-800-645-6550 and a fundraising coach will walk you through it.