In this economy many organizations need another resource to raise funds. Collecting DVDs and other media is a perfect way to raise money for a non-profit, children’s group, sporting team, or school organization. Stop asking for monetary donations or time consuming cookie sales and start collecting used CDs, DVDs, video games, and text books to trade in for cash, instead.

1. Lots of people have used books, CDs, and DVDs sitting around their homes that they will never use again. Many of them can be sold used, sometimes for a surprisingly high price. Neighbors and relatives may be willing to give them to you, to help you raise money, and help themselves clean up their bookshelves.
2. You can take them to a used bookstore to generate some quick cash, but if you're patient enough to treat it as a part-time job over a period of weeks, you'll make much more selling them directly yourself, online. A great place to do this is Amazon.com. See http://www.amazon.com/gp/seller/sell-your-stuff.html/
3. You can get set up as a fundraising partner with mx123.com and receive your free marketing materials for your DVD and media collection drive. They can guide you through the dvd collection process and make it easy for you to be reimbursed for your items.
4. Many of the items you get won't be worth more than a buck or two online, and you won't make enough profit to be worth your time to list the items, then pack them up and ship them. Others might be worth $20, $50, or more. When you're listing the book for sale online, you can see the range of prices that other sellers are offering. You should price your items towards the low end of the range, for items of similar condition, so you can collect your cash more quickly -- unlike a typical bookstore, you don't plan to maintain an inventory for a long time.
5. Don't list for sale the lowest-priced items. It's not worth it. When people donate a stack of books to you, find out what they want you to do if you can't sell it -- give it away? Throw it away? Give it back to them? They probably will say they don't care, but it's good to ask so that your supporters don't feel hurt if you throw away some book they were sentimentally attached to.
6. You can figure out how the whole process works by selling just a few high-quality, highly-demanded books or DVDs online at first. This is a good warm-up, but to make it worth your while, you should plan on being in the business for at least a few weeks, and marketing at least 50 or 100 items that are worth $5 or more each. During the period you're selling, you'll need to be checking email daily and available to put shipments in the mail at least 2-3 times a week. The total time invested per item sold will be about 15 minutes to one hour, depending on how efficient you are. It takes almost as much time to ship 1 item as it takes to ship 5 items, so you might as well list a lot for sale at once, then shut your business down after a couple of weeks when you get tired of the constant need to babysit your operation.
7. Don't offer to ship via express mail or ship internationally -- it's an additional hassle, and the buyer's expectations will be higher.
8. If you are selling your items to mx123.com box it, and ship it (postage paid by them) to mx123.com. They will process it, price it, and get your organization your money fast. No more waiting for weeks on end for catalog orders or chocolate bar sales. Depending on the size of the donation they could cut your organization a check within days.
9. This could be a good project for a group of people.

• Items needed:
  • Books, CDs, DVDs, video games, etc to sell
  • Internet access
  • Account at an online vendor such as Amazon (requires access to a credit card)
  • Packing materials
  • Regular access to a shipping method, such as a post office
    

• Time required: 5 hours to get set up, then 15-60 minutes per item sold
• Amount you can expect to raise: $ 5- $10 per item sold (sometimes more)