When you organize a local craft fair, you can make money in a few ways.

1. You can ask neighborhood participants to pay you a small fee, such as $10, to help pay for the cost of advertising. Your profit when you raise money in this way depends on creating quality advertising at a low cost, in order to have some money at the end. Most of your advertising dollars will go towards physical signage and fliers.
2. You can invite outside vendors to participate in the craft fair, and charge them double the fee of the homeowners. Half of that should go to the host driveway where they set up shop, in exchange for Wifi and bathroom usage, and half goes to you.

If you do the math on the organizing fee alone, let’s say it’s your first year and only 5 households participate. You just made $50! But, you get each of those households to host 2 other vendors in their driveway. Now you have 10 more vendors at $20 apiece, but you only keep half (remember that the host driveway gets $10 as well)…which adds up to $100, plus $50 from the locals, is $150! If you manage to keep costs down on your advertising, let’s say you use some materials you already own for your large sign, and just pay $50 for smaller signs and postcards, you’ve made $100 profit!

Now, let’s say you also create a craft. Be sure to choose crafts where your materials are reasonable, and you can sell your finished product for around 3 times what you paid for in materials. You probably won’t sell everything, but let’s say 2/3 of what you made gets sold. Let’s look at a scenario:

Scenario of What You Could Make at Your Fair

• You create earrings, and materials are $100 for 30 pairs of earrings. You should sell them for $10 apiece. If you sell 20 pairs, you’ll make $200, minus $100 for materials, is $100 profit.
• You also make necklaces. For the sake of the example, let’s say the cost and price is the same as the earrings, and you make $100 on those as well.
• Let’s say you pay $20 in materials to make 60 cookies. You put them in baggies, and your kids sell 2 cookies for $3. This time, let’s say you sell out, and make $90! After you subtract the $20 in cost, and shell out $10 each to 2 kids for selling the cookies, you’ve made $50!

In this hypothetical universe, you’ve now made $100 for your organizing fees, $100 from your earrings, $100 from your bracelets, and $50 from cookies, for a grand total of $350. And, your kids are walking tall with $10 in their pockets for selling your cookies (plus whatever they made on lemonade!).

Congratulations, you had a great day, you made a tidy profit, and the neighborhood has never felt closer.

You’re rich!!

Just kidding! You had a good day, but you’re not exactly ready to retire. On the other hand, here are some areas you are rich in:

• You’re rich in friendships, because you became so much closer to the folks who were on your team and helped you organize your fair.
• You’re rich in a feeling of community, as the neighbors on the street thank you for organizing such a fun and rewarding day.
• You’re rich in pride for your children, who you taught a little bit about being an entrepreneur, and how to make a buck.

Here’s the takeaway: You can make a tidy sum by putting on a neighborhood craft fair, but if money is your only motivator, there are probably other ways to do it. Neighborhood craft fairs are about community, and the pride of making something with your hands that other people can hold in their hands. I personally make my money by working on a computer, and the simple mental health benefits of creating something physical and real, is more than enough motivation to continue putting on these craft fairs year over year.

All I can say is, give it a try…I think you’ll love it!