Grant amounts will depend on negotiated scope. 

CONFIDENCE CLOSET:

For the PMCA portion, the base grant would be $5k, but there is possibility for greater scope.

For the Confidence Closet PMCG side, there will be a minimum $500 grant, and the rest will depend on effectiveness and need.  For a hardworking, high needs student, we are willing to contribute the majority of their ICDC costs.

CLOTHING FUNDRAISER:

Profits will be driven by your effectiveness in both marketing and the event itself.  For a well-run event, the current inventory should bring in $10k.  This includes sorting out the high-end pieces and pricing accordingly (such as asking $30 for the Ralph Lauren boots currently selling for $70 on ebay).  

There are currently 1,000 curated pieces, and I could continue to add to that.  There is also the possibility of scaling down the Confidence Closet scope and providing another ~1500 slightly dressier items for another $10k+

There are additional fundraising approaches beyond direct sales that could be successful. But because this will be a competitive PMSP project, we need to preserve student ownership by not providing too many of our personal ideas up front.

For the PMSP fundraiser and the PMCA Confidence Closet event, we are looking for chapters with fewer resources, newer advisors, or students facing financial barriers.

For the PMCG project, it should take place in a more affluent area where there is a higher chance of success for clothing drives and such.

GFG will prioritize teams based on need, student enthusiasm, advisor support, logistical feasibility, location, and local market.

This idea grew from first-hand experience as a teen in a rural areas that did not have better brands in the local thrift stores. In addition, recent sourcing of items for the Confidence Closet has provided familiarity with the current second-hand market and the ability to identify quality items with resale potential.

There are several reasons we think branded clothing could work particularly well as a fundraiser in communities where secondhand shopping options are limited:

• Teenagers spend a meaningful share of their discretionary money on clothing and tend to be highly brand-conscious. A recognizable brand at an affordable price can therefore have more appeal than many traditional fundraising products.

• Clothing is also a social purchase. Teens often shop with friends, which makes a pop-up or boutique-style event especially well suited to group shopping and impulse purchases.

• There is a gap between what students would like to wear and what many families can reasonably spend. Brands that are still expensive even when purchased on sale can become much more accessible when offered secondhand at thrift-store-level pricing.

• Those same brands can be difficult to find locally. In communities where fewer families are buying premium brands new, fewer of those items eventually enter the local secondhand market. Better thrift-shopping options may also require significant travel time.

• The audience does not have to stop with teenagers. Brands such as 7 For All Mankind, Ariat, Democracy and similar labels may appeal more to parents than students. Business-casual sales could also target local office workers who have similarly limited access to higher-quality secondhand clothing.

That leaves considerable room for a student PMSP team to test different audiences, pricing strategies, event formats and product mixes rather than relying on a single resale model.

We are open to other ideas as long as they fit within the scope of one of the DECA paper competitions.

No financial investment is required from chapters. GFG provides starting clothing inventory, on-loan racks and fixtures, and any other needed supplies.

These projects are currently being self-funded by Go For Glass board members. Once details are set in stone, we do hope to advertise for clothing donations in the Seattle area to offset spending.

There is no catch, other than wanting to find a chapter where students treat this as an opportunity versus a charity. Two of the GFG board members grew up in disadvantaged situations so know first hand the additional struggles compared to students in well funded, affluent areas. These projects could be compared to that of Running Start in which, yes, you are receiving monetary value, but you will need to work hard to properly benefit from it.

Most of the Go For Glass resources exist to help everyone to a certain point, whereas the goal for these projects is to truly change the lives for a handful of students.

Chapters are responsible for school approval, facilities requests, student coordination, and money handling through school-approved processes. Advisors need to sign off on logistics and financial oversight, but students should expect to lead most of the work.

We currently have ~1,000 pieces of non-business clothing that could be used in a fundraiser, ~1500 pieces of business-casual clothing that could be used for either event, and ~1,000 pieces of business professional clothing for the Confidence Closet.

For the non-business clothing, denim is currently the most abundant as it has been the easiest category to self-research. Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle, Calvin Klein, Eddie Bauer, Hollister, Levis, Lucky and NYDJ are the most common brands. To a lesser extent there are also 7 for all Mankind, AG, Citizens of Humanity, Diesel, Frame, Free People, Joe’s Jeans, Judy Blue, Paige, Rag & Bone and others. There should be few, if any, Old Navy, Gap, and other low priced brands.

Once the project is formed, student feedback will drive additional purchasing.

Grant money or money raised from the fundraiser will go through the chapter or school’s approved financial process. Go For Glass is not in the pipeline for incoming money for the fundraiser.

The goal is for funds to help students reduce DECA-related costs, such as conference registration, travel, lodging, meals, or other approved chapter expenses.

Although the founder is heavily involved in DECA, Go For Glass is a support organization that has no official partnership.

Yes! We are open to tweaks to this vision, or other ideas completely, if they fit within our time and budget constraints.

Every adult on the Go For Glass side that will come into contact with the students either in person or online will apply as a volunteer with the chapter’s school and go through standard verification

We will implement other processes as needed to satisfy other school requirements.

Smaller chapters often have less purchasing power, resulting in higher travel costs for students compared to larger chapters. This challenge is then compounded by many of these schools being less funded overall.

While costs are not within the scope of these particular projects, if time allows, we would like to explore the issue. Potential improvements may be possible merely by understanding in depth the strategies used by larger chapters and how to apply them on a smaller scale. Or, perhaps, there is a way to group smaller chapters together without exponential overhead.

It is possible that previous attempts of this have already failed, but we may be able to help if advisor time constraints have mostly prevented investigations.