How to Raise More with Your School Fundraiser This Fall!
The Fall season is a prime time for school fundraisers, and with the right strategies, you can significantly boost donations for your fall fundraising events. Here are nine tips to help you raise more with your school fundraiser this fall.
1. Take Your Fundraiser Online
EVERYONE is used to getting what they need online. Whether it’s ordering dinner or scheduling a pick-up, people are programmed to interact with each other across the internet.
Make sure your fundraiser meets the current expectations of your parents and donors. We encourage you to organize your event with FundHub, our online platform!
Taking your fundraiser online also means making the most of social media. Make sure your fundraising event is easily shared across Facebook, Instagram, email, and texting – all digital interfaces that will greatly increase your donation potential!
2. Pre-Plan Your Fundraiser Promotion
Make sure you are creating a promotion calendar so you can keep up the momentum for your event past the kick-off date. This means scheduling promotions for your different audiences (parents, students, admin, community members, etc.). Your promotions should cover both in-person (bulletin board, paper flyers) and digital (email, FB posts, digital flyers).
Teamed up with Get Movin’ for your event? Make sure you check out our email builder, automated reminders, and dynamic flyers that automatically include your event info and are ready for you to customize!
3. Use Experiences as Part of Your Incentive Package
Experience incentives, such as duct-taping the gym teacher, giving the principal a pie in the face, or turning the librarian into a human sundae, drastically increase the amount students raise to earn those fun rewards! With our online system, you can promote your experience incentives, keep track of who has earned specific rewards using our online incentive tracker, and set student donation goals so they know the amount they need to raise.
4. Encourage Health & Wellness
Fall is a prime time to encourage health and wellness through your fundraising event. Parents don’t want to sell pizza kits or chocolate; they want their kids to be engaged in physical fitness, reading, dancing, or other fun activities. Using our online Activity Counter, you can easily keep track of student participation and customize the activity to fit your fundraiser type.
Doing a fun event like a Fun Run, Fit-Athon, or Walk-Athon? Inject even more fun and wellness by using pedometers as an incentive! This will encourage kids to continue to get 60 minutes of activity each day even after your fundraising event.
5. Get Teachers Engaged in Your Event
Teachers are a vital part of the fundraising process, from helping reach classroom goals to keeping students motivated during the donation period. In FundHub, we give teachers their own access to the online platform, and we provide Classroom Webpages so educators can raise donations and encourage their students to meet the Classroom Donation Goal.
When you have teacher buy-in for your fundraiser, amazing things can happen! Reaching individual student and classroom goals is the key to reaching your overall school fundraising goal!
Teachers use praise, weekly reminders, fun educational lessons, and healthy competition with other classrooms to motivate their students to meet (or even exceed!) their individual and classroom goals.
6. Brand Your Event
Want to make your fundraiser memorable? Give it a distinct name, logo, and even create annual incentives that only occur during your event – such as a schoolwide silly string party, turning the principal into a human sundae, or having special treats delivered to classrooms that meet their donation goals.
Branding your fundraiser will also make it a more sustainable event year after year as parents and students begin to recognize it as an annual event. This can also include using a similar look and feel (colors, fonts, etc.) in your promotions.
7. Create Healthy Classroom Competition
Competing to win incentives is a great motivator for students as they bring in donations to keep their class on top of the Classroom Leaderboard (another FundHub feature).
As part of your incentive package, create several Classroom Rewards such as Movie Night, a Special Catered Lunch, or a Guest to come in and spend time with the kids by reading a book, doing a gym activity, or giving a presentation.
You can also create incentives for classroom materials and resources, such as bean bag chairs, new computers, a “fun cart” full of games, or even something nice for the teacher. Classroom Competition will speed up and increase your donations as students and parents work to help their class win!
8. Utilize Social Media
Beyond providing online share tools so parents can easily link to your fundraising event on social, email, and text, you also want to take advantage of social media for your event. If you’re teamed up, use our promotional guide/examples for creating exciting posts with countdowns and milestones (available in the Event Toolbox).
How about using a Sharing Challenge like Facebook Friday? With FundHub, you can track social media sharing, so consider challenging parents to 200 shares by Monday!
9. Incorporate Mini Challenges
Similar to Facebook Friday, give families and classrooms mini challenges throughout your donation period. Another popular one is the Around the World Challenge! The concept is simple: Use our Activity Counter to track participation for the chosen activity of your event and then convert that activity to miles. For instance, if you’re hosting a Read-Athon, then track the amount of reading minutes for each student and check your school totals on your School Webpage. Each minute = 1 mile. Set destination goals to encourage participation!
Another one is the 50 State Challenge. Using our Donation Tracker, you can see where your donations are coming from across the entire United States. Encourage students to bring in donations from EVERY state. Create a fun school-wide reward if they meet the challenge!
Get Movin’ has a special $1k prize for any school on FundHub that achieves the 50 State Challenge! This can be easily tracked using our online donation map.
Fall fundraising events can be incredibly profitable and engaging – especially if you have the personal coaching and the online platform you need. FundHub is built for event fundraisers from start to finish, fully customizable for any event type. Learn more with a free demo and explore our 33+ fundraising tools to make your event a success!
