Many schools plan annual and quarterly fundraisers to help meet their goals and improve their campus for their students and community. When fundraisers can accomplish so much, understanding the implementation strategies can foster greater campaign success.
In This Article
The Benefits of School Fundraising
School fundraising offers many advantages and support to K-12 private institutions. Because you can customize and change fundraising elements, you can create campaigns and events that support your school’s exact needs and target audience. Some other benefits of school fundraising services include:
- Supporting underfunded programs: Fundraising often helps keep arts and music programs alive at schools. School boards and investors often allocate limited school budgets to science, math, and athletic programs—leaving arts programs at risk without the right resources and supplies. Fundraising can ensure students can follow their passions and express themselves by saving underfunded programs.
- Providing unique experiences for students: You can expand your services and add more experiences your students cannot get anywhere else. You might offer a memorable field trip or presentation for students that relate to their current curriculum or add clubs tailored to their interests. While this can boost student and family satisfaction, it can also increase your competitiveness with similar private schools.
- Renovating and improving your campus: Fundraising for school projects allows institutions to support their improvement initiatives. Over time, wear and damage develop on facilities and amenities, but repairs and renovations can be expensive. You may want to expand your buildings to offer more programs or accommodate more students. Like experiences and services, your campus can be a strong selling point for your school.
- Strengthening your school community: Fundraisers are great ways to involve your school community in making changes. Families and students can feel empowered as they work toward a common goal and see the results of their dedication. When everyone believes in the cause, your school will have a loyal group of volunteers you can depend on. After working together throughout the campaign, your school community may feel closer because they get to meet and interact with others.
Fundraising can support many needs and purposes, allowing schools to achieve their goals. You can help your campus, students, and community with the earnings from your fundraising campaigns.
Four School Fundraising Tips
When planning school fundraisers, you can enhance your success rates by implementing strategies and techniques. Using the right resources and tools can help your events and campaigns run smoothly and increase enjoyment for your school community.
1. Involve Your Students
Your students are excellent resources. As individuals who interact with your facilities and amenities daily, they understand the need for improvements and other opportunities. They can be incredibly passionate, giving their time and energy to volunteer various skills to your events and campaigns. When you reach your fundraising goal, students will feel more accomplished, seeing their hard work pay off and strengthening their relationship with your school.
Students can serve various roles in fundraising. You might let students plan and execute a whole event, like a bake sale. They can practice essential skills they’ll need for life after graduation, like collaboration and communication, while supporting your school community. They can help design and make event posters and banners, providing a more personalized touch to events. Each student has unique skills and backgrounds they can bring to campaigns.
Peer-to-peer fundraising provides another way for students to get involved without asking them to donate. This fundraising type involves students setting up an individual donation page they can share with others online. Often, they also volunteer to participate in an event like a walkathon or charity run, pledging to complete a specific distance if they reach their donation goal. Because of the personalization each donation page features, others feel more inspired to donate, boosting your fundraising efforts.
2. Use Promotional Materials and Merchandise
Promotional materials help increase awareness about your event and can also get students excited and engaged. When planning committees think of marketing and promotional materials, they might suggest posters, banners, flyers, and emails, but you can also turn items you can give to your school community.
While the primary goal of promotional materials is to market your event, they can also have practical uses. For example, you might print pencils with your campaign’s name on them, giving them to students to use throughout the school day. If hosting a fun run, you might make water bottles with the logo that participants can bring to the event. These items remind individuals about your campaign and events and increase anticipation.
You can also consider selling campaign and school merchandise as part of your fundraising efforts. Individuals can purchase t-shirts and other items with your school name or campaign marketing materials to remind them of the event and show off their school pride.
3. Connect the Community to Your Cause
Emotional and personal appeal and connection are great ways to encourage new donors to give to your cause. You can create events your community can connect to by tying your event to the cause. Schools can choose many original and fun events for their campaigns, but relevant events can also show the impact of their donation.
For example, if you are raising money for your art program, you might host an art show. Students can set up stalls showcasing their masterpieces and even auction some off to help raise money. Your families, teachers, faculty, and other community members will see the talent at risk here and understand why your cause is important.
You can bring your cause to the forefront of events in many ways. You might host events in halls that need renovations or show pictures of past field trips where students learn and have fun.
4. Use Fundraising Software
When planning a software campaign, having the right tools can support and streamline your planning and events. GiveSmart is a fundraising software developed for schools by Community Brands. This program can help schools better manage donations and donors with online forms tailored to your organization. You can automate donor tracking, allowing your teams better understand giving patterns and optimize relationships by sending relevant information and gratitude to promote retention.
GiveSmart streamlines giving by simplifying many modern donation methods. You can use the platform to enable online giving, like text-to-donate, or host peer-to-peer solid fundraising campaigns. If you are hosting an auction, you can use GiveSmart to host mobile bidding.
Boost Your School Fundraiser Help With GiveSmart and TADS
Software solutions and automated functions can make your fundraising campaign a breeze. Because GiveSmart can handle many aspects of donor relationships and receiving donations, you can turn your attention to other essential tasks, like planning and organizing events.
When paired with admissions and enrollment solutions from TADS, you experience comprehensive support for essential operations. As a paperless solution, you can move more functions online for increased organization and visibility. Schedule a demo today and discover how solutions from Community Brands can streamline your private school’s processes.
