Step By Step Fundraising Newsletter
March 2007
In this issue -
- The School Fundraising Issue
- 5 Ways to Simplify School Fundraising And Raise
More Funds in the Process!
This month's newsletter focus is school fundraising. Today
more than ever many children participate in several activities such
as sports, music, scouts and other extra curricular activities.
Often in addition to regular school fundraisers children
and parents are asked to fundraise for these activities as well.
For busy families, especially those with several
children, participating in so many fundraisers can become taxing.
Wouldn't it be great if you could raise more
money with fewer actual fundraisers? Yes it is possible! By coordinating
with other groups, planning ahead and maximizing individual fundraising
efforts your group can get the support it needs with less effort
on the part of volunteers.
5 Ways to Simplify School Fundraising
And Raise More Funds in the Process!
Here are five ways that school groups can actually do fewer fundraisers
and still get the funds needed to fuel its programs.
1. Integrated Programs - Encourage
your school board or PTO to adopt programs that provide additional
funding through existing activities.
For example, most schools have at least one
school portrait day. When you use Picateers
your school will get 50% of the sale of portrait packages.
This company offers professional photo processing, online ordering
and guidance for your local or volunteer photographers. Parents
even get to choose from multiple poses, pictures are delivered by
mail directly to the student's home and prices are in line with
other school portrait providers.
2. Inter School Partnerships
- School departments or clubs can work together on a fundraiser
event or sale to combine efforts. This will spread the volunteer
workload out among more parents and students. For example,
a cookie
dough sale could be organized by several school clubs and each
one would retain the profits from their own members' sales.
While any two or more organizations could
work together for mutual benefit, it's even better when they are
related in purpose. Since students are often involved with more
than one connected program, such as band and choir, students simply
need to sell more of this one fundraiser rather than several fundraisers
at different times of the year.
3. School wide events -
Fall or spring carnivals are one of the all-time classic school
fundraisers. In the small town of Howe, TX where I grew up we had
a school district wide fall
festival. This much anticipated event was so much fun, I was
in High School before it dawned on me that it was a fundraiser.
Each grade sponsors its own booth or activity
and individual clubs hold their own booths. This is another way
of combining forces but on a larger scale.
4. School Grants
- While grant opportunities are not always plentiful, schools should
always keep an eye out these funding opportunities. GrantsAlert.com
continually updates its list of educational funding programs from
government, corporate and foundation sources.
Schools should also be aware of what donations
are available locally. Often locally owned businesses enjoy supporting
local schools and local outlets of national chain stores have funds
that can be distributed locally. Just ask, you may be surprised
at what you might find available.
5. Maximize Efforts - When your group
maximizes its efforts on one fundraising activity, it will be less
likely to need another fundraiser later in the year.
Event
fundraisers should always have several ways to bring in revenue.
Examples include silent auctions, raffles, advertising in programs,
food, corporate sponsors, booth rental, entry fees or souvenirs.
Create contests with prizes for volunteers who
sell the most raffle tickets, have the highest sales in a product
fundraiser or otherwise raise the most money with your campaign.
Prizes can be anything from a gift certificate, a plaque, free tickets
to an event or a trip. Alternately, offer a prize for everyone who
sells a minimum number of items.
Conclusion
By fundraising through existing activities,
partnering with other organizations and finding ways to maximize
your activities, your school group can raise more funds with fewer
fundraisers.
To Your Continued Fundraising Success,
|
