3 Grassroots School Fundraising Strategies

Employ cost-efficient ideas to meet your fundraising goals.

Millennial-driven fundraising has seen a resurgence of grassroots tactics that keep costs low and leverage the efficiency and connectivity of an extraordinarily social generation. While exposing a complex problem, this trend is good news for fundraisers and public entities that constantly contend with criticism of their overhead and costs of doing business and feel the pressure to do more with less.

Unallocated funds are a nonexistent luxury in publicly funded institutions, such as schools. This means that fundraising promotion and outreach often rely on the creativity and resourcefulness of students, parents, and other community volunteers.

By providing quality products and brochures as part of a turnkey fundraising solution, we strive to take some guesswork and difficulty out of fundraising. In addition, we also like to pass along some of the best practices in our area of fundraising to help you reach new levels of success in your school fundraiser. Check out these three strategies to learn how to leverage grassroots fundraising for your next school fundraising program.

Fundraise at High Traffic Community Areas

Grassroots fundraising relies on being front and center in the community to overcome barriers to visibility and paid marketing tactics. Scarcely a summer Saturday goes by that you don’t see a group out at one of the central town intersections with creative signs advertising a car wash, pet wash, or rummage sale.

While these might strike you as wholly unoriginal, community groups, including schools, still find them successful. Local grocers and other small businesses in busy strip malls are often eager to show their community support by allowing product fundraisers outside their places of business. Schools and other community groups have a momentarily captive audience, and as customers approach their tables, curiosity lures more customers in to see what your cause is about.

Talk to local business owners about setting up a shop on a Saturday with a group of students to help raise money for the local elementary, middle, or high school. Tell them what the fundraiser will help achieve, and tell them you’re looking for a chance to engage students more in the fundraising process. You can create eye-catching posters for less than $5 and use them for car washes, tabling, and other community events throughout the fundraiser. With DIY advertising, a table, and some of our lauded brochure fundraising program materials, you have all you need to reach a large community audience for minimal cost.

Fundraise Through Personal Outreach

The most seasoned development experts will tell you that fundraising with those with whom you have a personal relationship is one of the most consistently successful ways to raise more money. While these conversations can have challenges—many folks are not keen on mixing philanthropy with friendships—those who know you best are more likely to support your personal goals.

Have a letter-writing party with a couple of students and parents. Ask the students to produce handwritten letters about their school’s goals for fundraising and help them package envelopes to send out to a list of prospects made up of friends, family, and coworkers. This personalized, direct mail strategy is one that many top organizations and community groups still rely on to connect with their community. In the digital communication generation, a handwritten letter has become so rare that it is almost guaranteed to grab attention in someone’s mailbox.

This grassroots fundraising strategy will allow students to flex their writing muscles and can be an efficient way to reach large groups. Postage costs are likely the only barrier here, but if each student sends out 20 letters, you can carry out this project for under $10 per person.

Fundraise Through Social Networks

Big Fundraising Ideas has an extensive guide on leveraging social media in your school fundraising tactics to reach new levels of money-raising success. Social media combines the best elements of the two strategies above, allowing you to reach those you know personally by meeting them at the intersections of their digital environment.

From pages to events to individual posts and messages, platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer a robust and interactive way to get your message out virtually free. Indeed, these platforms have become the basis of ultra-successful peer-to-peer fundraising sites that make great use of visual media and personal connectivity.

Share photos, graphics, and other fundraising promotional materials with a compelling call to action. Learn more about incorporating a comprehensive digital fundraising strategy into your next school fundraiser.

Author Bio

Clay Boggess has been designing fundraising programs for schools and various nonprofit organizations throughout the US since 1999. He’s helped administrators, teachers, and outside support entities such as PTAs and PTOs raise millions of dollars. Clay is an owner and partner at Big Fundraising Ideas.