Understanding Additional Fundraising Incentives

You're missing out if you don't use extra incentives.

If utilized correctly, additional fundraising incentives will increase your sales. They'll help not only get more students to participate in your campaign, but they can also improve the number of sales brought in by each seller. This can profoundly affect whether you fall short, reach, or exceed your financial goals.

Successful sponsors understand that a standard prize program commonly offered by a company as complementary may not be enough to persuade their students to sell, so they're willing to do more.

Here are some things to consider about additional incentives:

Get Your Students Talking

You will want to promote it heavily if you spend money on a top-seller prize or grand prize drawing. You aim to create a buzz among your students by getting them to talk with their classmates and parents. Once your students spread the word, you will be well on your way to making back your initial investment. After all, your students are the best form of advertising for your cause.

Promote Your Fundraising Incentive

You can promote your additional incentive by:

• Announcing it at your kickoff. Better yet, raise the excitement by showing your students what they could win.
• Putting it in your display case for everyone to see throughout the sale. Create artwork behind it to describe it and remind students how they can win.
• Announcing it every day during morning announcements.
• Sending a note home to your parents about it during your sale.
• Posting a blurb and picture on Facebook.
• Making a big deal about who wins it so that even more students will want to win next time.

Make Your Incentives Worthwhile

Additional incentives are supposed to generate excitement to get your sale off to a strong start and to keep the enthusiasm high until the end. Therefore, you are better off offering something fascinating, even if you have to spend more money on it. You will generate much more enthusiasm than if you tried to cut corners and spend less on something mediocre. You may be wasting your money because students may not find it that interesting.

Strings Must be Attached

Everyone should realize that good things happen to those who work hard. Not everyone's going to win. This is what makes winning unique and the pursuit of it worthwhile. So stick with your plan, even if some don't like it. Be prepared for parents who don't like what you are offering because there're strings attached. For instance, to gain admission to our Big Event Magic Show, students must sell at least five items from their brochure. You may have parents who don't like the fact that their child won't get to go to the assembly if they don't sell. Strong sponsors stick with the game plan and weather any complaints because they realize their main objective is raising money.

Increase Sales without Money

When incorporating additional incentives, getting a solid return on your investment is essential. You may do even better if you can improve fundraiser sales without using money. There are many creative things that you can do to impact your bottom line positively. For example, you can reward students with a prize drawing incentive game using prize coupons. Among the many special privileges that students can earn are a:

• No Homework Pass
• Line Leader
• Library Pass
• Free Dress Day

You can also customize your privileges.

Putting the extra work into promoting your sale will help ensure its success. To top it off, if your sale does well enough, you may not need to do any additional fundraising for the rest of the school year.

See our brochure fundraisers.

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.