How to Improve on Your Previous Fundraiser

How to analyze your last fundraiser and apply what you learn going forward.

Unless you are willing to take note and learn from previous fundraisers, history will usually repeat itself. Many groups seem content to put their sale on auto-pilot. As long as nothing goes wrong, they'll keep doing the same thing year after year. Who has the time to plan a fundraiser from scratch anyway?

And if it isn't broken, why fix it? Maintaining the status quo is much easier than examining where you can improve.

For those sponsors who want more because they're tired of the same or even declining sales results, here are some ideas that might improve your outcome:

Analyze Previous Fundraising Results

If a school with 100 students brings in $15,000, there is not much more room for improvement. However, a school that has 500 students that also raises $15,000 is considered average, at best. Two measurements can be used to analyze results.

Items Sold per Seller
One way is to look at the average number of items sold per seller. Smaller groups usually have higher averages than larger groups. For example, a typical high school group may average 10-15 items per seller. Cheerleaders tend to average even more. Their groups can easily exceed 25-30 items sold per seller. Elementary schools typically average between 5-8 items per student. Any school below the five items leaves definite room for improvement.

Student Participation
Another way is to look at student participation. Again, it's easier for smaller groups to realize higher participation averages than larger ones. A typical high school group can have 90% or more of its students participate, whereas a large elementary school can be as low as 10-15%.

Most school fundraising companies provide sales reports to help groups analyze their results. Once schools have taken the time to understand these numbers, they can look for ways to affect them positively.

Take Negative Feedback Seriously

If you are hearing negative feedback about your fundraiser, you might want to look closely at why. Are people complaining about the same thing? Do they have a problem with the quality of the merchandise? Perhaps they're tired of the same brochure. What about the prize program? Are your students and parents willing to sell for the prizes being offered? Maybe people want to know why they are selling and where the money is being used. If these problems continue to go unanswered, you're probably experiencing a negative impact on your sales. You won't be able to please everyone, but taking your complaints seriously helps your cause. It's also important to tell people what specific steps you'll take to address the issues.

Be Open to New Fundraiser Ideas

If your school has been selling the same type of brochure over time and you have noticed stagnant sales, perhaps it's time for a change. Simply changing the type of brochure you offer might help. Or, maybe even try something completely different. Another thing that can help is fewer sales over the school year. Find ways to focus on making one sale more productive rather than simply throwing additional ones out there for people to complain about.

Schools must take the time to look at their previous fundraiser results and get feedback from their parents. Groups that take these steps to improve usually experience more success than those that don't. Why not spend more time on fewer sales?

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.