Make Fundraiser Prizes Student or Parent-Based?

Learn the effects of motivating students and parents to sell.

If you had to choose between offering your students or parents fundraiser prizes, which would you choose? Some may reason that the primary focus should be on the students. They need to be excited about the prize incentives to get them to push the fundraiser on their parents.

Instead, others may feel that concentrating on the parents makes more sense. They reason that since the parents do most of the selling anyway, why not incentivize them to sell even more? This potentially creates the ideal situation where multiple parents compete for the top-selling prize.

Results have shown that you should offer incentives to both students and parents. Yet the question is raised to get you to think a little bit more about the importance of each one separately. Let's consider two scenarios that happened.

The Effects of Parent-Based Fundraiser Prizes

One school moved away from the typical student-based prize programs and offered only three family-based incentives. They were tired of the cheap junky prizes being offered by the fundraising company. They planned a top-seller prize that seemed very desirable, a weekend getaway for the family at a resort. They figured this would be a great attention-getter, especially for the parents. They were confident that this would make a big difference.

So what was the result? It wasn't what some might have expected. They reported that their sales went way down. They made about $4,000 less than they did the previous year.

Focusing More on the Student Incentive Program

Another school decided to focus on improving its student prize program instead. Their sales had been stagnant for several years. They could get close to $30,000 but never quite reach it. We picked up their first sale about ten years ago and ran the same traditional prize program with similar results. We then proposed they try one of our big event prize programs the following year.

There was a tradeoff involved in choosing a big event incentive plan. They had to be willing to accept a lower fundraising profit. Frustrated with their stagnant sales, they decided to proceed. They moved forward with our Big Event Super Party, and their sales exceeded $75,000.

Their sales more than doubled. Why? The students drove the sale like never before. They were thrilled about having the opportunity to go to an exciting event and have fun with their friends. It didn't hurt that they got out of class to go. By the way, their sale now regularly exceeds $90,000 every year.

So why didn't the school that focused on parent-based incentives do as well? We feel they failed to realize that the students are the real engine that drives sales. Parents sell primarily because their students persuade them to. So, what's the moral of the story? Choose your students if you must choose between giving your students or your parents' fundraiser prizes. And if they like what you're offering, you can count on them to get after their parents to sell out of their brochure.

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.