How to Improve School Fundraiser Participation

How to get more students to participate and improve sales.

Many sponsors are looking for ways to improve school fundraiser participation. There are many reasons why students choose not to sell. Perhaps they're too busy, parents don't want them to sell, or the prize program was not that appealing.

However, if sponsors realized how much money their group could raise by increasing participation, they would focus more on student involvement.

For example, take a smaller high school group with 40 students. Even though this is a smaller group, if each student sold just ten brochure items, they would profit around $1,600. Sales results from elementary schools could be even more dramatic. If 500 students sold just five items each, they would earn about $10,000 profit. Here are things you can do to get more students to sell and increase the amount of money your fundraiser brings in.

Offer a Better Prize Program

If your students aren't motivated by your current prize program, perhaps you need to look at more creative options. We have found a significant increase in participation whenever schools switched from a more traditional prize plan to one of our big event fundraising prize programs. Not only were students more interested in this type of motivation, but parents were as well. High school sports teams seem more interested in sportswear as an incentive.

Remind Students to Participate

Some schools become overconfident because their students appear excited right after the kickoff. The enthusiasm can quickly subside, and people will soon forget about selling unless they are reminded. The worst thing that can happen is not hearing about the sale again until it's time to turn in the money. If you don't plan to remind your sellers to sell periodically, you may be surprised once the money has been counted.

Offer Additional Fundraising Incentives

Schools that offer additional incentives consistently achieve higher participation than those that don't. Even if you think daily reminding your students to sell is enough, you can still do more. For instance, you can offer periodic prize drawings and have students turn in coupons. Ensure you promote your prizes as often as possible during your sale.

You only have a limited time available to raise money. Why not go all out while you have the opportunity? The best way to improve sales is to increase seller participation.

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.