Why Settle on Your Fundraising Incentive Program?

Why you need to pay more attention to your incentives.

Most school fundraising companies offer the same type of incentive program. They make the cheap prizes easy to win and the better ones much more challenging. This makes financial sense for the company; however, most students only win the junky prizes.

And it's no wonder that with more and more parents complaining about low prize quality, these types of prize plans are beginning to fall under greater scrutiny. Many sponsors feel these incentive programs are the only option, so they accept any complaints as usual. But do you have to settle for the status quo? Are there viable alternatives?

The Cost of Cheap Fundraising Incentives

One of the first questions sponsors want is what percent profit they'll make. It is evident that they want the highest profit possible, and why not? Sponsors don't realize they're giving up much in exchange for a higher profit. Companies can offer more profit because they are giving away less prize quality. Cheaper incentives result in lower student motivation, resulting in lower gross sales. On the other hand, better prizes typically bring in more total dollars because more students tend to participate.

Familiarity Breeds Complacency

Another reason the traditional fundraising incentive program is less effective in motivating sellers is that most people already know how it works. This usually hurts participation. Companies do a good job of initially raising the excitement level by emphasizing the higher-level prizes because they know students will focus on them. As a result, students are initially excited. Ultimately, the majority will only sell enough to win the cheaper prizes. This is a significant reason schools typically only average about 15-20% participation.

Improve Participation with Better Prize Programs

If you could offer better incentives at even the lowest prize levels, this would profoundly affect gross sales. The result would be more students participating because they wouldn't have to sell as much to receive a more exciting prize. In exchange for a slightly lower profit, there are higher-quality prize incentive plans available that have been proven to outperform the more traditional ones.

Remember, money is made off of gross sales. Instead of asking which prize plans offer the highest percentage of profit, ask which one will best motivate our students to get out and sell.

See our big event prize program.s

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.