Five proven school fundraiser ideas to implement before your next sale.
There's not a group that initially intends to fail at fundraising, yet most fall short of their financial goals. Why does this happen?
We all have preconceived ideas about what we think will help us succeed. Some are valid and can be backed up with circumstantial evidence, but many potentially false notions should be reevaluated.
Every sponsor wants to realize a successful school fundraiser, but many don't recognize the important steps to achieve that.
For instance, it's vital that sponsors determine the amount of money they need upfront and then calculate how much each student in the group needs to sell. Sam Ashe-Edmonds, who writes for one of the largest newspapers in the United States, the Houston Chronicle, makes an important point. In his article, "What Are the Most Important Goals of a Fundraising Coordinator?" he states that goal setting is one of the most important functions.
After establishing your need, the first question should be, "How much will it cost?" Many schools want to "raise as much money as they can" to have available money in the general fund. It should be apparent, but you won't realize your full earnings potential with this approach.
Instead, you should focus on building the foundation of your sale and promotional efforts around a specific predetermined money goal. Determining how much money you'll need to raise allows you to establish a baseline for your success. The next step is to have strategies to help you reach your sales objectives, like a tracking and accountability system.
Here are five easy-to-implement steps that you'll want to incorporate into your sale that will help you achieve your school fundraiser objectives:
1. Determine Your Why
Raising money and determining how you'll spend it later is a backward approach. Some schools will wait to see how much they raise and decide where to spend the earnings. This is never a good idea because you will appear indecisive and noncommittal.
We've already touched on this. It seems so basic and obvious, but why are you having a sale? Everyone who will become involved in some way should know the answer. Your "why" will become the engine that drives your eventual fundraising success.
As a result, every student needs to understand why they're working towards a specific purpose or goal.
2. Calculate Your School Fundraiser Goal
Once you have a purpose, how much is it going to cost? Will your financial need be accomplished with one campaign, or will it take multiple sales? Knowing how much money you will need to raise and then communicating it to your students and community from day one will add credibility to your cause.
Once you've established how much money you need to raise, you can go on any of our brochures or product pages and determine how many items each student will need to sell by entering your numbers into our 'Calculate Your Profit' tool.
Learn how to achieve your school fundraising goal
3. Set an Individual Seller Objective
Selling is optional, but it should be expected if you want to succeed. What does that mean even if you tell everyone to "just do your best"?
Your students and parents need to know what's expected of them. It's therefore important that you determine their fundraiser goal. This way, they'll know how much they need to sell to help your group reach its objective.
We place a 'fair share goal' in our parent letters to every school group we work with.
4. Meet with Your Students
No one else will if you don't make a big deal about your cause. For your fundraiser to have a chance to thrive, your students need to be unified and feel that they are working together from the beginning.
In your kickoff meeting, you drive a stake into the ground and establish your fundraising foundation. Everything starts here. Your students will need direction and motivation, so tell them what you expect them to accomplish and by when.
5. Keep Your Students Motivated
For some groups, this is harder to do than for others. Having a meeting to kick off your sale is great, but it's even better if you can periodically get together with your students during your fundraiser.
This will allow you to check in with them on their progress and ensure they're on track toward their end goals. This is where 'check-in day goals' can come into play. You can even incorporate additional incentives into your meetings if you're a high school group. This is where we recommend our Money Fundraiser Incentive Game.
Sponsors that can keep their students actively engaged during the sale will usually end up experiencing better results.
Knowing what it will take to succeed and then act on it is key. There is no substitute for proper planning and hard work. If you put the required effort into your sale up front, it will most likely pay off for you in the end. You may even be lucky not to have a second sale.
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.
