5 Fundraising Mistakes Schools Make that May Surprise You

How to overcome five common fundraiser mistakes.

Let's go ahead and deal with the elephant in the room first. No one enjoys having to do a school fundraiser. This should motivate you to keep the number of sales campaigns to a minimum. Therefore, the last thing you want is for one of your sales to fall short of its financial goal.

How can you ensure that you can put your best foot forward and make your next fundraiser as successful as possible? Proven methods work, but there's no way around it. To achieve maximum results, you must invest the time to implement these strategies into your fundraising program. On the other hand, it can also prove to be just as beneficial to know what not to do.

Since you don't want to leave money on the table, here are five common school fundraising mistakes that you probably didn't think about:

1. No Promotion Before Your Fundraiser

Regarding school fundraising, what do we mean by promotion before the sale? Most people will tell you that the most important way to promote their sales campaign is to get their students excited at the fundraiser kickoff. And the fact is, they are probably right. However, why not build additional hype and excitement before your kickoff? You can set the stage for your kickoff by making it a "can't miss" event in your students' eyes. So here are some things you can do to build it up:

• Begin announcing your sale each day, about a week before the kickoff.
  • Embellish your prize program as well as your top-seller prize.
  • Or, leave your students in suspense by telling them a few juicy details about the incentives but not revealing what they are.
• Send home an advertisement flyer that promotes your upcoming fundraiser. This is also a great opportunity to tell your parents why you must raise money.
• Announce your sale on your website as well as on your social media platforms.
• If you can have your student kick off shortly after your back-to-school night, discuss it with your parents that evening.

2. Failure to Establish Your Fundraising Purpose

It won't matter how good your fundraising product is. If your parents don't see a "why" they can buy into, you'll have an uphill battle convincing them to participate. People often think their purpose will resonate, only to discover that many don't see it the same way. Finding essential needs will become much easier if you're well-plugged into your school community. But you have to do the work and ask the questions. Do you plan to sit down with the principal? How about teachers or other staff members? Will you send a survey home to the parents or even discuss your ideas at an upcoming parent meeting? And probably most importantly, hopefully, you will also be open to other people's ideas.

3. No Established Fundraiser Seller Goal

Think about it. If you don't establish a good purpose that people can rally around, it will be harder to set and reinforce your sales goal. And even if you have a good purpose, people need to know what you expect of them. How much money will it take to achieve your purpose? Did you find out how much your plan will cost? Can your objective be accomplished with one fundraiser, or will it require multiple sales? How many sales will each student need to make, and is the goal reasonable? Setting a financial goal gives everyone something to shoot for and possibly exceed.

Set your school fundraising goal

4. Unwilling to Plan a Good Kickoff Meeting

If the fundraiser kickoff is your most important promotional opportunity, why aren't you willing to put maximum effort into it? Is it because you've always done it the same way and don't plan to change anything? Some schools even kick off their campaign with a tiny fan fair. Other schools pass out their student packets at the end of the day. Worse yet, some provide them to the parents without any kickoff.

If you don't schedule a time for all your students to be together to announce the launch of your sale, you're missing out on a golden opportunity to energize them. As you plan your sale, you should be asking some questions. What do you hope to achieve at your kickoff? How will you introduce the fundraiser to your students? Your kickoff should be able to persuade your students to participate. Remember, you only have one opportunity to make a good first impression, so make it count.

How to prepare for a successful kickoff

5. Lack of a Promotional Strategy During the Sale

Even though the kickoff is probably your biggest advertising opportunity, don't think the promotion of your sale is complete just once it's over. You'd be surprised. Many schools don't say anything about their sale until it's time to turn in the order forms and money. By then, it's too late. A lot of people may have forgotten to sell. Students have short memories, so the momentum established at the kickoff fades over time. Don't end up in that unfortunate situation. Instead, be proactive and make a point to perform the following throughout your fundraising program to ensure that lots of sales come in at the end:

• Daily encourage students to make sales. Remind them about what prizes and incentives are at stake. It only takes selling a little bit each day to be successful.
• Take your selling reminders to another level by using prize coupons. Every time students sell five items, they get to submit a prize coupon for a chance to win a fun prize. You then select and announce the winners to everyone.
• Be sure and send home occasional announcements to keep your parents informed. At a minimum, schools should send out a reminder halfway through the sale and just before the end.
• Announce your sale periodically on your website. Social media also works well to keep people informed.

See 3 Great Ideas to Promote Your School Fundraiser Visually

By preventing these school fundraising mistakes in the beginning, you're helping to ensure your success.

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.