How to Make Your High School Fundraiser Produce

Simple ways to raise more money for your high school group.

Everyone needs to make more money. Most groups lack information to help make their high school fundraiser produce.

For example, do all of your students know how much they need to sell? If you know how much money you need, setting a goal for each seller will be easy. Once you've established each seller's goal, you'll want to communicate it at your kickoff and as often as possible throughout your sale.

We also recommend tracking your sale to ensure everyone keeps up. Here are three things that will help your students reach their sales goals.

1. Have a Formal Fundraiser Kickoff Meeting

Nothing will set the tone for a successful fundraiser more than having a formal fundraiser kickoff meeting with your sellers. Make sure and discuss the following at your meeting:

• Why are they selling
• What they are selling
• How much do they need to sell
• How long do they have to sell

Fundraiser Kickoff Q&As

2. Regularly Remind Your Students to Sell

Your students will need to know that you will hold them accountable. You can:

• Use simple reminders
• Based on each student's item goal, you can ask for a show of hands of those who've already sold a certain number of items
• Ask to see their order forms and money envelopes (you will want to let them know when you will be doing these check-in days in advance)
• Incorporate an incentive like our money game into your check-in days

3. Add an Extra Fundraising Incentive

Additional incentives are designed to boost sales even further. If you use them, promote them to your students actively. You can do things like:

• Top Seller Prize
• Grand Prize Drawing (To be eligible, set a minimum number of items that must be sold. Then, for every five additional items sold, their name goes in the drawing box again)
• Daily Drawings for special privileges (for example, offer a no homework pass or free dress day)
• If everyone reaches their goal, the team gets to __________________
• Anyone that doesn't reach a specific daily goal has to ________________

The easy part is having a plan to make your group more productive. Putting it into action won't be, but it is worth a try.

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.