Unique Middle School Fundraising Ideas for 2022 and Beyond

Use simple strategies to find middle school fundraising success (Updated).

Middle school is an exciting age. If you're sponsoring a group, you already know the challenges. According to Atlanta Parent, these students are learning to express their individuality while facing social pressures that may not be in their best interest.

This is a transitional period, with the younger students just finishing elementary school and the older students anticipating what high school will be like.

Finding middle school fundraising ideas that will work also poses some hurdles. You can have a great product, but if you don't have your students on board, you won't succeed.

The need is there. At least you can understand it. So how do you now communicate your purpose to your students?

Some objectives are more accessible for students to connect with than others. For example, let's say you want to do a spring fundraiser to raise money for a fun trip at the end of the school year. What student wouldn't want to go? On the other hand, it may be more challenging if you have to pay for new band equipment.

Regardless, you'll need to find a way to connect your 'why' to your students' emotions. In other words, how are your students going to benefit personally? Once you've crossed that hurdle, the next step is to get your students ready to sell.

Assuming your students will automatically sell because they believe in your purpose is far-fetched. You'll need to prepare them to make sales. To be successful at raising money, they must have clearly defined sales goals and expectations.

Another consideration is motivation. How do you inspire middle schoolers to sell who are already a little skeptical of a prize program that's geared more toward elementary students?

Another factor that must be considered is effective strategies that will enhance motivation. You can no longer throw a prize flyer at them and assume results. Middle school students aren't as easily influenced as they were when they were younger. Therefore, additional strategies should also be considered.

Sponsors who incorporate fun and competition into their sales achieve more significant results. Here are some team-building concepts that can help.

1. Incorporate Middle School Fundraiser Teams

Make middle school fundraising fun by turning it into a contest between teams. Whoever sells the most items wins. Or, if you have uneven numbers in each group, use the highest average sales. And if two teams happen to end in a tie, determine the winning group by the most dollars sold.

Regardless, you can improve your group's overall outcome by dividing your sellers into teams. This helps promote teamwork and encourages peer accountability. To make it even more interesting, let your students choose a team name from a list of options. Each team may vote on an NBA, MLB, or college name. Individual teams are encouraged to meet at various times throughout the sale to document how much each student in the group sold.

You can even encourage middle students to come up with their inner group incentives for meeting specific requirements. For example, the student who sells the most items after day 1 gets a special class privilege the next day. Ensure you have someone from each group report the incentive to you so you can approve it.

Students must be told to have their order forms and money collection envelopes so you and your teammates can verify their progress on your assigned check-in days. This is also an excellent time to check to ensure that money is being collected with the orders.

See middle school fundraiser ideas that work

2. Assign Strong Middle School Team Leaders

You'll know who these students are, but you don't want anyone to know why you're choosing them. You should already have them picked out before your kickoff meeting. The goal is to pick leaders who will rub off positively on their teammates and hopefully influence additional selling.

Have your team leaders report the progress of their members to you during your assigned check-in days. By the way, we recommend incorporating three check-in days. The first day after the sale, halfway through, and finally on the last day. Why?

Most sales are made during the first few days of the fundraiser, so you'll want to encourage all your students to get off to a strong start. Checking their progress early will encourage accountability.

Halfway through the fundraiser is also a good time. It allows you to gauge the overall sales progress to see if any adjustments need to be made. And finally, the end of the sale is a perfect time because everything needs to be turned in anyway. If your students know they'll be meeting on these days with their teammates, they'll be more apt to be prepared.

Make sure to remind sellers throughout your sale about upcoming check-in days continually.

Learn how to track your fundraiser progress.

3. Middle School Fundraising Ideas that Reward Progress

The apparent reason for dividing your group into teams is to encourage competition. But how do you reward progress and results? Some middle school students will enjoy competing against one another, even if they want to sell more than their peers. After all, they still have prizes they can win after the sale. Yet others may need more incentives.

You can increase your group's profit by offering additional incentives. For example, you can offer a special privilege to the team that sells the most after each check-in day. One option that also works well is our money game. You would have your team names in a hat and only draw out one name for each check-in day. If that team can verify that they've reached your preassigned goal for that day, they can split the $20 prize.

However, if that team doesn't reach the goal, the money's not given out, and for the mid-sale check-in, the potential winning team gets $40, and so on. You can reward individual students or the entire team. You may end up not giving any money away.

By making your sale fun and engaging, you're helping to encourage more sales which should be the primary objective.

Check out our additional fundraising incentive ideas

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.