Getting the Most Bang for Your Fundraising Buck

Some people are afraid to add extra incentives to their school fundraiser because they don’t know if they will get a good return on their investment. How do you know if the money that you’ve spent is going to pay off or not? If you are concerned about this, or you have a limited budget, your objective should be to add in additional incentives to your fundraiser that will further increase your sales while spending the least amount of money, or even no money at all. Here are some ways to get the ‘Biggest Bang for your Buck!’

Get important people involved:

• Nothing is more important to get your fundraiser off to a strong start than to make sure that you involve important people in your kick-off presentation. Ask the principal or another important person at the school that the students will respect, to introduce the fundraiser and stress its importance. Also, make sure that this person is around to wrap up the kick-off at the end by providing the ‘closing statements’ and summarizing key fundraising points.
• Meet with the school faculty a day or two before the program to get them behind the program. This is also a good time to share with them how they will benefit from the money that is brought in as well.
• Ask the principal to do something fun that will motivate the students to sell more. For example, here are some ideas that you can pick from that the principal can do in front of everyone if the school reaches their overall fundraising goal (make sure that you sell this effectively at the kick-off and keep reminding the students about it daily as they are selling):
  • Kiss a pig
  • Pie in the face
  • Wear their pajamas to school
  • Spend the day on the roof
  • Have your sellers ‘high-five’ the principal every time they sell 5 items.

Promote your sale daily by asking your Sellers the following questions early on in the sale:

• “Who has already sold a couple of items or more?”
• “How many of you have already picked out a specific prize that you want to win?”
• “How many of you are already half-way to your sales goal?”
• “How many of you have already meet or even surpassed your sales goal?”
• “How many of you want to be the top seller?”

Give away daily incentives that are fun:

Use daily reminders to keep students selling that include daily incentives throughout your sale. For example, you can have your students turn in daily drawing coupons every time they sell 5 items. They would then have a chance to get their name drawn out during our daily announcements and be:

• ‘Line Leader’ for the Day
• ‘Classroom Leader’ for the Day
• ‘Office Monitor’ for the Day
• ‘Door Monitor’ for the Day
• ‘Breakfast or Lunch with the Principal’ (or a favorite teacher)
• ‘Free Dress Day’ Pass
• ‘Extra Recess Time’ Pass
• ‘No Homework for a Day’ Pass
• Help with Daily Announcements
• ‘Sit Where You Want’ Pass
• Free Library Pass
• 1 Free Snack (Of school’s choice)
• Draw out a limited number of coupons at the end of the sale to use for really special privileges or grand prize drawings:
• Principal for a day

Supplement your sale with fun activities:

• Sell 25 items in order to be invited to a Pizza Party
• Top Seller, Top 3 Sellers or Top Seller/Grade Prizes (Get your local store or Wal-Mart to donate these prizes. Many retailers have budget allotments for school assistance and donations.)
• Sell 10 items to get into a DJ Dance Party (Have the principal be the DJ!)

Other ideas:

• Make a fun poster where students can sign it once they’ve sold ‘x’ items
• Ask local stores and restaurants to donate coupons and prizes that you can use for incentives in exchange for free publicity. Then use the coupons as daily incentive give-a-ways.