How to Guarantee Effective High School Fundraising Kickoffs
An effective high school fundraiser kickoff will help bring your sale to life and give it the energy that it needs to succeed. So how do you make sure that it’s successful? Hopefully, your students are already excited about being a part of your organization and have a good understanding of its goals and objectives; however they will still need direction to ensure that they are able to reach your fundraising goals. Having a formalized kickoff gives you the opportunity to:
- Ensure a strong foundation and purpose
- Equip your students to sell
- Establish fundraising momentum
- Encourage student success
Your kickoff should cover 3 major objectives that will help your students:
1. Understand the Process
Hopefully you have established an individual seller goal based on the total amount of money that needs to be raised. Here are a few important questions that you should be asking yourself before your meeting:
- Do your students know what to do?
- What are they going to be selling?
- What are your selling expectations?
- How much time do they have?
- Who should they approach?
- Who should checks be made payable to?
2. Prepare for Success
Don’t just hand out the fundraising materials and then just expect your students to sell. You should spend some time reviewing the sales brochure with them so that they are comfortable with the items and the pricing. This also gives them the opportunity to highlight various items to the people that they will come in contact with. The more familiar they are with the catalog the more likely they will show it to others.
Work with your students to fill out the top of the order form and explain how it works by going through an example. They should know what to do as well as be able to answer basic questions that potential customers may have about completing an order.
Review the prize program and explain what it’s going to take to reach the different prize levels. Hopefully you’ve picked a program that your students will be excited about working towards. Also, if your fundraising company has provided you with a parent letter make sure that you tell your students to review it with their parents as well so they are informed about the fundraiser and how it works.
3. Push Towards the Goal
Once your students are prepared and motivated it will be important to maintain the momentum that you’ve created throughout the sale. Don’t just expect that they will keep selling on their own because they seem enthusiastic at the kickoff. It’s better if you are able to convince your students to sell a little every day than it is to sell in spurts, or worse, wait until the last minute. To ensure that your students are doing this you should:
- Remind them as often as possible about working towards their sales goal
- Incorporate additional fundraiser incentives during your sale that encourage selling
- Track their fundraising progress to ensure that they are keeping up
High school fundraising is a hands-on process that requires as much out of you as you expect from your students. Students that are both inspired as well as held accountable will usually experience fundraising success.