Preparing for and Executing a Successful Fundraiser Kickoff

The fundraising kickoff is one of the most important parts of your fundraiser because it will give you the opportunity to create an exciting atmosphere, and thus, set the tone for a successful fundraiser in the minds of your kickoff audience. The primary purpose of the kickoff is to generate as much enthusiasm as possible for your fundraiser. The more passionate your audience is, the more they will want to participate, and as a result, the more money you will bring in. You must be prepared to convince your audience why they should participate. The audience should be made to feel like they are at a large professional production. Remember, it’s all about the presentation! Here are some key strategies that you will want to implement:

• Promote your fundraiser before your kickoff date: It’s extremely important to build up your fundraiser as much as possible in order to create awareness and suspense. A good example of this is the promotion that takes place before a movie comes out in the theaters. As a result of creating public awareness about a pending movie release, people are eagerly anticipating the first night that the movie will be coming out thus the movie promoters will naturally draw in more customers due to curiosity. The same thing applies to your school fundraiser. You will want to promote your fundraiser to your students and parents as well as to your community that will be supporting it. There are many things that you can do such as announcing it during school announcements as well as at a parent meeting. Send ‘coming soon’ notes home with your students. Place it on your school marquee as well as on the school website. Plan a meeting with your teachers and staff to discuss the upcoming fundraiser and explain your goals and objectives. This is a great time to explain how the money that is raised will benefit them as well. And remember to be creative and fun during your presale promotion as well.
• Plan for a large kickoff audience: The larger your kickoff audience, the greater the chance you have to create a high level of excitement and energy. It will give you the opportunity to rally and motivate your entire organization, including teachers and staff, collectively. Remember you are working on this project together as a team. Noth¬ing will show that more than to have everyone together at one time to share in the kickoff experience. Your audience will feed off of the high energy level from the others in the room. This excitement will create the momentum that you will need for a successful sale.
• Planning the right time of the day for your kickoff is key: A lot of schools are tempted to do their kickoff during P.E. time because it is convenient or because they do not want to interrupt classroom learning time. The problem with this approach is that you are breaking up your audience as well as the energy that can be created with a larger group. Another problem is that none of your teachers or administrators are usually present and thus they become disassociated with the entire process. It is very important to gain their support and to have them involved as much as possible. On another note, avoid using lunch time to do your kickoff if possible because your audience will be distracted while eating and they will be coming and going throughout the entire presentation. This will be a distraction for ev¬eryone involved. Also, if you plan to use your cafeteria for the kickoff, make arrangements to have the tables out of the way before the kickoff to accommodate more students if necessary. Don’t sacrifice having a successful kickoff just for the sake of convenience. The kickoff can often be completed in as little as 15-20 minutes. Finally, many schools have their kickoff assembly in the afternoon so that once the students are excited and wound up by the kickoff presentation it won’t be too long before they will be going home.
• Plan to communicate your purpose first at the kickoff: Determining how you will spend the money once the fund¬raiser is over is not the time to establish your purpose. Instead, be ready to communicate your purpose at the beginning of your kickoff assembly. Why are you doing the fundraiser in the first place? Where will the money be spent? How will you convince your audience that your purpose is important to them directly? A well communicated purpose will motivate everyone to work harder.
• Plan to have the principal introduce your fundraiser: Your audience will respect your fundraising project more if someone that they respect as an authority figure is involved. If you are unable to have the principal perform the introduction, make arrangements for another key person to do it. You will also want for them to wrap up the kickoff and some concluding remarks at the end.
• Plan to have music at your kickoff: Arrange for a good stereo sound system and have ‘upbeat’ music that your audience will enjoy that will be already playing as they are walking into the kickoff area and then again as they are leaving.
• Think ‘BIG and LOUD’ when it comes to your technical equipment: If you are using a kickoff video you will want your audience to be excited and awed by it’s presentation as much as possible. To create this effect make sure your viewing screen is as big as possible by using a large screen and a projector with a laptop if possible as opposed to simply a TV and a DVD player. Also, have your laptop computer/DVD hooked into a good sounding stereo system that can be turned up and heard well throughout the entire area. If you cannot hook your laptop computer directly into a good sound system you may have to hook external speakers into the laptop computer and then put the speaking microphone up to those speakers to make sure everyone can hear the video.
• Test your equipment well before your kickoff assembly: It is very important to make sure that you have made arrangements to set up and test your technical equipment well before your kickoff. All technical equipment (music, laptop computer/DVD, projector, microphone etc.) needs to be working properly well in advance of the kickoff. Waiting until you are ‘live’ with your audience already in the room is not the time to find out that something didn’t work the way that you thought that it would. Remember, you only have one chance to make a great first impres¬sion to your audience. You will also want to turn off the lights when showing your video. Just like in a movie theater where the lights go out at the beginning of the movie, arrange to have someone ready to dim or shut off the lights completely once you are ready to start your kickoff video. Then have them turn the lights back on once the video is finished. This will make the video, and what happens in the video, stand out even more to your audience.
• Maintain the high level of enthusiasm you create at your kickoff throughout your fundraiser: Check in with your sellers by announcing the sale daily during school announcements. Be creative by having something unique to say each time. Also make sure that you arrange to have people ask your students on a regular basis about how they are doing with the sale. How many items have they sold so far? Which prize level are they trying for? If you are using a kickoff video, make sure to show it as often as possible. Remember students are very visual. Finally make sure to incorporate additional incentives like daily and grand prize drawings as well as top seller prizes in order to bring in more sales. Announce these before, during the kickoff as well as throughout the sale. The money that you invest will pay off as long as you promote these additional incentives properly.