Is Your High School Fundraising Goal Enough?

There are many different reasons that people fundraise; whether they are raising money for new library books, learning software, field trips or end of the year academic awards. In general smaller groups tend to average higher units sold per seller because they are usually more united toward a common goal that everyone will benefit from directly. For example, not every student from an elementary school with 500 students will want to participate in a school fundraiser that is raising money for end of the year academic awards. On the other hand, a high school band that is raising money for a trip to Florida is going to probably have a much higher participation rate because most likely everyone is going to go.

As a result, most large fundraising groups, like elementary schools understand the need to provide prizes for their fundraiser in order to maximize their sales; however, some smaller high school fundraising groups think they don’t need to provide incentives because they feel that students should be motivated to sell just because of what they are raising money for. Here are some of the reasons that they may not want to provide prizes to their students:

• Students should automatically see the intrinsic value in the high fundraising purpose. In other words, they should want to sell because of what they are going to experience together as a group. They should also fundraise because of what they have already been through together and thus they should want to keep working together as a team towards a higher end goal
• School Fundraising may be mandatory for everyone
• Some groups may ask the school fundraising company for a higher fundraising profit in exchange for not receiving a prize program
• In addition to forfeiting company’s prize program, sponsor’s of small groups may also not want to spend any of their own money for additional incentives and prizes

Contrary to what people might think, providing prizes will increase not only the number of items sold per seller, but also the number of students who actually end up participating regardless of the purpose. This is assuming that you have selected the right prize program. Here’s why:

• There may be high school students who are only motivated to sell if there is a prize program. Therefore prize programs will increase fundraising participation
• High school prize programs are designed to get students to sell more than they ordinarily would. For example, if the fundraising goal was set at 10 items, a lot of students may try to sell more than 10 in order to get to the next prize level which may only be a couple of items away. As a result, the number of items sold per seller will increase
• High school students who are players on a team may be motivated to sell if they know that they can win cash from a cash prize program or embroidered sportswear from a sportswear prize program. For example, the coach may tell all of the players to sell ‘x’ number of items so that everyone can get a customized travel sports bag
• Additional incentives can also be provided by the organization to motivate their students to sell more as well. This does not have to cut into their profit if they are creative. For instance, for every 5 items sold their name can go into a grand prize drawing to win a special privilege or perhaps even a donated prize from a local business. See Increase Sales without Spending Extra Money

Why not supplement a strong purpose with prizes and incentives? This will show your students that your high school's fundraiser is worth their effort. If you plan carefully your ROI (return on investment) may be well worth it!