You only have so much in your school fundraising budget to attempt to entice your sellers to bring in more money. You need to spend whatever money you have wisely. As a result, you are careful with your big prize purchase having done your homework by asking for people’s opinions on what to buy. After careful consideration you have determined that the prize that you have finally selected is really going to motivate your fundraising group to sell more.
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Fundraising Ideas - Elementary, Middle & High School Fundraisers
Promoting Your Fundraiser
If you want to get the most out of your fundraiser you’re going to have to promote it. Learn how to keep your sellers excited about your fundraising program
Before your school fundraiser ever starts, if you want success you’ll need to get certain people to buy into your cause. It’s not enough if your students are excited about the prize program that they learn about at the fundraising kickoff. Successful fundraising is a team sport; therefore it will be important to get the following people on board before your sale ever starts.
Most people are extremely busy these days and one of the last things that they want to have to tend to is their school fundraiser. After all, once the kickoff is over you have two weeks that you don’t have to worry about anything until the orders are to be turned in. What an ideal situation? Your students and parents are out selling and raising money for the school and you can focus on other things.
High school fundraising groups need money as much as anyone; however they are not always willing or motivated to participate in a fundraiser. It helps to have strong sponsors with clearly defined goals and expectations for their group members; yet there is still more that can be done to help ensure fundraising success. We have seen many high school sponsors achieve greater than average results because they have incorporated fun and competition into their fundraisers.
The problem with incorporating additional fundraising incentives into your sale is that they sometimes cost money. Yet as long as you promote these incentives properly you can often still achieve a good return on your investment. However, what if you could offer motivators that didn’t cost you anything but still increased fundraising sales?
The other day one of our customers asked us what they should say to their students each day for their school fundraiser announcements. First of all, I liked the question because this person was taking the promotion of her sale very seriously and realized the importance of reminder her students to sell. Too often schools think that the kickoff is enough and that the only announcement that needs to be made after that is the one that reminds the students to turn in their orders the day before they are due.
Most schools wait until the kickoff to start promoting their school fundraiser. And why not, the main reason you have a kickoff in the first place is to motivate your students to sell. There are probably many reasons why people don’t promote their fundraiser before their kickoff including:
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.
With so much pressure being placed on schools these days to use every bit of time available for educating students it would make sense to try to eliminate time out of class for a school fundraiser kickoff assembly. Most administrators who are concerned about this will attempt to ‘kill two birds with one stone’ by allowing for the fundraiser to be kicked off during the students P.E. classes. However, what are you giving up if you decide not to have your group all together for your fundraiser kickoff?
Elementary school students can become excited about something once they have heard about it, but the best way to get these students really enthusiastic is to show it to them. After all, elementary students are very visual. Obviously, you want your students to be excited about your school fundraiser and what they can win for selling items from your sales brochure so the more you have to show, and the more times you show it, the better.