Here are some “super links” that will help get your school fundraising in 2008 off to a great start!

12 Strategies for Overcoming “Fundraising Fatigue” from James Berigan of Top School Fundraisers

Your documents are helping other parent group leaders from PTO Today - file sharing program provides free templates for your groups to use

Fundraising Links from the Fundraising Network

Members’ Tips: PTA Fundraising from Raising Kids

New Ideas for School Fundraising from About.com

When your school group completes a fundraising campaign it’s important to take some time to evaluate how it went. Look back at the goals that you set for the campaign and see how your event or program measured up. Here are a few open ended questions that you can put on a survey form and/or use for discussion starters with your committee.

1. Did we meet our fundraising goals?

2. How many students and parents participated?

3. Were we successful in raising participation from students and parents?

4. What aspects of the fundraiser encouraged participation?

5. What aspects of the fundraiser hindered participation?

6. How can we encourage more families to join the fundraiser next time?

7. How much time and effort was needed to put on this fundraiser? Was it “worth it” relative to the dollars that were raised?

8. What unexpected challenges did we face with this fundraiser and how did we deal with them?

9. What suggestions or feedback did we get from parents during the campaign?

10. How can we improve our fundraiser next time so that it’s even more successful?

Is your school looking for a fundraiser to help stock the library shelves?  The Read-a-Thon fundraiser is a great match for elementary and junior high schools who are raising funds for thier school library. Maybe you need to purchase new computers, books or other learning materials.  If so this fundraiser is still a great match for your fundraising needs.

Creating a school Read-a-Thon is fairly simple, you begin by creating forms that students can bring to family, friends and neighbors to ask for sponsors. Students can ask to be sponsored per book, or for a flat donation (children may be a bit more encouraged to read even more if donations are for “per book”). Distribute the forms to each classroom and explain how the Read-a-Thon will work.

Run the Read-a-Thon for a predetermined amount of time, such as two weeks, one month or up to six weeks.  Some Read-a-Thons that are based from public libraries last the entire summer.

The librarian can take an active part in this fundraiser. Ask the librarian suggest great books to each grade and class. Some students may be strong readers, and may already have an idea of what they like to read. Other students may be eager to compete, but may not be as confident about book selection. These students will appreciate having the librarian visit each classroom to talk a bit about good books for them to read, handing out a suggested reading list and answering their questions about ways to find great books. The Read-a-Thon will hopefully inspire some students to be stronger readers, and leave them with a love of reading at the end of the program.

Encourage students to obtain sponsorship from their family and friends. Parents may also bring the sponsorship sheet into their workplace, which could add up to additional sponsors. Creating a flyer with ideas for where they can raise funds could be very helpful to many, especially those that are a bit shy about asking people. Giving parents and students tips on where they can find sponsors could help them raise even more money. The more people the students and parents ask mean more potential funds for your school.

Students will love to be awarded prizes for their participation in the Read-a-Thon. So make up a list of prizes that will be awarded for each level of number of books that they read.  At one school Read-a-Thon, for every ten dollars the student raised, they earned a dollar to spend at the upcoming Scholastic book fair. Adding in a Scholastic book fair, or other well-known book fair to your Read-a-Thon can be a great idea.

Having the Principal read the students’ names, grade and classes that are in the lead over the intercom would also be a great prize every week for the students to look forward to.

A school Read-a-Thon will getstudents to read more books than they might have otherwise.  It’s a great way to promote reading and raise some funds for your library or school at the same time!

Did you know that your school can promote school spirit with its own personalized candy bar wrappers? World’s Finest Chocolate offers the option of customizing its chocolate bar wrappers. Many school groups sell these chocolate bars to raise funds — why not raise school spirit too? You can put your school name and logo or mascot on the label. This also helps your supporters know that when they buy the bar proceeds go to your school.

Find out more about personalized candy bar wrappers

Each year cheerleaders lead their schools in raising the school spirit. The cheerleaders are seen at football and basketball games, performing gymnastic-like turns and flips, all with a great big smile! Cheerleading, like any school sport, has funding needs.

Many cheerleaders sell spirit items for their fundraiser. Now you may have heard of a few of school spirit ideas, but I bet there are some that are new. Take a look:

Traditional Spirit Items

The best way to raise funds for your cheerleaders is to create a fundraiser that centers on what they do best: cheering for the school’s team! There are several tried and true spirit items that fans always love:

• Team apparel - t-shirts, baseball caps
• Noisemakers - cow bells and whistles
• Waveables - spirit sticks and signs
• Game gear - stadium seats, coolers, blankets

Cheerleaders can sell spirit or mascot items before, during and/or after the games.

Special Homecoming Items

Many school sports have a homecoming game. Many alumni return to the school for this special night, and the school elects the homecoming king and queen. Your cheerleading squad can hold special events and sales for the homecoming day or week.

• Raffle off the honor of riding in the car in the parade with the homecoming queen
• Some high school girls wear “mums” on homecoming day, this could be a good fundraiser for your squad if your squad takes orders and the cheer boosters or a hobby store or florist creates the mums
• Special t-shirts just for homecoming. These can be sold to students, parents and alums.

Mascot Related Items

Your cheerleading team can sell an item that is somehow related to your school mascot. If your mascot is the tiger, the cheerleaders could sell stuffed animal tigers. Grizzly Bears? How about a build-a-bear type workshop?

• Mascot stuffed animals
• Mascot antenna balls for students’ cars

Events & Contests

• Greatest Roar Contest. Students each pay $5 for the chance to be the “King Tiger” and get a cool prize. (Of course names can be changed depending on what your mascot is! Do this in several rounds, a few during lunchtime each day and on the day of the pep rally is the finals.
• Raffle off the privilege of running onto the field with the football team or presiding over a coin toss.
• There are many half-time contests that you could do.

So you can see spirit fundraisers for your cheerleading squad is more than just a lot of noise! Take one of these ideas and see where your cheerleading squad can go with it.

One of the most important things about a fundraising campaign is to have a goal. Goals can inspire action, help us meet deadlines and of course be more successful. When your school group reaches its goal be sure to plan something special to celebrate. Your group has worked hard and everyone who participated, teachers, students, parents and community members should be thanked and appriciated for their efforts.

A school in Hancock, Maryland celebrated the end of their drive by completing the thermometer type goal poster they’d created. In fact they asked a business who contributed the final $500 donation to help:

To celebrate the end of the drive, Robison asked bank CEO/President Jeff Shank and Hancock Community Office branch manager Angie Hager to paint in the remaining funds space on the Panther Playground Fund slide in front of the school.

This made for a great photo op and publicity for both the school and the bank!  This would be a great idea for any school or other group who’s recently finished a fundraiser.

Go ahead and plan your goal celebration during the process of your fundraising planning.  Expect the best… expect your group to succeed, rather than saying “if we meet our goal.”

Here’s another idea…  how about when you first put up your goal placard to ask a local business to be the first to make a donation? Then  you can have a photo and story for the local newspaper to help kickoff your fundraising drive.   Then perhaps at your celebration you can recognize others who contributed.

What did you last buy online?

A book on Amazon? A rare vinyl copy of your favorite guilty pleasure band on eBay?
Did you buy something online to support your school’s fundraiser? Would you do it often, and would you remember where to go to make sure your group makes money?

I have been working in the fundraising industry for over 7 years, and have been in many a meeting within some of the biggest and brightest fundraising companies who are adement to blend online big brands with loyalty and fundraising.

It’s hard, very hard indeed - but the potential revenue and cost effective ‘onlinesolution in a box’ keeps driving them on.
I am going to let the cat out of the bag, and hope some of you reading this will forward it to people who make decisions on fundraising, as a cautionary tale - and perhaps you know someone who has some other solution that I have not seen, so let me know…. here goes - the brutal truth your fundraising groups need to know:

The Truth Is This:
We are still ahead of the curve, most people will not frequently shop online to support their group - just because you send them an email asking them to.
The following story is true:

Mrs. Smartypants (name has been changed to protect the ego of a real PTO Chairman, and also because I like the new name a lot) is the Chairman of a fairly large High School.
Her background is in marketing, and she is familiar with affiliate marketing in particular. She has told the Fundraising Chairman she will help her look for an additional fundraiser that will not replace their highly successful Worlds Finest Chocolate fundraiser, but add an extra revenue stream for their school using an online initiative.

She looks up on Google ‘Online Fundraising’ and finds a bunch of companies claiming to be able to harness the power of the Internet, and provide fundraising dollars in the thousands. After really understanding the way in which these dollars are supposed to magically appear, she realizes how it could really come true:

History:

Back in the day when every company was dying to increase online sales and brand awareness, a couple of smart cookies started affiliate marketing solutions. You have a widget you want to sell online? Easy - contact www.CJ.com and they will allow you to promote your product (as long as you pay commission on sales) to thousands of people who have web sites, those websites have people looking at them, and as quick as 1,2,3, widgets are being sold via banner ad’s and text links leading to the widget web site - and commission is being handed out left right and centre.
Now if you don’t have tons of traffic on your site - how can you also take advantage of this affiliate commission structure? Easy - find a group of people who’ll do the hard work for you, getting the attention of potential buyers, asking them to click on the advertising on your groups fundraising site they design, and they in return will share a percentage of their commission with your group on each sale.

Magic.

All of this looks great on paper, but the real hump to get over, is to find a company that has a great user experience awaiting potential customers, and a way to get them on the website more than one time.
Some companies set up multiple email reminders, (can be annoying), offe incentives (not always great), begging normally followes, then disappointment and frustration set in on behalf of the fundraising group. They do not recommend the service to other groups and the fundraising companies either give up, and continue to sell cookie dough, or go under.

Mrs. Smartypants could see that although these companies dazzled her with big brand names, products she thought might be interesting to her community, she knew `build it and they will come’ is not a way to run a successful fundraiser for her school.

Mrs. Smartypants spoke to the school Principal. This was her approach:

‘I have invested my time to bring to the table a personalized website for our parents to buy magazines from, where our school earns around 40% of each sale - the user experience is good, prices are fair, and I know with a little help we can raise thousands without involving the kids, and in fact we’ll do little work at all - but I need your help’

Principal:
‘Sounds easy - what do I need to do?’

Mrs. Smartypants:
‘If you really believe in this, I have set out the following step by step guidelines to guarantee our success (yep’ she was in marketing all right!) :

1) Before we even tell parents we have this site, I want you to personally write a letter, asking all parents in principal - if we invest our time in setting this up, will they at least look at the website during the first week it’s launched and see if they are already subscribed to one or more magazines. You will also ask them that it’s very important for them to agree to bookmark the site, confirming they will do this if we move ahead. It will help determine if our school proceeds. The letter will also focus on not just what the money raised each year will be used for (in this case it was yearly upgrades to computers) but much more importantly what effect having outdated equipment has on their children’s learning - THE CONSEQUENCES OF INACTION!
2) On EVERY (not some, but all) school communication, the School Magazine Stores Web Address (plus short request for help) would be visible. This basically meant adding it to the letterhead, which took around 20mins of work.

3) On the home page, there would be a link added - directing people to the store.

The Principal agreed.

Mrs.Smartypants raised over $5000 in the first 6 months, and each year sales have risen by around 10-17%

The parents committed in principal, were always made aware of the store, and knew what would happen to their kids if they fell behind with their Information technology learning.

The brands parents found online did not guarantee success, the brain power of a savvy PTO President did, plus an open minded Principal.

it also became pretty clear that many parents already had subscriptions - and a simple renewal through the site brought in a ton of money - what luck!

It’s fall and “Back to School” means back to fundraising.  Yes, schools all across the country continue to plan fundraisers.  Some schools just do one fundraiser a year, but many schools do quite a few more.

TimesNews.net recently highlighted some of the results of a survey by the National Association of Elementary School Principals.  They also included comments from local Tennessee school teachers and principals.

According to the survey:

76 Eighty-five percent said they’ve noticed an increased need for school fund-raisers over the last decade. Many said they are concerned about this trend, but, overall, feel that school fund-raisers are worth the effort.

Some of the schools interviewed for the article said they were doing a magazine fundraiser while others had opted for a fun run or walkathon.  All the schools interviewed said that school fundraisers are something that are here to stay.  The trick is just finding a good fundraiser that parents and students enjoy… and that raises money!

Students at a school in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin raised funds with a cookie dough fundraiser. This time they had even more motivation than usual. Part of the funds raised benefited Ronald McDonald House where a classmate stayed during her battle with Lymphoma.

“I think its nice that they donate to places in the community rather than using the money for things that only benefit themselves,” added student council advisor Liz Pukrop.

From: Chippewa Valley Newspapers

What a great way for a school to help a fellow student!

Students got the chance to learn the value of giving and community service. This is also a great example of how to generate more interest in a fundraising drive by benefiting more than one group. Perhaps your group could partner with another that needs to raise funds to increase your reach.

Find out more about cookie dough fundraisers

Many schools across the US participate in the Box Tops for Education program. Usually parents just clip the little coupons from the top of the boxes and and drop them off at the school.

One of the drawbacks to the program is that at just a few cents each, it takes a lot of box tops to raise much money.  But with a little creativity those box tops really can add up.   Seniors at an adult health center in New Jersey decided they could help.  Several times a week members meet together and spend time clipping the box tops.   It makes for a great activity for the seniors and helps local schools too.

Box Tops are dropped off at the Center by local area residents; two local retailers also host collection sites. Every few months, the stores transfer the collected packaging or Box Tops to the Health Center, where care-givers organize sessions to “rip and clip.”

“This model would work well in almost any community,” said Box Tops for Education Senior Promotion Planner Lisa Kessel. “Box Tops can also be collected from products used right in care centers, including food items, Hefty® paper tableware and personal care products like Kleenex® tissues and Depend® items.”

Read more about this Box Tops Success Story