9 Tips for Your Next Fundraiser
How to Raise More with Your Next School Fundraiser!
A little planning can go a long way for your next fundraising event. With the right strategy and tools in place, you can boost participation, increase donations, and create a smoother experience for everyone involved. Here are nine simple tips to help set your fundraiser up for success.
1. Take Your Fundraiser Online
EVERYONE is used to getting what they need online. Whether it’s ordering dinner or scheduling a pickup, people are programmed to interact seamlessly on the go.
Make sure your fundraiser meets the expectations of today’s parents and donors by bringing it online with FundHub, our all-in-one donation platform!
With FundHub, you have everything you need at your fingertips to track progress, plan your event, promote your fundraiser, and so much more. No spreadsheets required. Plus, our easy share tools make it simple for parents and staff to spread the word and gather donations in just a few clicks. Helping you reach more people faster and with less effort.
2. Pre-Plan Your Fundraiser Promotion
Create a promotional calendar so you can keep up the momentum for your event past the kick-off date. This means scheduling promotions for your different audiences (parents, students, admin, community members, etc.). Your promotions should cover both in-person (bulletin board, paper flyers) and digital (email, social media posts, digital flyers).
Teamed up with Get Movin’ for your event? Make sure you check out our email builder, automated reminders, and dynamic flyers that automatically include your event info and are ready for you to customize! Also in FundHub’s Event Toolbox are 20+ free, fully customizable social media templates to make online promotion easy.
3. Use Experiences as Part of Your Incentive Package
Experience-based incentives can dramatically increase how much students raise by making the rewards fun and memorable. Popular examples include duct-taping the gym teacher to a wall, giving staff members a pie in the face, or turning the principal into a human salad!
With our online platform, you can easily promote your incentives, track which students have earned specific rewards using the incentive tracker, and set donation or activity goals for students to reach in order to earn those rewards.
4. Encourage Health & Wellness
Athon style fundraisers are the perfect way to encourage health and wellness. Parents don’t want to sell pizza kits or chocolate; they want their kids to be engaged in physical fitness, reading, dancing, or other fun activities.
Track participation with FundHub’s Activity Counter and customize the activity type to fit your fundraiser. Plus, you can tie incentives directly to activity amount to boost engagement. Add activity minutes in bulk (by class or school-wide) to save a TON of time compared to paper logs.
Doing a fun event like a Fun Run, Dance-a-Thon, or Obstacle Run? Add even more fun to movement by using pedometers as an incentive! This will encourage kids to continue to stay active each day even after your fundraising event.
5. Get Teachers Engaged in Your Event
Teachers are a vital part of the fundraising process, from helping classrooms reach their goals to keeping students motivated throughout the donation period. FundHub supports staff with Teacher Dashboards to stay engaged, Classroom Webpages to track progress and collect donations, and an optional special classroom incentive to help encourage students to reach their Classroom Donation Goal. When you have teacher buy-in for your fundraiser, amazing things can happen!
Teachers can utilize classroom celebration, weekly reminders, fun educational lessons, and healthy competition with other classes to motivate their students to meet (or even exceed) their individual and classroom goals!
6. Brand Your Event
Want to make your fundraiser truly unforgettable? Start with a theme that kids can get excited about. Whether you go with a Super Mario Fun Run, light up the school with a Glow-in-the-Dark Dance-a-Thon, or launch into an Outer Space Read-a-Thon, a strong theme instantly makes your event more fun and memorable. Build on that energy with a custom event name, logo, and creative incentives to match.
Branding your fundraiser will make it a recognizable event for students and parents to look forward to. When there’s a consistent look and feel (think colors, fonts, and visuals that match your theme) your fundraiser becomes more immersive, memorable, and engaging.
7. Create Healthy Classroom Competition
Friendly competition can be a powerful motivator for students as they raise donations. When setting up your fundraiser incentives, consider adding several classroom rewards to keep excitement high. For example, classes that reach their goal might earn a silly string party, a special catered lunch, or extra recess time. You can also include a traveling trophy or another fun prize that moves to the classroom in the #1 spot each week.
FundHub’s Classroom Leaderboard displays real-time fundraising progress, allowing classes to see how they stack up against one another. It’s a fantastic way to encourage participation and ultimately drive more donations!
8. Utilize Social Media
Social media is a powerful way to boost engagement for your fundraising event. FundHub makes it easy for parents to share through simple share tools, and you’ll also have access to social media templates and a promotional guide to help you create engaging posts, countdowns, and milestone updates (available in the Event Toolbox).
Create a sharing challenge like Facebook Friday to boost awareness and drive donations for your fundraiser. Challenge parents to share their student’s webpage to help reach 200 shares by a set day for an extra school-wide incentive. With FundHub’s Webpage Share report, you can easily track social media shares and monitor progress along the way.
9. Incorporate Mini Challenges
Similar to Facebook Friday, you can keep families and classrooms engaged by adding mini challenges throughout your donation period. One popular idea is the Around the World Challenge. The concept is simple: use our Activity Counter to track participation in your event’s chosen activity, then convert that activity into miles. For example, if you’re hosting a Read-a-Thon, each minute read equals one mile. From there, you can set destination goals along the way to encourage continued participation.
Another great option is the 50 State Challenge. Using our real-time donation map, you can see where your donations are coming from across the entire United States. Encourage students to bring in donations from EVERY state. Create a fun school-wide reward if they meet the challenge!
Plus, each year Get Movin’ schools that complete the 50 State Challenge on FundHub are automatically entered into a drawing for a chance to win a $1,000 grant!
Your next fundraising event can be incredibly profitable and engaging – especially if you have the personal coaching and the online tools you need. FundHub is built for event-based fundraisers from start to finish, fully customizable for any event type. Learn more with a free demo and explore our 35+ fundraising tools to make your event a success!
