Let's face it. Your School Stinks at Marketing!
And really, it's to be expected. The point of a school isn't to be a marketing agency. Your school, however, can improve your fundraising quickly and easily by following these 3 helpful tips:
1) Do not waste your marketing prowess on little stuff.
2) Do not take on fundraisers that make less than $2,000.
3) Limit efforts to one major fundraiser per semester.
The Little Stuff
How many times has a school or group made a big deal out of box tops? OMG! Every school seems to make this the default effort and it drives me bonkers. I have no problem with box tops and by all accounts, it's good for about $1,000 profit or more per year but it gets in the way.
By marketing this on kiosks and signs and in newsletters, you make this a priority.
When people start to make a conscious effort to save these and bring them in, they feel they are doing their part. Yes, they are doing exactly what you want them to. Where is the problem then?
When you ask them to participate in the next effort, they feel as-if they just did their part. So, you run the risk of losing $100 in your major fall fundraiser for a few bucks worth of box tops. Are you willing to take that risk?
My suggestion is to not market the little fundraisers, let folks discover them for themselves. Save up your marketing and push as hard as you can on the fundraiser that makes you the most money! Then feature it prominently in newsletters, email blasts, kiosks, posters, handbills and anything else you can possibly think of.
Imagine the sign above saying 'please support our fall fundraiser!' How many additional sales do you think that would generate?
Get rid of the small guys.
You may think that adding more fundraising efforts in different categories is a great idea because people like different things. It's just not really the case when it comes to fundraising efforts.
The amount of money raised in a small fundraiser is not worth it. The reason is quite simple. The amount of money raised per student in a heavy-hitting school-wide fundraiser is so substantial that just a few students selling would make up for the entire effort of the smaller fundraisers.
This is a fundraiser that can go.
If you are doing an auction site thing such as the schools in the image above, realize that you will make a few hundred dollars but risk losing sales and participation in your other efforts by marketing it and making it a priority.
This fundraiser, which can generate a little money will likely do more harm than good if done school-wide.
As much as I like the idea of these companies wanting to support education, if you actively market fundraisers that do not make a big impact on your bottom line, you are going to create a problem:
There is only so much parental involvement to go around. So, ask for it only when it's going to make a difference.
Concentrate your efforts
What you choose for your main fundraiser each semester is a big deal.
You should choose something that students, parents, faculty and the community are familiar with and will stand behind. You should choose fundraisers that have a high average per student and the highest participation rates available.
Once you decide on a fundraiser, market the living daylights out of it, make it important and make it a team effort!
Schools and groups can improve their school fundraising revenue by doing less.
By concentrating on what works the best and marketing it effectively. It makes a lot of sense because you only have a limited amount of times you can ask for parents to get involved without them being overwhelmed.
Stand back, take a good look at your offerings, simplify and focus your efforts!
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Authors Note:
I want to be up-front in saying that small fundraisers do serve a function and they do not have bad intentions. From a school-wide fundraising perspective today, they can be part of the problem and as everyone knows, participation in fundraising is down across the board and adding more fundraisers to solve the problem is not the answer regardless of the good intentions of the fundraising companies have.
Jay Moneta is the Vice President of Believe Kids Fundraising. If you have a comment, please feel free to leave it here on my blog or reach me via twitter - twitter.com/BelieveKids
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