Elementary School Carnival Ideas

Friday, July 30, 2010

Elementary School Fundraising - FoCUs

So, if you're tracking with my multiple blog posts here, I'm walking folks through how to determine what fundraisers are best for your school or group. 

My first post was about tracking the successes and failures of your school fundraisers over time.  This allows for you to get a better idea what works and what doesn't.

Your school should keep records on fundraising trends.


Secondly, I posted a number of questions that could put into perspective some of the traits to look out for.  If you see something that is not working for whatever reason from reviewing these questions, you may want to think twice about those fundaisers.

Less is More - Get Rid of School Fundraisers that Don't Perform...



Here is a summary of a few thoughts I have on the matter.  When it comes to elementary school fundraising I believe that schools do too much fundraising.  I further believe that too few schools look critically at their fundraising efforts to determine how to maximize fundraising revenue while being considerate to parents.

If you have a solid main fundraiser, regardless of if that is a school-wide event, catalog sale, cookie dough or some other heavy-hitting fundraiser, you can earn more with that fundraiser than you can by adding smaller ones.

It just takes focus.

Focus on the large high-profit fundraiser.  Remove any distraction or noise from any lesser producers and then create teamwork and unity between children, parents, parent groups, administration and principals.

Actually get rid of fundraisers that earn less than a thousand dollars a year!  Yes, you can and here's how:  Increase participation in your main fundraiser and you should be able to more than compensate.  It only takes a few additional sellers and by making your main fundraiser more important to faculty, parents and the community, you will attract more attention.

It's easy for me to say.  The reality is, the involvement of the school in the fundraiser is the single most important aspect of the school fundraising process.  Without the help of principals and administrators, you send the info home and blindly see what comes back. This method of fundraising generally takes a larger number of fundraisers because the same parents are supporting the fundraiser instead of more parents supporting fewer efforts.

Yep, you may want to read that paragraph again.  It's not easy to grasp in a way but here's an example.  Would you rather hold one fundraising band concert with 1,000 different people attending or have the same 100 people go to 10 concerts?

Focus your efforts on what works best and get behind it!  That's the way to increase fundraising returns.  It's a teamwork that only comes when there are deliberate choices being made. 

Choose the proper main fundraiser and then stop at nothing to succeed.

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I encourage comments here on my blog - please leave a comment good or bad below  :)

Visit the link to see what types of Elementary School Fundraisers my company offers but regardless of who you use for your fundraisers, if you can learn from the past and focus on the future, you will succeed!  Thanks!!

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