There really are quite a few different types of fundraisers and they are not all created equal.
But first a bit of a story.
I just talked with a school where sales dropped over 50% from the year before. No, they didn't work with us - at least not for the loss of the 50% that is.
They were not very proud to admit that they had made a bad decision taking on something new with a new company. At that point, it would be very tempting to want to blame the economy on the loss of sales but with such a dramatic decline, I think they realize that wouldn't fly.
Could the school have known ahead of time how things would turn out on their main school fundraiser?
After all, the main fall fundraiser is the fundraiser that is supposed to make the year (or at least make up for all the other ones that don't perform). In this case, it was just a loss that the parent group had to accept. "I should have seen it coming" was the PTA President's comment.
The point of this post is that the all the information needed to make the right choice was readily available. Some really simple stuff, such as running the numbers ahead of time. Asking the fundraising company what their average sales per student and participation rates are. Multiplying that out for the school enrollment, may have just let the PTA know where that fundraiser was going to end up.
I think schools need to be more deliberate in their fundraising. The clues are all there, the statistics are available if you care to look at them. I know that less than stellar fundraising outcomes can be completely reversed or avoided by paying attention to the clues.
Is there anything you can figure out about the fundraiser you are about to undertake on behalf of your school?
Are you willing to seek out the fundraisers that actually perform?
Ok, until next time!
__________________
Keep the conversation going at twitter.com/believekids
heavy-hitting school fundraisers
No comments:
Post a Comment