Your school should keep records on fundraising trends.

No sugar coating... Here's the way to enhance your school fundraising and you can use these tips right away!

Your school should keep records on fundraising trends. 

Keeping a simple log of enrollment, student's that participate in the fundraiser, items sold, dollars raised, average item price, average sale amount, fundraising profit percentages, etc. will help you immensely. 

Further, you can create this log to include all of your efforts, product or not, and list the time requirements that each effort required (ex. 10 hour planning, 2 hour event, 12 volunteers).  This let's you balance the outcome with the work needed.

Analyze your data

The numbers won't lie.  Take a hard look at what is working and what is not.  Every individual is different in terms of how they look at data but one thing is for certain.  You should be able to determine which fundraisers produce little income or take too much effort to make it worth while.

Less is more

There are only so many resources a school has access to.  You can either tap these resources one time effectively or you will need to tap them many times ineffectively.  Yes, this sounds a bit cold - after all, we're talking about parents.

Here's the truth of the matter:

If you concentrate your efforts on one main fundraiser per semester, you will put more emphasis on the main fundraiser.  When you put a priority on something it naturally becomes more important. 

You can make it very clear that this main fundraiser is going to keep you from hosting continual fundraising efforts. You can let parents know that you will not have continuous fundraising efforts if you hit your goal and that XX items sold is requested by each family.

The closer you get to parents thinking that their support is mandatory, the better your participation and in turn, your fundraising revenue. 

Spread your fundraising out.

Do not have it appear that another fundraiser is around the corner.

If, by way of argument, you host multiple fundraisers back to back and parents are aware that this is your strategy, which should parents support?  After all, if they skip the first one, they can just give on the next or the next or the next.

In my opinion, multiple fundraisers is one of the biggest factors in school fundraising revenues dropping.  Everyone is quick to blame the economy but the truth is... schools have added fundraisers and put less importance on each one causing a drop in participation.

It would appear that there are two types of parents.  Parents that will support repeatedly and parents that will stop participating in fundraisers at the first sign the school is going to repeatedly hit them up.  Yes, this is an exaggeration perhaps but you will lose the support of a group of parents after hitting them up repeatedly.  'I'll just get the next one' is a gesture your school should work hard to avoid.

In the end, I was pretty blunt in this post but I hope you can use the information to determine which fundraisers work best for you and then how to host them so you receive a maximum return for your time and efforts. 

If you find this information valuable, the best thing you can do is leave a comment - good or bad and share the website address if you feel someone will benefit from my school fundraising posts. 

My conflict of interest is my fundraising company Believe Kids, where we are the leader in new high-profit school fundraisers.  I do not expect that my company services are for everyone but if you are an elementary school, you may just find out we're the right fit for your needs: www.BelieveKids.com

Thanks for looking!

Why some fundraisers aren't fundraisers...

I really liked something I ran across today. Just a one sentence comment: 'Not everything is made to be a fundraiser'. It immediately resonated with me.

As the vice president of a nationwide elementary school fundraising company, I look at a large number of fundraisers, both types and products. I have to say that although many products and services are available as fundraisers, not everything should be considered a fundraiser.

There is a way to make money at nearly anything, but not everything should be a fundraiser. In order to keep things simple for parents and the community, host fundraisers that are fundraisers and host events that are not fundraisers. You'll see what I mean in the following example:

Hosting a 'school dance fundraiser' is not a good idea but a school dance with paid parking attendants and a concession booth is a great idea!

Ticket sales, raffles, concessions, photo booths, parking, spirit wear, craft sales and potentially a bunch of other ideas all could raise money at an event. Anything that could be easily integrated as a beneficial service in support of the event would be a consideration in my book for a money making extra - not to be confused with a fundraiser.

Keep this in mind when planning your future events and fundraisers.

If you have a fundraiser, make it a big one and put your efforts behind it. Let it be known that it's a fundraiser and celebrate the need and thank the community for getting behind a cause. If, on the other hand, you are planning something that is not a fundraiser, look for money making opportunities where 'soft sales' could be used and don't call it a fundraiser. Keep it on the down-low.

Here's why.

Parents and the community want to rally around a good cause - but only periodically. They don't want to see a hand out all the time. In order to maximize profits on your main fundraisers, minimize attention to other efforts and play up the main fundraiser any chance you get!

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Summary - Do not call a dance a fundraiser but feel free to offer some 'soft sales' at the event. Just don't make it too obvious. It would be best to not draw attention to the fact that any concessions or sales are a fundraiser.

When you have your main fundraiser for the year, get everyone's attention, make it a big deal and let each and every parent know that you expect participation in the fundraiser because the school needs help.

You can only do this essentially once per semester or parents will not want to get involved. Participation in school fundraisers right now is critical so do anything and everything you can to downplay small fundraisers and give it all you got when it comes to marketing your heavy-hitting fundraisers!