Elementary school fundraisers are an interesting thing and when accomplished well, they should be both profitable and feel good. They should also not be intrusive.
So, short, quality and then super-profitable huh?
Yes.
Pay attention to the signal-to-noise ratio (The amount of background noise versus the main event).
In order to really achieve fundraising success, the goal should be to minimize school fundraisers - playing down anything that does not put the money in the hands of the parent group. Once there are just a few manageable fundraisers throughout the year, it's time to focus.
Focus on a fundraiser that can raise a significant amount of funds in a short period of time. For instance, if a product fundraiser can earn top-dollar running for only two weeks, great! If a fundraiser minimizes distraction in the classroom, great!
Involve everyone. The difference between 1 fundraiser and 10 all boils down to the importance of the fundraiser and the participation it garners. If you want to succeed wildly, include everyone in the process, from the principal to the parents. Making the fundraiser important makes it succeed. This success is why you can get rid of the other fundraisers.
Next is feel good. In order to have the perfect formula of fundraising success, everyone needs to be left feeling good. Customers need quality products in exchange for their donations, the schools need to not hear complaints about product and the parent group has to have a manageable delivery.
So, the right approach. Minimize distraction, focus, involve everyone and ensure satisfaction. Sounds easy and it is in the right circumstances. But it can be a challenge as well. Most schools focus less on one fundraiser and more on scheduling many smaller efforts throughout the year.
If nothing else, perhaps a school will put just a little more focus into a fundraiser than normal and see what happens. I hope this post encourages you to do just that. You may find that with more success comes less fundraising.
Ok, until next time!
______________
twitter.com/believekids
elementary school fundraisers
Elementary School Carnival Ideas
Showing posts with label participation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label participation. Show all posts
Monday, June 18, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Understanding heavy-hitting school fundraisers
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
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Low-Profit PTA PTO Elementary School Fundraisers
Wow, Low Profits!
Yes, it's got a nice ring to it :)
________________
The thing is, there are quite a few low-profit fundraisers out there.
The reality is, this post is not a criticism of any low-profit fundraiser you, your group, your PTA or PTO or your entire school take part in. There are different strokes for different folks and that is completely recognized. It's all about expectation. But there's more to it...
Here's the raw deal...
If a fundraiser is not going to produce success for your group, look elsewhere for a different fundraiser. It's ending on a positive note that should be the most important aspect to your fundraiser. If you look good and are happy with the results, that's success! If you make the money you expect and deserve, that's also success! If low-profits are not part of the equation, read on...
So, in your research, you will find high-profit fundraisers and you will find low-profit fundraisers. I obviously suggest hosting a high-profit fundraiser so you and your school will not have to fundraise as often. But, in the end, your school fundraiser is yours regardless of your profits - if you are happy with the profits and the way you look, then carry on happily.
If not, I want you to know that it's easy to spot a low-profit fundraiser.
Ask for average sales per participant then compare this to answers from competitors. A low-profit fundraiser could be a result of product, price or genre. Asking companies for sales figures should separate out the productive from non-productive school fundraisers.
The hope in writing this today is that one person reading this will protect themselves from coming in short of their goal just because of picking a fundraiser that does not produce the same fundraising profit as a high-profit fundraiser.
After all, you deserve an easy fundraiser that encourages participation and allows your school to reach goals while the school and PTA / PTO looks good. These fundraisers are out there but you may have to ask for sales numbers and referrals before deciding.
Just make one promise...
Promise that you will project the outcome of each and every fundraiser you look at based on numbers provided by the fundraising company courting you. If they don't have a history for you, look elsewhere.
As long as you bring something of value to the community and hit your goals without overdoing it, your fundraisers will succeed! Just don't let yourself fall short on your goal just because you thought a fundraiser would work.
___________________________
I wrote this rather quickly, but I hope it helps! Thanks!
Friday, July 30, 2010
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!
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!
Friday, July 23, 2010
New Video - Say No to Less in Schools
Here's a new video we just finished to promote the need for participation in school fundraising this year. If you enjoy it, please share it! We can improve the state of education through awareness. Thanks :)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Top School Fundraisers - Fundraising Options for Elementary Schools
If you're considering a fundraiser for fall 2010, you've got one good shot at hosting a wildly successful fundraiser! You can do this despite anything stacked against you.
Here are the most successful fundraisers for elementary schools:
• Fall Gift & Wrap Catalog
• Frozen Cookie Dough
• Large Well-organized Events
This fall is very important. As a matter of simplicity let me just suggest that if you have a successful fundraiser such as an auction or fall catalog sale, stick with it. Make improvements to what you currently offer - make it more important, make it more obvious that you need the support of students and parents.
If you are being hit up by a wide variety of companies offering various fundraisers, get the facts. It only takes a few minutes to ask some of the tough questions. The factual questions that will allow you to minimize your risk. Concentrate on some of these items before moving on to the ones that feel more comfortable to you:
• What is the average sale dollar amount per student
• What is the average number of items sold per student
• What is the average overall participation rate
• What is your profit margin given these numbers at your student count
These numbers will allow you to calculate the potential sale with that vendor. If you are considering an event run through these same numbers estimating your attendance and average sales.
Do this for every vendor before you decide on some of the other factors such as:
• Volunteer time needed
• Student participation programs
• Drawing prizes & incentives
• How order processing works
• How product distribution works
• Quality of products / service
• Commitment to customer service
• How damaged / missing items are handled
• Commitment to offering value
• Number of backordered items last year
There are just some fundraisers floating around out there that will not be in the same league as the fall gift catalog, cookie dough or large event.
Affiliate programs, single product fundraisers such as trash bags or coffee, donation drives, box tops, scratch cards, discount cards, seasonal items, cell phone / toner recycling, clothing drives, hair cut nights, spirit nights or pizza fundraisers are not created equally. These programs often earn only a small percentage of the heavy-hitting traditional fundraisers.
Do your research, then put all of your marketing efforts behind your largest and most profitable fundraiser you can. You can increase your fundraising profits for the year by removing efforts that do not work and by concentrating more on the fundraiser that creates the highest sales average and participation percentage!
_____________________________
Jay Moneta is the Vice President of Believe Kids Fundraising and blogs regularly about elementary school fundraising. If you would like to discuss this or any of my posts, please comment here or on twitter - twitter.com/BelieveKids
Thanks for the opportunity to share my thoughts and if I can put my company to the test with any competing fundraisers for the benefit of your school, just let me know.
If you enjoyed the content here, please consider forwarding a link to a friend or co-worker that would enjoy them as well. I am working hard to provide helpful information and would appreciate any support in terms of interested visitors you may be able to recommend. Thanks!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Fundraising Incentives for your School!
One thing is clear! Incentives work.
In planning your next fundraiser, make sure you are providing a good reason for folks to get involved.
Everyone loves encouragement
Regardless of what you use to encourage participation in the fundraiser, the more you can do to get people excited and interested in helping, they more effective your fundraising efforts will be. Here is a list of groups that could use encouragement:
• Students
• Teachers
• Administrators
• Faculty
• Principals
• Parents
• Relatives
• Community
So, it certainly seems impossible to provide incentives to all these groups but it's really not all that challenging.
Here's why:
Parents, Relatives & The Community
The reality is that parents, relatives and the community at large receive the gift of charitable giving, helping children and improving education. Having said that, they still need some encouragement to purchase. That's where running a quality fundraiser comes in. A good gift catalog or a cookie dough offer should be enough to earn their support.
Faculty, Administrators & Principals
When it comes to the school, it's not always easy to garner the support of teachers, principals and administrators. With everything going on today in schools with budget cuts and lower fundraising returns due to a bad economy, many schools are getting more involved on their own.
Our best advice is to ASK!
Ask the principal to send out an email, ask the receptionist for help if needed and ask teachers to encourage their classes to participate. Yes, perhaps a bit different asking for help but it will produce results. Keep in mind that not all incentives require money - freebies and delivering cups of coffee go a long way.
Students
Students should be incentivised in a few different ways if possible. A good fundraising company will provide daily incentives to remind them to work on the fundraiser daily as well as a quality prize program. There are a number of other ideas that will help so consult with your fundraising rep. Most likely they work for a company that will supply other ideas as well such as a top-seller prize.
This is one case where your fundraising company can really be of assistance. If a school does little to promote a fundraiser, the results will likely reflect that. On the other hand, if a school and fundraising company work together to really promote the fundraiser, it will be a huge success!
In the end, here's your success challenge: get everyone you can involved and reward everyone you can!
__________________________
Jay Moneta is the Vice President of Believe Kids Fundraising and blogs here regularly. If you would like more information visit www.BelieveKids.com If you enjoy the information here, please share links or leave comments, questions or feedback for me. I can also be reached on twitter - twitter.com/BelieveKids Thanks for looking!!
In planning your next fundraiser, make sure you are providing a good reason for folks to get involved.
Everyone loves encouragement
Regardless of what you use to encourage participation in the fundraiser, the more you can do to get people excited and interested in helping, they more effective your fundraising efforts will be. Here is a list of groups that could use encouragement:
• Students
• Teachers
• Administrators
• Faculty
• Principals
• Parents
• Relatives
• Community
So, it certainly seems impossible to provide incentives to all these groups but it's really not all that challenging.
Here's why:
Parents, Relatives & The Community
The reality is that parents, relatives and the community at large receive the gift of charitable giving, helping children and improving education. Having said that, they still need some encouragement to purchase. That's where running a quality fundraiser comes in. A good gift catalog or a cookie dough offer should be enough to earn their support.
Faculty, Administrators & Principals
When it comes to the school, it's not always easy to garner the support of teachers, principals and administrators. With everything going on today in schools with budget cuts and lower fundraising returns due to a bad economy, many schools are getting more involved on their own.
Our best advice is to ASK!
Ask the principal to send out an email, ask the receptionist for help if needed and ask teachers to encourage their classes to participate. Yes, perhaps a bit different asking for help but it will produce results. Keep in mind that not all incentives require money - freebies and delivering cups of coffee go a long way.
Students
Students should be incentivised in a few different ways if possible. A good fundraising company will provide daily incentives to remind them to work on the fundraiser daily as well as a quality prize program. There are a number of other ideas that will help so consult with your fundraising rep. Most likely they work for a company that will supply other ideas as well such as a top-seller prize.
This is one case where your fundraising company can really be of assistance. If a school does little to promote a fundraiser, the results will likely reflect that. On the other hand, if a school and fundraising company work together to really promote the fundraiser, it will be a huge success!
In the end, here's your success challenge: get everyone you can involved and reward everyone you can!
__________________________
Jay Moneta is the Vice President of Believe Kids Fundraising and blogs here regularly. If you would like more information visit www.BelieveKids.com If you enjoy the information here, please share links or leave comments, questions or feedback for me. I can also be reached on twitter - twitter.com/BelieveKids Thanks for looking!!
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