Should I Involve the Principal in My School Fundraiser?

OMG!  YES!!!

Involve the principal in your school fundraiser whenever possible.  If you can host a concise fundraiser where there is 'buy in' from the principal, faculty and teachers, you can raise enough funds in one fundraiser to not have to fundraise the rest of the year.  

Getting the Principal on board means that you can more easily earn the allegiance of the administration and teachers too!  Go do it, you can thank me later!

Ok, until next time!

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elementary school fundraising

Principals against rewarding students that sell fundraising products

There are principals against rewarding students who sell fundraising items.  I've been racking my brain to try to understand it and I think I finally do. 

This came about by a discussion with a principal who did not want to reward students for hitting a certain sales goal on a product fundraiser.  I was taken back until I figured it out.

It's about the action and not the result.  It's like this and please chime in (leave a comment or catch up with me on twitter) for me if I am off base. Principals want to encourage a group, not an individual.

Makes sense to me.  So, instead of taking the approach that the individual seller raising a lot, the approach is about the group doing what they can and not singling people out.  

A principal's world view must be about the school in its entirety.  A sum of parts that creates one whole.  Encouraging individual efforts is just not in the agenda.  Makes sense.

I think I get it now.  Unfortunately, that's not a path to fewer or more profitable fundraisers but I'm just glad I get it.

Please chime in!

The Best High-Profit Elementary School Fundraisers for PTA's PTO's

If you are involved with a PTA or PTO at your elementary school, you know first-hand the challenges of picking a successful school fundraiser.

Have you noticed a tendency to not want to burden parents, to want to be as gentle as possible because the economy is in trouble or you believe parents are hit up too much?

Believe me, your not alone!

Here's the thing though.  I've watched PTA's and PTO's choose the softest, least intrusive fundraisers only to schedule additional fundraisers later in the year.  I've seen fundraisers that take so much work to organize, that other functions of the parent group grind to a halt.  I've seen so many fundraisers run in a year, that parents stop participating in school sponsored activities.

So, there are a lot of companies, services and self-hosted fundraisers available to you but there's a secret.  There's a way to achieve the best high-profit elementary school fundraiser for your PTA or PTO.

How you ask?

Well, you could go through the numbers right?  The only numbers needed are estimated number of participants you can expect multiplied by how much on average a participant will sell.  You could ask your fundraising company what their participation is in your area and what their average sale is..  You could look at last years event fundraising records for the number of tickets sold and the income generated.  Or you could go a completely different way.

Ok, you ready for the secret?

Pick the fundraiser that will generate the most action, excitement, RESULTS!  What you are looking for is a RSVP, a ticket sale, a commitment, a purchase or an attendee!  Yes, instead of the softest sale, you want the hardest in-your-face sale in the history of sales!

So whatever you choose, make sure that the principal will get behind it!  Ensure that each and every teacher will become an active participant and supporter!  Make sure that every parent knows why it is important and why they just have to participate!

With any luck, you've picked a fundraiser that can extend to the community or even nationwide (as in the case with many high-profit elementary school fundraisers - no obligation disclaimer as this is my company).

Regardless of who you use for your PTA or PTO Fundraiser or what type of event you choose to host, there is no substitute for planning and careful execution!  Keep your fundraiser short and make it important and forget about having to run other fundraisers later in the year because you didn't hit your fundraising goal! 

This approach will shatter your fundraising records!

Ok, until next time!

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elementary school fundraisers

Principals Getting Involved with the Fundraising Efforts at their School...

Wanna talk going over the top for your school prom?  Here, the school principal does a polar dive to raise money for the school prom.

My point is not that you have to dress like a prom queen to get attention for your school.

This reminder is in case you don't think principals are getting involved with the fundraising efforts at their schools.  Clearly, this principal dressed up and dove into a frozen lake showing he's committed to making causes important at his school.

You can too - although, you may want to pick another way to go about it :)

Ok, until next time...

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twitter.com/believekids
School fundraiser

Small Victories - Posting to this Elementary School Fundraising Blog Daily...

Hi!  I don't do self-promotion on this blog.  It's not that I am above it or anything, but I believe that content should rule the day.  In short, I believe that if I write truly remarkable things, you will search me out.  If I am determined to blog daily about things that matter to you, you will return and share.

So, I discuss elementary school fundraising in a real way.  I am probably the one and only person doing it.  And dispite the fact that there are no others, I will help you or your PTA or your principal or a parent.

Small victories keep me coming back to post daily.

I'll be here posting so I have a question...

What fundraising related questions can I help you sort out?

Ok, until next time!

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Keep the conversation going!!!
Leave comments and questions below or visit any of the following:
Twitter.com/BelieveKids
www.BelieveKids.com
facebook.com/BelieveKids

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Weirded out - Elementary School Fundraising Ideas for PTA PTO and Principals

Every time I think of this time of year I get a bit weirded out.

Let me explain.

In the next two months, thousands of elementary schools set out to find the fall fundraiser of their choice.  Unfortunately, every year schools choose fundraisers that fall flat.  What's more, many will fail.

They fail in terms of low revenue, significant time demands or fall flat by making the PTA PTO or Principal look bad in one way or another.  So, why does that weird me out?

I want elementary schools to make their decisions on the following considerations:

1) Ease
2) Profit
3) Happiness

Instead, I know schools will choose fundraisers over and over again that fall short in one of these basic 3.  They may shoot for ease but spend 100's of hours preparing for their fundraiser or sell an easy program that believe will make them happy but not make any profit.

So, I'm not saying that there are endless amounts of fundraisers that achieve all of these 3 basic premises but there are enough to allow every single elementary school to have a very successful fall fundraiser - one that is easy to handle, very profitable and leaves schools, PTA's, PTO's and Principals happy and looking good!

If you are involved in your school and you're getting ready to choose a fundraiser, shoot for all three of the items above not just one or two.  You can do it!

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Share your ideas below or on twitter - twitter.com/believekids

Please consider subscribing to my blog via email or rss to your google, yahoo or other homepages and feel free to share my website address with anyone you wish believejay.blogspot.com

More information on elementary school fundraising ideas is available at the BelieveKids.com website and of course, other quality companies can be found on sources online.

What Kind of School are You?

As a parent group member, administrator, principal or teacher, have you ever stopped to think what type of school you really represent? What is the aura or personality of your school?  What kind of words would parents use to describe it?

Should the goal be to have every parent love the school?  I think that's a reasonable goal.  The thing is, it's a tough task. I believe it takes a united front and a consistent message.

Here's another way to look at it:

If the school was a person sitting next you at the dinner table, what would it look like?  What demeanor would it have?  What would it truly stand for?  What would it say?  If it were to get one point across, what would it be?

I think schools often send the wrong messages - or at least inconsistent ones.  Ask yourself if your school motto, marketing message or the updates sent home to parents reflect what the school really stands for.  Is your school sending mixed messages?

If there's one thing you can do today, it's to be more aware of what message your school is currently sending and then ask yourself what the school should be in the mind of parents and the community. The point is to recognize what it should truly stand for and go after it - no holds barred, no compromises.

Sooner than later, the people of the community will sit the school down at the table and everything will make sense.

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Jay Moneta is the Vice President of Believe Kids Fundraising, a company that offers traditional gift catalog fundraising.  Jay blogs at believejay.blogspot.com regularly as well as at thefundraisingpln.com and can be found at twitter.com/believekids

If you enjoyed the content here, please add to your RSS feed or comment below!  Thanks for sharing!

Elementary School Fundraising - Principal Emails Encourage Participation!

Principal Emails Encourage Participation!

Principal emails can help a school fundraiser tremendously.  Is your principal involved in your fundraising efforts?  Here is an example of an email that may work for you but can be adapted to better suit your needs.  You can make the email stronger or softer, more to the point or a bit more vague but just make it!

Just copy and paste, edit and send something like this to encourage participation this year in your fundraiser:

Urgent message from the Principal's Office:

We are sending this message to ask for your help!

Our fall fundraiser is underway and your involvement is needed more than ever!  Your child's education and personal and social development is most important to us.  Money raised by this fundraiser directly impacts your child by providing education beyond strict fundamentals.  In our classrooms in particular, __(art supplies)___ and __(computers)__ are provided which are not part of the official budget during these tough times.

If you have not yet participated, please know that your assistance this year in particular, given our current economic situation, will make a huge difference!

As always, we encourage participation in school in many ways throughout the school year.  If you would like more information about donating your time for other  __(PTA)__ events, please contact __(PTA PRESIDENT)__.

Thank you in advance for your participation in the fundraiser!

Sincerely,

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Building Momentum - Social Media and building a PLN

Eric Sheninger - esheninger.blogspot.com

Principal Eric Sheninger's post Building Momentum outlined several points about how and why Social Media and building a PLN has changed his point of view.

To sum up his take on it, the four areas of improvement are:
1. Communication
2. Branding
3. Professional Development/Growth
4. Opportunity

There are a few added benefits that Social Media and creating a PLN (personal learning network) that were not explored in his post.  Because I am very passionate about technology, social media and my PLN I thought we could explore these ideas together and see what revelations can be found.

Here are my additions:

1) Cohesiveness
Social media and PLN's seem to be creating groups of individuals that share the same passions.  Education reform, edtech, collaborative learning, paperless classrooms all represent ideas that, when searched out, become apparent.

Finding a group with similar needs has always and continues to develop excellence in certain areas.  For just about anything a person is interested in, there are groups out there of people that are already connected and moving their cause or idea forward.

2) Friendship
Having real flesh and blood friends is pretty cool.  There was a time recently where folks were anonymous on the web.  Now that everything's changed, you stand the chance of actually taking online friends from largely anonymous interactions to flesh and blood friendships.

Today, meetups, tweetups, conventions and events allow people from various parts of the world to mingle and meet - in person.  It's new and different, and real.  People from across the country who would only write letters to each other are now meeting face to face knowing what they are really about.

3) Education
For every person that encounters a circle of friends on social media or runs into an established set of like-minded individuals, it's hard not to learn something.  Generally, the discussions are poinient and powerful and really, not basic.  Running into a group of experts is a great learning experience.

I believe people exposed to a group that is at a higher level learns fast.  I am a proponent for the paperless classroom not because I don't like printing.  It's because I ran into the TeachPaperless blog through a number of conversations on twitter.  I nearly consider myself an expert in the area because of the wealth of knowledge I received in short order - no joke.

4) Inspiration
There is inspiration found in the sweaty brow of an athlete at game time.  I'm not much of a sports fan but there just is.  Similarly, an educator who is 'in the zone' so to speak has an energy and enthusiasm for what they believe in as well.

I am inspired by the educators and suppliers that provide energy and insight.  When I was in school, only a hand-full of teachers were requested by students wanting to get in their classrooms.

Online, I feel like everyone I run into is that teacher you go out of your way to get into their class - that's inspiration!

Better School Fundraising: Motivation is the Key to Success

Motivation is the key to a successful fundraiser. If you want to get the most from your school fundraiser, you have to motivate parents as well as children. Getting parents motivated and excited about participating is the fastest way to having a better school fundraiser.

Follow these tips and you will more success and have to do less fundraising.

Inform
In order for parents to participate, they have to know why the fundraiser is a necessity for the school. Before anyone can help solve a problem they must know what the problem is. Let parents know why the fundraiser is important to their school. Hold a meeting and address the budgetary needs of the school for the year and clearly explain how the money raised from the fundraiser will go towards helping meet those needs. Send out informative emails detailing the areas in school that the official budget won't cover. Show videos explaining the need for the school fundraiser. Whatever you do, make sure to emphasize the necessity for the fundraiser. Parents need to know that their money is being used for essential educational needs.

Encourage
For the fundraiser to be as successful as possible, you need to encourage everyone to participate. Teachers, parents and administrators need to all lend a hand in making the fundraiser a success. Encourage teachers to do daily announcements to keep their students informed about the fundraiser. Ask principals to send emails to parents asking for support. A principal's email list can generate thousands of dollars in a matter of minutes. Reach out to parents and encourage them to register online with the fundraiser and send emails to family and friends asking for support. Teaming up will take your fundraiser over the top!

Incentivize
Everyone loves prizes. No matter how big or small, kids love walking away from something with a concrete item. Offer one big grand prize that every child will want to get. Then, make all the prizes great. If there is more than just one prize that interests them, they will try to keep selling to reach the desired items. Use a variety of long and short term incentives. Offer a pizza party, limo ride, or ice cream social to the class or grade level that sells the most. Hold daily raffle drawings. Use principal incentives. If the school meets their fundraising goal, the principal can get a pie in the face, have to spend the day on the roof or as a student. Incentives don't have to just be for the kids either. You can have teacher and administrator incentives as well. Offer gift certificates to teachers whose classrooms meet their goals, or limo rides to the administrators if their school meets its goal. Just remember, great incentives will always keep everyone motivated!

How to Have a Successful School Fundraiser

Here's the top 6 things you can do to have a successful school fundraiser:

1) Plan ahead.  The earlier you organize your thoughts the better.  Asking when, how, who questions can help you put into motion a plan.

2) Have a goal.  Make sure you know how much you want to raise.  It seems trivial, but you will be able to determine to what extent you should promote, reward and incentivise.

3) Start early.  If you start your school fundraiser in the first few weeks of school, you will have less competition and generate more interest.

4) Get people involved.  Involving administration and the principal in a fundraiser can single-handedly make the biggest impact on your fundraiser.

5) Market your fundraiser. Spread the word any way you can.  The more you get the word out, the more important the fundraiser becomes in the eyes of the community.

6) Reward hard work.  Put into place incentives and rewards.  These will keep the fundraiser exciting and if done right will get parents and students on board! 

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We have a large number of informative posts located at thefundraisingpln.com regarding hosting a successful school fundraiser.  Thanks for looking and please share and comment :)

Your PTO Should Have Some Fun!

If you're in a PTO and you're not having fun - STOP!

You owe it to yourself, your fellow PTO members and your school to stop, take a step back and re-evaluate. 

You and your PTO group should be having fun!

So, instead of being passive and behind or whatever else may be impacting your collective happiness, start the year off with these helpful hints:

1) Survey parents.  Ask parents what fun events they would like to attend and what theme they would like for the events.  Parents who have 'bought in' so to speak will be happier and more supportive of the events.

2) Outline your year.  Provide an outline to administration and the principal that has the event titles and descriptions, cost and manpower estimates and any outcomes you would anticipate.  With everyone 'in the know', you will have little or no resistance to creating successful and fun events under the terms you outlined!

3) Don't take on too much.  If possible, focus your efforts on fewer overall items but be determined to do each of these efforts with vigor and excellence.  If you can achieve high marks on fewer efforts, you will have not only have more success but you will have more fun!

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Thank you for looking!  If you enjoyed the content here, please share the link www.believejay.blogspot.com with friends and co-workers.  I'd appreciate any comments or feedback below as well.  Believe Kids is a school fundraising company with the philosophy that we can change the way school funding and school fundraising work through education and hard work.  Thanks so much!!!

Do Students Know Where School Valuables & Cash are Kept for Safe Keeping?

Schools need a safe place to keep money.

Perhaps from fundraising efforts or petty cash or funds from ticket sales or other events. It's pretty much a fact nowadays that there will be some need for safekeeping in schools for a variety of reasons.

So, why is it that stories about stolen money continue to surface such as this one where $1,000 was stolen... I could probably find hundreds of additional examples with a bit of research as well. Take a look:

Thieves steal school kids' fundraising money

This type of thing basically resonates with me in two ways:

1) Keep all valuables in a safe and limit access to just two accountable people - then record them.

2) Prevent anyone who does not keep their valuables in the safe from complaining or otherwise going to the press or police when things go bad.

Prevention is pretty darn easy. A heavy safe, memorized combination by principal and a third party that is responsible for checking things in and out and keeping a log of contents. Maybe even have a two signature policy on the log when items are checked in or out.

Keep the safe hidden from students and watch out for hidden cameras from resourceful students that want the combination.

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Side note: Aren't there night deposits at banks where businesses leave their daily sales? Huh. Maybe a policy by which all money collected over $100 needs to be put in a drop box immediately without ever staying at the school. To the best of my knowledge anyone can make a deposit easily with just a deposit slip.

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Back to the safe and camera idea - here you have two potential security risks: the principal and the third party. Put a security camera on there in case you really want to know if someone other than the designated two have accessed the safe. Make this hosting of video files elsewhere so they can't be tampered with.

If you want to get really tricky, record the safe without the knowledge of the two folks in charge of the safe :)

Bada bing!

Anyone who get's their fundraising money stolen from then on who doesn't check it into the safe is out of luck and they should not turn that crime in to police. Just sweep that theft quitly under the rug.

If you know you will have large amounts of cash on-hand, have a plan, then have a backup plan, have insurance, hire a security guard if needed. Just make sure you don't leave large amounts of money around in a compromising location - EVER!

Don't let students follow the cash around and don't leave them in charge of it. Don't let them count it. Don't keep thousands of dollars in one location where a thief can walk up and snatch it:

Teen Suspected in Fundraising Event Theft

I bet the thieves in both of these stories saw that money go into the 'hiding place' it was stolen from which means that in both cases, these thefts were completely avoidable.

If you leave your fundraising or event money laying around for people to follow you are creating a temptation. A temptation can become a crime very easily from that point if there are no real barriers remaining to them having the money.

Create barriers!

• Plans to hide money are barriers
• Safes are barriers
• A few hand-selected people in charge are barriers
• Recording devices are barriers
• Security guards are barriers

If you don't do some of these suggestions or even consult an expert, when money is stolen, the story shouldn't be about the awful criminal that needs to be brought to justice. Hey, I am not even remotely saying that I condone the thefts and I absolutely know it's wrong any way you cut it.



But if you make it this easy, the story should be about how you failed to protect the money.

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Jay Moneta is the Vice President of Believe Kids Fundraising. I am not a security expert, nor am I even up to snuff on security policies at schools. I also don't know all of the details involving these cases so if my facts are inaccurate I apologize. I really feel that in many ways, schools and groups should take their responsibilities up a notch in areas such as this. If you read blogs and news stories, you will see this type of thing over and over again. I sincerely hope that one person changes the way they think about how to protect themselves from theft at their school - just one.

Thanks for the opportunity. I can be reached on twitter - twitter.com/BelieveKids or via comment on this website. If you like what you read here, please pass on a link to this site - www.believejay.blogspot.com

Thanks!

Elementary School Fundraising Prizes and Prize Programs

If you have been involved with fundraising at your school, you are certainly aware that there are many ways to get students and parents excited about your elementary school fundraising efforts.

The basis for a good promotion of your fundraiser will likely be a student prize program. Most fundraising companies offer these and some are better than others. Schools also can purchase product on their own if they want the extra work.

A student prize program that is cumulative is the most effective. These student prize programs allow students to earn numerous prizes depending on how many items they have sold.

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Self-Promotion Warning:
In the following sentences, I tell you how great we are.

Make sure to get the highest quality prize program you can. There are reports of cheap prizes out there and if you purchase them yourself, try to get the highest quality items you can.

Believe Kids fall prize program is very good. If you need a prize program to compare to, let me know. Believe Kids offers 11 cumulative prize levels. There are 4 prizes at 10 items sold and the top item is at 125 items. You won't believe the items being offered either. Please get in touch if you would like to see it. You will get a sense of what a truly exceptional prize program is.

End self-promotion

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On top of a student prize program, many times one or more incentives or goal rewards will be offered. These could be really anything that adds to the excitement of the fundraiser because of hitting goals, rewarding top-sellers, daily incentives or group rewards.

Here are a few ideas in no particular order that cost a lot of money:

Lunch Limo Ride
BMX Show
Video Game Truck

In these scenarios, a fundraising company will likely pay these for you and they should not take profit percentage away. I have heard of some companies taking 5-10% of profits for these events. I would recommend that you work it out in terms of the cost of the event instead of a percentage - if your sale does well, you would be spending a lot more than the event costs to host.

If you are hosting your own fundraiser of some sort, make sure that the money these efforts cost do not make your fundraiser profits suffer. I read about a $700 gross fundraiser that a school held where they incentivised it with a $400 estimated limo ride. You really have to be careful about these things. These incentives work best when enhancing your highest-profit fundraisers.

Here is a quick list of a few promotions that don't cost much:

Invite a student to be principal for a day
Lunch with principal or favorite teacher
Movie & Popcorn with principal or favorite teacher
Ice cream social for top-selling class
Ice cream for entire school when goal is hit
Principal gets a mohawk when goal is hit
Principal spends day in tree (or other zany idea) when goal is hit
Duct Tape faculty to wall (be careful with this as there has been some sexual related problem lately. Always cover personal parts with cardboard before taping.)

There are some daily drawings that also work well... Consider these:

Some sort of treat for children who hit their sales goals (yes, I guess I mean candy and yes, my kids eat too much of it already so I am hesitant here).
Have a drawing of an iPod or some sort of popular electronic item
Purchase various prizes and have a drawing every day the fundraiser is going on.

If you put some incentives into your fundraiser the results will follow. You can rely on a fundraising company to help or do it yourself. In the end, anything you can do to build excitement around the fundraiser will help create success.

Thanks for looking!

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Jay Moneta is the Vice President of Believe Kids Fundraising and can be reached via comment on any of my blog posts, at www.BelieveKids.com or on twitter - twitter.com/BelieveKids

I wrote this one pretty fast so it is not my best work. I still would love any comments, feedback or suggestions you would like to offer. Thanks so much!

Principal Helps School Fundraiser Hit Goal - Faculty Support Important in Fundraising Success!

It's refreshing to see. When a principal gets behind a fundraiser, everyone wins! Take for instance, this Minnesota school principal that took the plunge when the school reached their spring fundraising goal. This polar bear club dive unified the students, parents and faculty to pull together to accomplish a goal.

Unfortunately, without the support of faculty, fundraising efforts can go from wild successes to dismal failures. Over time, lack-luster fundraising efforts can create an environment where parents become accustomed to not participating because they realize that proper encouragement by faculty does not exist.

As a national fundraising company, we love to see this kind of support for the efforts of the school. We also get to see the results when the faculty doesn't get behind them. It's clear from our behind-the-scenes perspective that their involvement creates fundraising success.

Thought for the day: Any effort with a unified front, produces better results. This is the case for so many things. A strong group promoting an activity or event will have a much better success rate over a group that is divided and uninterested.

If you want your fundraiser to succeed, get behind it!