How to Make Your Next School Fundraiser a Huge Success

School fundraisers are a great way to raise money for school programs, activities, supplies, field trips, and more. With some planning and creativity, you can make your next school fundraiser a huge success. Here are some tips to help make it happen.

Choose the Right Fundraiser

The first step is choosing the right type of fundraiser for your school and community. Consider things like:

• What gets people excited and willing to participate? Bake sales, carnivals, talent shows, raffles, etc.
• What appeals to both students and parents? Activities families can do together work well.
• What fits within your budget? Some fundraisers require more upfront costs.
• What offers the best profit margins? The more money you keep per item sold, the better.

Pick a Theme

Adding a fun theme to your fundraiser helps get people interested and emotionally invested. Themes build anticipation and excitement around the event. Classic themes like carnivals, game nights, fiestas, or decades (80s, 90s, etc.) are always crowd pleasers. You can even brand the event with the theme.

Get the Word Out

Start promoting the fundraiser well in advance across all channels. Post on the school website, social media, send emails, put up flyers around town, and send announcements home. Ask students to tell their parents. The more buzz you generate, the better the turnout will be.

Offer Incentives

Sweeten the deal by offering incentives for participation. For students, this might be extra credit, dress down days, or prizes for top sellers. For parents, consider raffle tickets or naming donors on a thank you banner at the event. Or have a brick wall where people pay to add a message to a decorative brick.

Having levels of prizes or rewards based on total items sold or money raised gives people goals to shoot for.

Make it Fun and Exciting

A boring, lame fundraiser won’t inspire many people. Come up with fun activities, challenges, contests, games, and ways for people to interact and participate. Get creative with how you make the fundraiser unique and different. Offer interactive experiences people will remember and want to come back for year after year.

Fun activities like obstacle courses from an obstacle course rental company will make it an event to remember.

Give it Meaning

Help people understand where the money is going by sharing what programs, resources, and activities it will fund. Show them the impact their participation will have. Let students vote on where to direct funds. People will be more inclined to get involved if they know exactly how they’re helping the school.

Make it Easy to Participate

Convenience encourages involvement. Accept cash, checks, credit cards, and online payments via your school website. Offer easy options to collect money like having students go door to door in their neighborhood. Provide order forms they can share. The simpler you make the process, the better the results.

With a well-planned, exciting fundraiser that’s heavily promoted and incentivized, you’re on your way to making your school’s next fundraiser its most successful one yet!