| School Fundraising Tip - Post a Fundraising Calendar
By Jennifer Lawton
In many communities there are a variety of fundraisers going on at any one time. This is especially true for school districts. If your group’s fundraiser overlaps with another’s, your fundraising success could be in jeopardy. You definitely don’t want to try to do a candy fundraiser during Girl Scout Cookie Time!
Publishing your school group’s plans on a central calendar will help make sure that there are no overlaps. It also helps publicize your fundraiser in advance.
Highland District 5 in Illinois recently decided to go one step further and put its fundraising calendar online. The calendar includes any fundraiser approved by the schools, booster clubs and parent teacher groups.
The benefits of publishing an online fundraising calendar are:
- The calendar lets other groups know when others will be doing fundraisers so there will not be overlaps.
- Groups can see the types of fundraisers that other organizations are doing so that they do not choose the same one.
- When groups know what others are doing they can potentially partner with them instead of doing their own fundraiser. This can generate more success for both groups and reduce volunteer time and strain on the community.
- Adding extra curricular and community group fundraisers helps too. Your calendar can specify which groups are school groups and which ones are not simply with an asterisk or a different color text.
- There’s a definite publicity benefit for having fundraisers on the calendar. It will help spread the word about your plans. Reporters can find your information online and may want to do a story in the newspaper or TV about your school’s fundraiser!
- Parents and other community wide supporters will know what to expect and when. They can plan their own schedules accordingly and decide which activities they want to volunteer or attend.
- Your school groups will have an extra incentive to plan fundraisers in advance. Advance planning helps ensure a more successful fundraiser!
Your school board and administration should encourage or even require all groups to submit their fundraising information to get on the calendar. Of course the sooner the groups get on the calendar the better, so your school groups should get on the calendar as soon as the fundraiser dates are set.
Let everyone know about the calendar with links on your website and flyers home to parents. Notices and articles in the local paper will also help get the word out about the calendar. Just like anything you will need to continue to remind people about the online calendar so that they can remember to use it.
Once the teachers, parents and others in community are aware of the calendar it will help them in planning their own school fundraisers.
Jennifer Lawton is a contributor at SuperFundraiser.com. With its unique Fundraising Matchmaker system, schools sports teams and youth groups can save time and raise more funds.
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