School Fundraising: Engage Your School with Team Fundraising
There are a ton of benefits to creating a team fundraising campaign for your next school fundraiser.
With the school year starting back up, it’s a good time to start planning your fundraisers for the year-ahead. It seems there is never a shortage of things to fundraise for at your school: field trips, in-class parties, supplies for the classroom and more.
The case for starting a fundraiser is pretty obvious. But, did you know that there are even more benefits when you start a team fundraising campaign? Much like the actual benefits of working in a team environment, there can be a number of benefits associated with team fundraising.
Here are some of the benefits of using team fundraising for your next school fundraiser:
Lower costs than with traditional school fundraisers
It’s likely that your students are involved in some sort of school fundraiser: Selling tickets to a play, a candy bar sale or wax candle fundraiser. But, there are overhead costs associated with these campaigns and a lot of management to make sure orders are fulfilled and products are delivered.
With team fundraising, those costs are minimized — all the funds raised (sans processing fees) go directly to the school, and there are no products to worry about being shipped and delivered to their recipients. Plus, it’s safer than asking children to walk door-to-door in their neighborhood selling goods.
In the digital age, even the youngest students understand the power of the Internet and are savvy enough to share their fundraiser with friends and family. Plus, it’s a great way to introduce them to the positive benefits of staying connected via the worldwide web.
Make students, staff and parents feel accountable for the school’s success
One of the easiest ways to make an individual appreciate something is to give them a stake in it: the new features on the playground are contingent on how much the school community raises for it. The more you raise, the better it will be!
Help students understand the value of hard work and to know that the harder they work, the more they’ll be rewarded for their effort. For older students, making it competitive with a leaderboard can also help instill real life lessons. If you’re looking to keep it friendly, you can sort your leaderboard alphabetically and skip the competition.
For parents and staff, sometimes school fundraising can seem like another burden in already an already expensive time of year — school supplies, new clothes, field trips and sports equipment, among other things. But, team fundraising can help parents spread the message about why this funding is important and keep them engaged in the school’s budget initiatives.
The American Preparatory Academy increased participation for their annual 5K by hosting a team fundraiser online in 2017 and encouraging students to create a fundraiser. Overall, their team raised more than $32,000 for their budget initiatives with more than 200 team members.
Help build camaraderie among students
With team fundraising, working together is the best way to achieve success. If every student focuses on their own story and their own fundraiser, they’ll likely miss the bigger picture. Encourage students to use a common story about how this team fundraiser will help everyone, and make sure to provide key messages to ensure consistency. The more a donor hears a message, the more likely they will be to help.
For instance, a group of fraternities and sororities started a team fundraiser for Oak Cliff Freedom School to help them get needed costs for the upcoming school year. They used the same key message that $400 would provide healthy meals, internship leaders, field trips and more for students. Knowing the impact of their fundraising helped them raise more than $4,000.
One of the biggest values instilled in team players is that your success hinges on communicating and working well together with your other team members. Team fundraising provides the opportunity for those same values to be present: The team page displays a thermometer, so all students are working towards the same overall goal. If one team member is struggling, the other team members can help them out with tips and insight into what worked well for them.
Plus, when team members hit their own personal goals they can help by sharing their classmate’s page with friends and family to help them surpass their goal. This may help build the confidence of that classmate and remind them that they’re not alone and are part of a team working towards a common goal.
Next steps
There are a ton of other benefits to creating a team fundraising campaign for your next school fundraiser. To learn more about team fundraising on Mightycause, visit our team resources page. And, for more inspiration for your next team fundraiser, register for our school team fundraising webinar on August 22.