All Moms On Deck For Online Fundraising and Volunteerism

The recent controversy surrounding women’s choice to stay home or pursue a career brings to mind something I’ve observed and embraced these past few years as a mom of school-aged children.  Regardless of each person’s own choice, it takes that proverbial village to raise a child and to provide the support needed to bolster that child’s school experience.  There’s not only room for but need for both the moms who stay at home and the moms who work, within the school support ecosystem.

As a Kindergarten parent I found that, overwhelmingly, parents wanted to be involved in their kids’ education.  Families with one parent at home tended to have more time but less money to give to support the school.  Families with both parents or a single parent working tended to have less time but more money to give.  Each parent had value, which served the school and its students best when pooled.
But the idea of combining forces for good broke down to a degree because we weren’t reaching both “sects” of the school’s families.

Communication within the school’s Home & School Club (a non-association version of a PTA) was not doing a proper job of making the most of what every family had to offer.  The main methods of communication in play, drop-off/pick-up time conversations, posters on classroom doors, and a paper flier envelope system, kept the moms who were regularly at school the most in the loop.  This wasn’t in any way a premeditated approach but one of convenience.  Key parent organization roles were held by moms who either stayed at home or worked part-time, allowing them more time to be present at school to plan the next school fundraising event or lend a hand in the classroom.  Parents whose work schedules required their kids be in after-school care were uninformed of many opportunities to help the school simply because they weren’t where the information was.

It was the beginning of tough economic times in the US, 2008-2009.  Fundraising and volunteerism needed a kick-start, and making sure the whole school community was tuned to the needs was key.  Change was in order.

We expanded the reach of Communication.

• We launched a new email newsletter alongside the traditional Wednesday envelope.  We found immediately that parents were reading the weekly messages we sent in great numbers, from their desks at work, their mobile devices, and from home in that sacred hour of peace once the kids were nestled all snug in their beds. Using an email marketing program (Constant Contact, MailChimp, and Vertical Response are a few good ones) allowed our Home & School Club to gauge the effectiveness of our messages and keep our parent email list up-to-date.
• Adding links to online volunteer sign-ups (Jooners and VolunteerSpot are a couple to check out) resulted in immediate commitments of time and skill from both working and stay-at-home parents. Something as fundamental and meaningful to students as the class Halloween party was opened up to online sign-ups to allow busy moms to contribute a hand or send a dish.

As families took to online communication, the stacks of paper that once accumulated on the kitchen counter dwindled to a few sheets highlighting key information. Overall, parents became better informed and more involved.  Both stay-at-home parents and those commuting to work everyday focused on the communication method that best suited their lives.  Not just because we went online, but because we gave parents better and more succinct information in a form relevant to their world of chaos(!).

We expanded School Fundraising.  When it came to the increasing challenge of funding school programs, online fundraising made greater fundraising possible.

• To give the Annual Giving Drive a boost, we offered an alternative to writing a check through online fundraising, reaching dual-income families with convenient one-time credit card payments and giving families on tighter budgets the option to make automatic recurring payments throughout the school year.  About 40% chose online fundraising and averaged significantly higher donations than those writing checks.

• The School Walkathon presented an even better avenue to increased donations.  Since walkathons are designed around the concept of gathering pledges to support a student’s effort, online fundraising was the perfect play.  We needed to make it easy for parents to reach more supporters and convenient for supporters to donate, versus the traditional cash/check approach.  Again, more than 40% of families opted for online, resulting in more than twice the level of donations we received on paper.  We were seeing donations from North Carolina, Illinois, Texas, California, Canada, Spain, Japan, Guam, and even New Zealand.  Talk about going global!

While still a work in progress, three years later our school is better in sync and able to handle growing volunteer and funding needs because we’ve taken the care to address and welcome the value of both stay-at-home moms and working moms (and the dads who also deserve credit!).

And since, I’ve had the fulfilling experience of guiding other schools to successfully navigate the shift to online communication and online fundraising.
I’m particularly excited to be a part of Fundly’s 12 Schools in 12 Weeks Challenge to give schools the chance to increase their walkathon (and other a-thon) fundraising with one-on-one support and professionally-developed communications.

Every mom is valuable, not only at home but at school.  The key is to embrace what each brings to the table, whether time, experience, skill, resources, or money, and create an environment where every parent is in the loop on their kid’s education.  Just for kicks, calculate your mom’s work worth and remember that everything you make the effort to give makes a difference at your local school.

PTA Fundraising – How to Earn Money for the PTA

PTA fundraising is often times a grueling process that produces very few results in the end. Most potential donors do not like PTA fundraisers if they are not actually a part of them. On top of that, some fundraising campaigns cost a lot of money, making it very hard for a school to actually earn any money to use. If you have been struggling to get your fundraisers to work out, you might think about moving your efforts to the internet. Here is a look at how the web may help your fundraising success.

Most people do not like to attend a PTA fundraising event because it takes away time from their already busy schedule. That is why you may not be able to make much money from a bake sale or raffle because the people actually have to come to you. With online PTA fundraisers, you can bring your needs to the donors. That will make people want to donate to you more because they can do that right from their computers. They will not have to take time out of their schedules to make a donation to your cause.

When you have PTA fundraisers online, you can actually see what is happening with different fundraisers at the same time. The processing part is convenient because the computer does all of the calculations for you, so all you have to do is monitor how much money you are making every day. With this kind of PTA fundraising, you can have tons of different fundraisers going on at once, and then you can combine all the money they earn into one account for you to pull out. The process makes PTA fundraising far easier to get through in the end.

The best part about PTA fundraising online is that you can reach a ton of people through some simple efforts. The site that you use for your PTA fundraisers should be able to help you market your fundraisers, but if not, you can always use social networking sites to spread the word. That way you reach as many people as possible every time you go to earn money. Raising money for the PTA does not have to be challenging if you know what you are doing. You can use the internet to collect all the funding you want and more. With the right efforts, you will have all your money in no time.

For free fundraising tools that will help you effectively raise money online for your pta fundraisers, you can create, manage, and track the success of an unlimited amount of pta fundraising campaigns today by using a robust online fundraising platform. Fundraise with ease for your pta fundraiser now by using these free and easy to use, PTA fundraising tools.

PTA Fundraising Online Helps Teachers, Parents, and Students Progress

PTA fundraising has been a long time tradition amongst both teachers and parents within a community. This is a time-honored dedication to helping students learn and enrich their education.

Most people have participated in at least some form of PTA fundraising campaign at one point or another during their lives. This is mostly due to the fact that almost every school whether public or parochial has a PTA association that works toward improving the academic lives of their students. Therefore, PTA fundraisers are constantly held for acquire better materials for their classrooms to help their students get a better education.

Everyone wants to see their child have a better education and this is why PTA fundraising is so important. It fills a necessary void that either the state or the teachers cannot fill on their own. It allows more money to come directly into the classroom to help teachers give their children a better academic life. Most schools only reach out to their community, which is a slight mistake. PTA fundraising should really try to find a broader spectrum that they could advertise through instead of their small communities.

However, some of the best PTA fundraising campaigns have been the work that has been accomplished online. To raise money online, parent teacher associations really need to be cognizant of the audience that you wish to reach out to and raise money from. Now, this audience may not just be limited to the people in your city or town. It may be a cause that affects people across the entire country and therefore it would be a good idea to broaden the search for donators to the entire world rather than just your own city or town.
To do this you will want to try to use larger medium to raise money online. These channels will most likely include using email, blogs, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. You may be familiar with one or even all of these mediums; however they can be used to great effect in raising money for your PTA cause. These mediums can help you to reach across the world and broaden your exposure to people and places that you would not be able to on a regular basis.

PTA fundraising online typically uses some or all of these programs in their quest to raise money over the internet and the world. PTA fundraisers may be happening right now in your own town. Go and check your local paper, you would be hard pressed to find an issue that some sort of because that was not trying to raise money for some sort of charity or organization.

PTA fundraising has a wonderful history of kindness and humility that should be considered the next time you try to either raise money for a parent teach association or when you may think about giving back to a PTA fundraiser.These PTA fundraisers seek to help parents, teachers, and students do things they may not be able to do with the dwindling education budgets that plague our society.

PTA Fundraising – How to Earn Money for the PTA

PTA fundraising is often times a grueling process that produces very few results in the end. Most potential donors do not like PTA fundraisers if they are not actually a part of them. On top of that, some fundraising campaigns cost a lot of money, making it very hard for a school to actually earn any money to use. If you have been struggling to get your fundraisers to work out, you might think about moving your efforts to the internet. Here is a look at how the web may help your fundraisingsuccess.

Most people do not like to attend a PTA fundraising event because it takes away time from their already busy schedule. That is why you may not be able to make much money from a bake sale or raffle because the people actually have to come to you. With online PTA fundraisers, you can bring your needs to the donors. That will make people want to donate to you more because they can do that right from their computers. They will not have to take time out of their schedules to make a donation to your cause.

When you have PTA fundraisers online, you can actually see what is happening with different fundraisers at the same time. The processing part is convenient because the computer does all of the calculations for you, so all you have to do is monitor how much money you are making every day. With this kind of PTA fundraising, you can have tons of different fundraisers going on at once, and then you can combine all the money they earn into one account for you to pull out. The process makes PTA fundraising far easier to get through in the end.

The best part about PTA fundraising online is that you can reach a ton of people through some simple efforts. The site that you use for your PTA fundraisers should be able to help you market your fundraisers, but if not, you can always use social networking sites to spread the word. That way you reach as many people as possible every time you go to earn money. Raising money for the PTA does not have to be challenging if you know what you are doing. You can use the internet to collect all the funding you want and more. With the right efforts, you will have all your money in no time.

PTA Fundraising Ideas – Fundraise Online the Easy Way Today

If you are on the PTA committee at your children’s school and looking for PTA fundraising ideas, the best way for you to succeed is to fundraise online. The internet offers more tools to help you in your PTA fundraising efforts. With social media platforms, you can create campaigns in a few minutes and send out message to a larger population of people who want to donate to your cause.

Fundly is an online fundraising platform that will allow you to have an easy and successful PTA fundraising campaign. You can register on it for free, set up your campaign and with few clicks, you can send a campaign message to your social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and others. The social media platform also sends the campaign to web channels so you can gain more exposure. This is where you can see the power of the internet. Your campaign goes viral and this could bring donations from other places where there are donors willing to help you raise more funds.

PTA fundraisers are important components of the school curriculum. Considering the uncertainties of the economy, it really makes a lot of sense for parents of the committee to join hands in raising more money for the school’s project. The growing need of the students for the latest equipments and books needed for more competitive learning can be addressed through fundraising rather than depending alone on the government funding. With the help of Fundly, you can be sure that the school of your child obtains the money they need by spreading the word and giving exposure to your cause to a lot of people.

Fundraising online has been regarded more pretty more effective than the offline activities such as car washes, bake sales, dinner events and others. You will be able to help you child raise the funds they need in school. The good thing is there are countless PTA fundraising ideas the internet offers today. You can choose from among which you think is effective for other fundraisers. Fundly has a great compilation of PTA fundraising ideas that are easy to do and most importantly proven effective to help you make money online for your association.

You can sign up a free Fundly account in a quick way to immediately start raising money online. Then you can share the fundraising links to your friends, family, students, and fellow students along with the other contacts in your social network and those involved with the PTA who are using Facebook and other social networking sites. Once you complete your PTA fundraising donation page, you can start sharing messages with the link to your fundraising page.

In order for you to succeed even more, you can optimize your PTA fundraisers. This is possible through the free web and social media tools that Fundly offers. Aside from that, it also has simple and easy to use analytics dashboard to help you make sound decisions for your fundraising campaign. Fundly allows you to reach out to a lot of potential donors and supporters who in one way or another will bring success into your fundraising campaigns.

PTA Fundraising Ideas for your PTA Fundraisers

When schools are low on funds, they look for effective fundraiser ideas to reduce their shortfall. School heads must make use of all the available resources to deal with the crisis, often asking the Parent Teacher Association for assistance. This is where PTA fundraising ideas come into play. Being a member of a PTA, it is your responsibility to come up with creative PTA fundraiser ideas and strategies for running successful fundraisers.

When it comes to PTA fundraising ideas, you have two options; to go for the traditional methods or come up with a new approach. Selling candies, wrapping papers and cookie dough have always worked very well. These days, however, things are different. Selling unhealthy stuff to raise money for kids isn’t considered appropriate anymore. In fact, the sale of unhealthful items has been banned during regular school hours in many places.

Apart from the obvious health reasons, PTA fundraising ideas have also moved past usual fundraisers because there are a large number of schools offering similar stuff. Nowadays, you can find five or ten schools within a few miles of each other. And if each one of them is selling candies, chances are that the idea of buying another box of candies won’t appeal too much to potential donors.

In this situation, what should you do to raise money for the school? Well, the most effective PTA fundraising ideas in this case are the ones that are based around a theme. Try to find something that your school may be interested in. The biggest advantage of this approach is that it brings in all types of new, exciting products you can sell for the fundraiser. Here are some the most popular PTA fundraisers:

Carnivals: In recent times, holding carnivals to raise funds has become one of the favorite PTA fundraising ideas at schools. Most schools have fundraising carnivals each year where a range of activities and products are offered to raise money.

Custom souvenirs: This is one of the easiest PTA fundraiser ideas. You can design logo t-shirts, mugs, badges, school bags or pencil cases for your school and sell them to raise funds.

Online magazine: Not only is this type of fundraiser free to begin with but will also cost your school nothing in the future. All you need to do is to set up an online magazine, send out emails to students and parents, and ask them to send emails to their family and friends. The money charged for subscriptions can be used to finance school expenses. This fundraiser is ongoing and can allow you to raise money throughout the year.

Recycle fundraiser: As people are becoming increasingly concerned about the environment, recycle fundraising can prove to be one of the most profitable and successful PTA fundraising ideas. You can ask parents to give you any used cell phones or printer ink cartridges. Your schools can then ship them for free and receive payments.

PTA Fundraising Online: The fundraisers mentioned above about PTA fundraising activities can be quite expensive. Yet, fundraising online for a PTA fundraiser is simple, less time consuming, and ultimately much more productive in raising more money for your cause. By creating an online fundraising campaign, you can raise money via your website, blog, Facebook, Twitter, and more while allowing your supporters to raise money on behalf of your PTA fundraising campaign today.