Fundraising News Roundup: Educational Institutions See Fundraising Success

So far, 2012 has been a good year for fundraising at educational institutions around the country. Many have set new goals, while others have shattered records with the help of social networking. Whether it’s to support operations, aid students in obtaining school supplies and learning materials, or to help colleagues in need, schools and colleges have been raising money like never before. Here’s a roundup of some of the week’s developments:

Urban Montessori: Urban Montessori, the nation’s first public Montessori, Design Thinking and Arts Integration school, is looking for donations to help pay for materials not covered by state funds, and the school’s leaders have taken to Fundly.com to garner support. The school needs classroom furniture, library books and supplies for art, design and music projects. With a deadline of August 1, Urban Montessori is already more than halfway to its $50,000 goal.

University of Wisconsin: Biomedical engineering students with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Standing Paraplegic Operating Room Device Group have kicked off a Fundly campaign to raise money for a project they hope will have far-reaching benefits. In 2010, Dr. Garrett Cuppels, an orthopedic surgeon, suffered a spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the waist down. The Madison team is hoping to raise $10,000 to help fund a new device that will not only help Dr. Cuppels return to his work at the operating table, but will help paraplegics around the country to gain increased mobility.

University of Southern Mississippi: Fundraising records for all previous years were shattered recently when the University of Southern Mississippi announced that it had raised $20.3 million during the 2012 fiscal year, the Hattiesburg American reported. While alumni donations and gifts from foundations registered in the millions of dollars, USM’s Vice President for Advancement told the source that the real outstanding success of the fundraising campaign was the $435,000 raised through independent student and faculty efforts.

Jefferson School City Center: Located in downtown Charlottesville, Virginia, the Jefferson School City Center will be the new home of several different groups dedicated to health and education. One of those groups, Common Ground Healing Arts, hosted a unique fundraising event to raise money to complete its therapeutic health facility: a sit-a-thon. The non-profit’s organizers enlisted the help of friends and colleagues in their fundraising efforts, according to C-Ville, Charlottesville’s news and arts magazine.

Oakland Public School Board: Over in California, the Oakland Public School system is gearing up for election season, but not the one most people are thinking of. Four seats have opened up on the local school board, and Great Oakland Public Schools is looking for $10,000 to help fund the candidates it supports. The Fundly campaign has so far raised more than half its goal.

Fundraising for the Arts: Recently, Agnes Gund, president emeritus of the Manhattan Museum of Modern Art, challenged her peers in the arts community to improve their online and social fundraising initiatives to keep up with fundraising in other sectors, reported Nonproftit Quarterly. Speaking to attendees at the Crain’s Arts and Culture Breakfast, she said: “We are late adapters of social media, of the interactive ways of dealing that are now common among the young,” according to the source.

You Ask, We Answer! Getting Donors Involved with Social Media

We are getting asked some great questions from nonprofit leaders pertaining to online fundraising during our weekly Tweet Ups. Here are the expanded answers that will hopefully help with your social media fundraising goals.

Q: When sharing my story with potential donors, which works better: videos or pictures?
 
A: Both are great tools. Video can often captivate donors with a greater connection through music, voices, images, and words. It can give more depth to a story, show your personality, and create a stronger emotional pull. While having a professionally made video is great, it is also costly and time consuming. Depending on your cause and the size of the organization, an amateur piece that is interesting and sincere can be just as effective. (Consider the immense number of videos on YouTube.) On Fundly we have a broad spectrum of videos that are uploaded to fundraising pages which range from kids raising money for their schools to large organizations raising tens of thousands of dollars for their cause. While not every visitor to the page clicks on the play button, I’ve never known of a promotional video that hinders donations.

With that said, pictures are also extremely important for that reason: not everyone has the time or interest to watch a promo video. I believe that having some images are a must to grab attention and create a stronger emotional tie. Fundraising is about creating relationships and knowing who you are giving to, both the organization and the patron of the charity, which allows the donor to form a touchstone of who they are helping. In this fast paced and visual society, you need to grab attention and get your point across the fastest way you can.

Q: What is the best avenue to get people involved with my cause? Social networks, email, or street teams?
 
A: Email is definitely one of the most effective ways to communicate with supporters and has the capacity for the most information. Think about how you compiled your e-mail list in the first place; it was probably through an interest that a person had in your cause and gave a donation, volunteered, or filled out an information card at an event. With e-mails, you are communicating with people who care about your mission which is half the battle!

Social networks are also valuable for getting people involved with your cause. It casts a broader net than e-mails alone. While e-mails are reaching specific people you know, networking sites can advertise your cause to friends of your supporters therefore attracting potential donors.

Q: I have recently decided to run for office, what is the best way to jump start my fundraising campaign?

A: Tell your story, why you’re running, reach out to everyone you know, and encourage them to create personal fundraising pages. The best way for a candidate to get support is word of mouth. Generate interest on social networking sites and have your voters “Like” you on Facebook or tweet about your campaign. Advertise events, where to get signage, or how to volunteer using Facebook, Twitter, and e-mail.

Q: What do you find more effective: suggested giving levels or open donation forms?

A: Utilize both! Suggested levels help donors determine need and make the process easier, open forms give more freedom. Generically speaking, I would take the average donation amount and start a giving level at 50% of that amount then work up accordingly. For example, if the average gift was $50 I would increment the giving levels at $25, $50, $100, $150, and $200. I would also certainly leave a space for whatever the person could give emphasizing that no gift is too small. I would also consider the project that the donations are being used for and the supporters which you are including in your campaign. If you are raising money for school supplies for 100 kids, you wouldn’t necessarily ask for $200. If you are sending letters to your top donors to sponsor a new wing to your building, $200 is a miniscule amount. You may also want to use the formula that if 10% of your donors give to your project, how much would that average out per person and work from there.

Q: We are throwing a school fundraiser, is there a way to get students involved?
 
A: Getting students involved is always a good idea.  Encourage them to create personal fundraising pages and set goals! What grandparent could resist little Johnny in a video asking in a squeaky voice “Could you please donate to my school’s library so we can have some new books?”  (Check out this post for a great example used on Fundly.) Also, what kid doesn’t love a little friendly competition? You could have a contest and give a prize to the kid with the best video. You could have each class create a webpage and post how much each has raised. You could send e-mails to the parents to get them on board. Take a ton of pictures and post them online to keep the momentum going and to have inspiration for next year’s fundraiser. The possibilities are endless!

Due to the Fourth of July we will not be having our Tweet up this week. However, if you have a question about online fundraising that you want to ask one of our Fundly professionals, we would love to hear from you for our next Tweet Up! Please leave a question in the comment section below or follow #fundraisingtips on Twitter every Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time.

Student Videos Capture the Heart of School Fundraising

Innovative schools in Silicon Valley pushed the limits of school fundraising with Fundly this Spring. Equipped with Fundly’s social fundraising platform and professionally developed collateral, they brought school fundraising into the 21^st century.



Parents were able to create a personal fundraising page for their student, personalizing with photos, video, and a message to supporters. With this tool, they could reach family and friends around the globe to support the arts, technology, and teacher development with a simple online donation.

School fundraising is not new, but with budget cuts, larger class sizes, and a variety of student needs that need to be met, it has become an important part of ensuring success with both academic curriculum and extracurricular activities. While many teachers are overwhelmed with the daily duties of running a classroom full of kids and parents are filling in the gaps with volunteer hours, they don’t have the time or energy to dedicate to complicated fundraisers. Online fundraising has proven that schools can find greater success using the internet without investing more resources.

Fundly recently held the 12 Schools in 12 Weeks Online Fundraising Challenge to prove that schools could raise more money using social media than with traditional methods alone. Guadalupe Home and School Club, the parent-teacher organization supporting Guadalupe Elementary School, was one of the participating schools.  While they had successfully held their walkathon fundraiser online in the past, Fundly was appealing because it came with communication tools to motivate families to sign up and  built-in social media to make it simple to “share” the chance to support the school.  The Home & School Club was given a Fundraiser’s Toolkit including a vinyl banner, fliers, posters, give-away items, and exclusive online features to promote their annual walkathon.



Going online can be a great way for parents to reach more people, but keeping the students engaged in the process is a must.  That’s where student videos come in to play.

To emphasize this point, Fundly held a “Best Video” contest, in which its employees voted for their favorite student-created video. The staff was surprisingly passionate about their favorites and after much discussion and analysis, Fundly’s VP of Marketing, Tom Kramer, visited Guadalupe School to present “Best Video” winner, Alex, with an iPod Touch in front of all his classmates.  Now Alex can practice his video-taking and -making skills all Summer to get ready for the next walkathon!

See Alex’s video for yourself (don’t worry, his mom approves):


With Fundly’s personal fundraising pages, being a part of your school fundraiser is as easy as typing a personal message and uploading pictures.  Adding a video for maximum impact, and bringing the message of support  back to the students makes all the difference.  With links to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the ability to use credit cards to donate, and access day or night, it’s no wonder that schools are finding greater results when annual fundraising events are combined with the benefits of technology.

School Fundraising Made Better Online

Fundraising is a must for many schools and organizations, but does it have to be so difficult?

I played softball when I was nine and we had to sell beef sticks for $1 to raise money for our league. The first ingredient listed was beef hearts… yuck. When I was in first grade we had a Jog-A-Thon and had to run around the parking lot as many times as we could. It took days of scrubbing to wash the Sharpie tick marks off my graffiti-ed arm (not to mention my stick legs didn’t carry me too many times around the lot). In fifth grade we had to sell tins of cookies that were miniscule in size and grandiose in price. My mom gasped when we received our order due to the discrepancy of the picture in the catalog verses the product in reality.

As we try to provide wide and varied experiences for our children to learn responsibility, coordination, and self-worth, we pollute their bodies and minds with byproducts, chemicals, and cost inflation. While I’m all for students working to support their school, there must be a better way to raise money.

When my niece was selling Christmas wreaths to fund a trip to winter camp, I asked how much of the price actually went towards her account to pay for the trip. Regardless of the size (which cost anywhere from $15 – $40), she only made $5off of each wreath. Instead of buying a decoration that will die in a couple of weeks, I now just give her the cash.

Online fundraising is a great new concept that eliminates the hassle of coordinating orders or locking people in to buying overpriced goods that they don’t really want or need. And on the topic of Teacher Appreciation Week, this is one less duty that teachers will have to worry about. Don’t they have enough on their plates?!?! A well designed website can clearly state your goal, stir emotions in the viewer to act, and make donating fast and easy.

One way to incorporate this new idea into your school fundraising strategy is to create an awesome video of your school and encourage the students to participate and share why they need a new library, P.E. equipment, or text books. Upload the video to your webpage, share the link with parents, and have them pass it on to relatives and close family friends via e-mail. If grandma is on a tight budget, she can give at a level that she feels comfortable with.

With budget cuts and larger class sizes, fundraising isn’t an option for many schools. However, how you fundraise is! Fundly can make your online fundraising easy with a website template that only takes a few minutes to complete. Every time a friend or family member donates, it gets posted on their Facebook page to encourage others to do the same.

I’m not saying that you should throw away your catalogs and bake sale signs. (What would the world do without Girl Scout cookies?!) It’s just time to try something new that can bring great results without all the hassle.

One Man’s $400 Is Another Man’s $400,000. The Power Of One Through Online Fundraising.

I just had one of those “aha” moments (Thanks, Oprah!). My personal quest to connect schools with supporters through online fundraising seems right on track.  This past week, I managed to catch the organizer of a Fundly campaign for a few minutes to hear first-hand about his high school soccer team’s goal of giving at least 5 players an experience with a community more challenged than their own.  The team’s Fundly campaign kicked off just recently.

Coach Russell and the boys soccer team of Robert E. Lee High School of Jacksonville, Florida have their sights set on a mission (of sorts) to Haiti this Summer.  Coach Russell is planning a trip with Many Hands For Haiti, to assist with soccer camps during the day and to teach English at night.  This one-week trip is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for these high school student athletes.

The team had spread the word through Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, already at the $1,800 mark of their $5,000 goal when we caught up over the phone. Realizing they had not tapped the full potential of Fundly, we decided to encourage personal supporter pages for the players.  Sure enough, the first player to jump on the opportunity raised $400 on his own right away.  That’s a significant portion of the cost to send one boy on the trip.

It occurred to me, in a world where big dollar signs drive major nonprofits and businesses to move mountains, all it takes to change the life of a child in this way is a few hundred dollars. And the personal connection of that boy to his community facilitated through online fundraising via popular social media networks gives family, friends, and community members around him the empowerment to help to change a life with one simple act of kindness.

Best of luck, Lee High School Boys Soccer Team!

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.

Pick Up a Book for Read Across America Day!

I am a certifiable bookworm. In elementary school I cherished Fridays because that was our day to visit the library and check out books.

In high school I locked myself in my bedroom with Gone With the Wind and a jar of Jelly Bellies and finished both in three days. Last year I received a Kindle for my birthday and thought the heavens had opened up and granted me a tangible miracle. With today being Read Across America Day, this is probably my version of Mardi Gras.

The National Education Association (NEA) came up with Read Across America Day in 1997 and it is annually held on March 2 because that is Dr. Seuss’ birthday. “Motivating children to read is an important factor in student achievement and creating lifelong successful readers. Research has shown that children who are motivated and spend more time reading do better in school.”

As a former high school teacher I had the privilege of being the Literacy Coach for the Social Studies Department and fully agree with the NEA’s emphasis on the importance of reading. Every Thursday the kids would groan at the thought of the half hour silent reading time on this adjusted schedule day. I would relish the moment that I would have a peaceful room of teenagers, most reading and some sleeping, all having books cracked open upon their desks. I would get a break from being both entertainer and disciplinarian and could lose myself in the pages of a novel.

From a nonprofit’s perspective, the NEA has implemented some brilliant strategies for gaining support and attention highlighting this cause. First of all, they partnered with the company behind Dr. Seuss who is obviously well-known and loved by kids of all ages. Secondly, this year their timing coincides with the release of the movie “The Lorax,” which is also gaining a lot of publicity. Finally, this year’s corporate sponsor is Mazda who has pledged up to $1 million in support of the nation’s public school libraries through a unique test drive program. This is brilliant marketing aimed at both kids and adults!

Now I know that every charity can’t put on the calendar a day to honor their cause, but reading is a broad enough topic for many schools, afterschool programs and children’s organizations to piggy back on. Send out a Facebook post, Tweet your friends and e-mail your donors to challenge them to read. Fundly is the perfect way to reach out to your supporters online and to encourage them to involved their friends. The important thing is to maintain your relationship with your donors and to stay in the forefront.

Does your child have a school fundraising campaign coming up? If so, set up a free fundraising page in minutes with Fundly and begin fundraising online right away with the support of other parents and teachers too!

5 Reasons Schools Raise More Money With Online Fundraising

It’s sometimes called “social fundraising”, “friend-raising” or “peer-to-peer fundraising” – Catchy terms for students and their families asking their friends for financial support on your school’s behalf.  It can be a powerful tool to reach more people…and their charitable donations.

The more than 98,000 public schools and nearly 29,000 private schools in the US rely heavily on donations to deliver anything from paper and pencils to arts education to technology to scholarships.  Enabling people connected to your school to reach other supporters is critical to your fundraising success.  A popular source of fundraising for many schools is the walk-a-thon (or any “a-thon” for that matter).

When the school PTA plans an event like a walk-a-thon, jog-a-thon, or read-a-thon, it relies on families to ask their networks for financial donations.   Turning students and parents into active fundraisers requires that the fundraising organizer make it:

• Convenient for the student/parents to ask
• Easy for the supporter to donate
• Simple for the volunteer to track and receive donations

But most schools haven’t caught up with the new wave of online social fundraising that is transforming how people give. Here are just 5 of the many reasons online fundraising leads to success for schools:

• Engage the parents: Online fundraising can be done any time of the day, so busy parents can stay on top of the fundraising.
• Ask more people:  Word about your fundraiser travels much faster, further and to more people by email, facebook and twitter – around the country and across the globe.
• Take donations online:  Donations are processed immediately by credit card, so it’s easy for the donor to give.  Mom no longer has to embarrassingly ask grandparents or friends to write the check for their pledge commitment (or give up and write the check herself!).
• Feature the students:  Personal fundraising webpages mean that students can show off their personalities with photos, video, and a specific message.  After all, this is for the kids!
• Stay on top of the goal:  Students and teachers can watch their personal and class team fundraising progress, which encourages them to strive for prizes and enjoy a little healthy competition.

If you’re shy about dipping your toe in the online fundraising waters, rest assured it has already proven successful for schools.  And if you’re ready but don’t know how to start, Fundly has announcement the 12 Schools in 12 Weeks Challenge, to help 12 schools succeed in online fundraising for their Spring 2012 “a-thons” with dedicated support from Yapper Girl and a fundraiser’s toolkit worth more than $3,000.

How to (and why) setup a Facebook page for your school?

We recently interviewed a number of elementary schools who have an active Facebook presence about their experiences.

This is what we learnt:

Why your elementary school should have a Facebook page?

The best use of Facebook is develop an active (young) alumni program and to keep alumni engaged and informed about the school and about each other. It builds a stronger bond with the school, which will help with development/fundraising from this group later on. If nothing else, you know where to find your alumni as they move around!

A secondary goal for having a Facebook page is as a billboard to prospective families. Increasingly parents will expect there to be a Facebook presence and might go looking for the school there. If there is an official page, it could give a good flavor of what’s going on at the school.

It’s important to claim and manage your school’s Facebook Fan Page, if for no other reason that to avoid some random person from claiming the page. Several schools reported drawn out and painful hunts to track down and shut down unofficially managed pages not representing the school.

Facebook does NOT appear to be a logical channel for communications with existing families and students at this point. E-mail and the school website appear to be better for this.

What gets posted?

Most schools keep it simple. They post news about events at the school and (in the case of an alumni page) news about alumni (new jobs, in the news, babies, graduating from college etc.). Usually anybody can post but in reality it is often a centrally appointed school staffer or alumni volunteer doing most of the posts.

Facebook policy?

None of the schools interviewed had a formal policy with regard to their Facebook fan page. None have a written policy on what to post or what not. None had thus far gotten into any trouble with their Facebook news. One school had an informal policy to only post “happy news” to their alumni page (so no death announcements, etc.).

Recommendations?

Updating a Facebook page on a regular basis can be a lot of work, so it’s important to formally assign somebody to do this and make it part of their day job (or volunteer commitment).
One option is to find somebody in the development team with an affinity for Facebook. Another option could be a staffer from the marketing or tech department. It doesn’t really matter who it is, as long as there is a central person who will remember to post news and who others know to send news to. In the case of an alumni page a good option is also to ask for a volunteer from every outgoing class (or even past classes) to be responsible for:

• Posting news about that year/class
• Encouraging class mates to “like” the Fan page

Oh, and once you have your page up and alumni are signed up: don’t forget to add the donation button from Fundly.

Sign up for a free account or join us for one of our weekly product demonstrations on how Fundly can help your school fundraising campaign’s success.

Best Education Fundraising Stories of 2010

As we wrap up 2010, Fundly can look back on a very successful year in expanding the benefits of social fundraising to the education market.  For this blog, we have assembled four schools of one school, two colleges and one university.  Read how you can use social and peer-to-peer fundraising to increase your annual fund, increase participation and use volunteers without increasing costs or staff. Or check out the product behind it all at: Fundly.com/take-a-tour (“volunteer fundraising”).

Top School

The Challenge

• Annual Fund is down
• Participation is down
• No current volunteer Fundraising efforts

The Easy Fundly Solution

• Increase participation in the annual fund by leveraging volunteers to reach out to their friends
• Use Fundly Pro’s Volunteer Fundraising Interface to support volunteers without increasing staff (and costs)

Ivy League College

The Challenge

• Already have extensive peer-to-peer fundraising initiatives in place (classmates asking classmates for money)
• But … these are expensive and cumbersome to manage
• Looking to increase participation among young alumni

The Easy Fundly Solution

• Use Fundly Pro’s Volunteer Fundraiser Interface to:
• 1 -improve volunteer experience
• 2- reduce management expense
• 3-provide Up to date information to volunteers

Major US College

The Challenge

• Already have peer-to-peer fundraising (classmates asking classmates for money)
• Expensive and cumbersome to manage but they built a homegrown application to try and simplify the process
• Looking for new ways to engage young alumni

The Easy Fundly Solution

• Use Fundly’s Facebook Application to leverage Social Media to engage Young Alumni more effectively

Nationally Recognized University

The Challenge

• No current volunteer Fundraising efforts
• Wanted to launch Volunteer Fundraising without increasing staff

The Easy Fundly Solution

• Use Fundly Pro’s Volunteer Fundraising Interface to provide the complete infrastructure to support their volunteers without increasing staff

Start your own successful school fundraising campaign today and raise money online with ease via the most popular social media networks.

MSN Video on Fundly and $300 Billion Social Fundraising Market

MSN interviewed Fundly CEO Dave Boyce on our recent entry into the educational and non-profit fundraising markets.  Some memorable quotes are below followed by a link to the full video (3 minutes give or take).

“Politico calls it one of the most ‘in demand’ pieces of technology. Candidates like Barbara Boxer and Meg Whitman use it to help run their campaigns. But this small business says that politics pales in comparison with the $300 billion market they are getting into now.”

“Fundly has a social fundraising platform. Social fundraising has proven to be very effective.  If a friends asks a friend for a donation, your likelihood of a gift is 10x and the average gift is 52% larger.”

“Fundly has been used in more than 50% of the senatorial and more than 33% of the gubernatorial races this political season.  But now the company is moving into a much larger arena.  Political candidates raise on average about $3 billion a year.  Educational institutions raise $30 billion a year and non-profit in general raises $300 billion a year.  Fundly has already secured 40 customers in the new markets and is growing every day.”

You can view the full video is here.

Cookie Dough Fundraisers: 3 Myths to Product Fundraising

Anyone who’s been an elementary school or booster club parent – or a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or work colleague of one – braces for the time (times!) of the year when the order form comes home from school to raise money through product sales.  Whether it’s cookie dough, candy, entertainment books, wrapping paper, magazine subscriptions, or some other consumer item, this is big business!  School product fundraising is a $1.7 billion industry.

We can probably agree that public and private school systems don’t have enough money to fund education. Private funding gathered by school PTAs, PTOs, foundations or other parent organizations ensures kids don’t lack paper and pencils, music and visual arts, computers, and other components of a solid education.  However, we all secretly question why the de-facto standard in school fundraising is hawking goods.
This review is not meant to discourage ALL product fundraisers, but to help schools look carefully at the motivations, value, effort, and alternatives before continuing in that tradition.

Myth #1:  Product fundraisers make it easier for parents to ask for money.

Reality:  Let’s be real. Either parents are standing right behind their kids or doing all the fundraising on their own.  While it’s difficult for most people to ask for money, it’s often embarrassing for parents to make a phone call, go door-to-door, or office cube-to-cube selling goods in the “name of charity”.  While some feel a little more at ease offering something tangible in exchange for their friends’ money, we still dreadit.  That’s because in most cases, the people we’re asking don’t really want what we’re selling.  They could go down to the grocery store and buy a tub of Tollhouse cookie dough for $7 instead of spending $15 on ours.  Or they could go to Costco to get the entertainment book at a deep discount, if they even want it in the first place.  While parents typically reserve judgment for off-campus coffee talk and private venting sessions, a recent blog by The Stir asserted, with mommy comments chiming in, that product fundraisers are overdone.

Myth #2:  Selling cookie dough and wrapping paper is easy for volunteers.

Reality:  PTA chairpersons and volunteers work their fingers to the bone to support our kids. There is nothing quick and easy about sending out fliers to hundreds of students, collecting order forms, processing check or cash payments, tracking class or grade-level sales, placing the order with the fundraising corporation, receiving the order, and distributing the products to all those students (add more stress for frozen or refrigerated goods), then cutting the final check to the fundraising product corporation.  It’s plain time-consuming.

Myth #3:  Schools raise a lot of money on product fundraisers.

Reality:  Most parents are unaware or numbed to the real costs of product fundraisers.  Schools typically make between 25% and 50% “profit” on goods sold.  That means when my son sells a roll of wrapping paper for $8, his school gets to keep just $4.  Most parents feel compelled to purchase the products themselves, whether by perceived obligation or to help their kids win a prize.  If 200 families just donated that $8, instead of buying the product, the school would raise $800 more!

I’m not saying to quit product fundraisers cold turkey, but be selective.  Look for opportunities where there is true demand for the product or it fits a school initiative that the kids can stand behind.  At our school a few years ago, we tried with overwhelming success selling reusable bags by Mixed Bag Designs.  They were stylish, practical, and affirmed our schools’ “go green” initiative, and best of all parents came back clamoring for more.  We heard over and over again they were easy to sell, because people actually wanted to buy them.  Before continuing with or selecting a new product, survey parents for their level of interest.  Their frustration will only limit your school’s success.

Are we focusing on the wrong fundraising message?

Part of the problem is focusing so heavily on selling something rather than on the meaning and benefit behind a fundraiser – the support for a quality education for the kids.  A school walk-a-thon or jog-a-thon presents an opportunity to ask genuinely for financial support from family and peers, while assuring nearly all of the donation amount directly benefits the school.  By wrapping a fundraising campaign around a community or school event, we not only raise money, we also raise awareness within and outside of our community for needs in education.

There’s great news for schools already hosting an annual walk-a-thon type of event!

Online fundraising for schools can dramatically increase donations by making it possible for students (and their parents) to reach out to supporters through email and Facebook, quickly and easily getting donations by credit card.  It also alleviates work for the PTA!

A bonus benefit of the school walk-a-thon?  It burns calories as opposed to eating a tub of cookie dough one spoonful at a time!

School Fundraising Is Easiest Done Online

Successful school fundraising is responsible for a variety of necessities, from outfitting school marching bands to properly equipping high school computer labs. The process of brainstorming, creating, and executing effective school fundraisers is a time consuming effort that depletes resources and the energy of those who invest to make them successful. Making use of the Internet is a new and effective way to raise school funds.

Conventional fundraisers take an incredible amount of effort that involves managing time, volunteers, resources, and finances. Balancing these factors – even with the help of a school fundraising committee – is crucial to an event’s success. Oftentimes, even the most careful planning cannot yield profitable results. This is more than flat out frustrating – it jeopardizes the needs of the school when financial goals cannot be met.

Online fundraising is easier for the same reason shopping online is – convenience. Online social fundraising platforms enable schools to create campaigns and easily manage them online, decreasing the work and increasing gain. With the prevalence of portable electronic devices like laptops, smartphones, and tablets, taking care of school fundraising details can be done from anywhere with Wi-Fi.

This portable option ensures that those in charge of school fundraising stay on top of every development. Using the online platform to employ the donations of Facebook and Twitter users significantly increases potential funds raised. Making use of popular social networks and other methods such as email allows schools to quickly and easily reach mass audiences of potential contributors in just moments.

Online school fundraising is also more convenient for contributors. With just a few simple button punches, donors can easily complete a transaction, donating exactly what they want from the privacy of their own home. Contributors will not have to set aside time in the day to attend an event. Instead online school fundraising gives individuals the option to log on and donate funds when it is the most convenient for their schedule.

Online social fundraising platforms make it simple with user-friendly options that make contributing straightforward and secure. Fundraising platforms such as Fundly.com have helped schools raise hundreds of millions of dollars just by using online methods. Sites such as this one take all the guesswork out of school fundraising. Adding this online option to other fundraisers will also help increase profits with very little effort.

By using the Internet, those in charge of school fundraising can achieve the same (and potentially bigger) effect as traditional fundraising using just a fraction of the effort. Online fundraising platforms help guide fundraising workers through each step of the process in order to set up easy online fundraising. This virtual method requires no extra volunteers, no additional purchases, and a lot less stress while still delivering maximum results.

School Fundraising Online is Easy and More Effective for School Fundraisers

When attempting to raise money for your or your child’s school fundraiser, there are a number of things to consider. Does your school have a website? Do you have an idea of where the funds will go? Are you in charge of the school fundraising or influence it?

If you answered yes to any of those questions than let me attempt to guide you in raising funds for your school. Experience is definitely a plus when you are entering in to any fundraising endeavor. Churches, local groups, and schools always have their own unique way on planning any fundraising event. But experience helps you avoid some of the pitfalls that are there along the way.

Keeping this in mind for selling fundraisers there is one great place to pick up inexpensive items! A dollar store. A really creative fundraising activity for a school that you can spend maybe 5 dollars on is to buy some costume makeup so you can offer face painting. Or you can paint yourself or someone else up as a clown, buy some balloons, and darts and create a game where people can pay to burst a balloon. You can buy whole grab bags of toys to give away as prizes to those who actually win. You could start an entire circus themed fundraiser with only a trip to the dollar store. Always use your imagination when it comes to fundraising offline.

Online school fundraising can work even better. Don’t fall in to the trap of thinking just because your school is local no one outside of your town or city wouldn’t want to donate to it. There are many success stories of schools using online fundraising tools to reopen libraries, buy computers, get new heating in their building, and much more. There may even be local businesses that are willing to help and sponsor events or donate items to give away as special thanks to generous donors. Having some type of incentive for higher donations is just one way to entice donors. A recent school online fundraiser gave the option to very generous donors to receive a letter from the school’s children. Another school fundraiser pledged to put the generous donors name on a plaque in the school on the computer that was purchased by the donator. Giving something back to the community and your donors is a sure fire way of making them feel appreciated it also shows that their donations were put to good use.

There are many different donation websites on the internet that are happy to help you promote your charity and accept donations. One of these sites is Fundly and this site has part of it’s site tailored just for school needs. School fundraising online takes a lot of stress and legwork out of fundraising methods by offering you an easy way to accept the donations. Taking all of this advice in to consideration we hope that you succeed in all of your online school fundraising efforts. Keep in mind that school fundraising can work both online and offline.

School Fundraising Online with Free Fundraising Tools

Schools conduct various school fundraising campaigns for the repair, maintenance and renovation of their buildings and facilities. They also raise money for books and scholarships for the less fortunate youth. They are ensured of donors because these can be their alumni, their students, the parents of their students, faculty members and staff. But because most of their graduates are living in other cities, states or countries, it is therefore necessary to put up an online fundraising capability system in the school’s website. This will allow people from all over to donate to the school for their noble causes.

Almost everybody knows how to use the Internet. They have email addresses, accounts in social media sites, blog sites and even personal websites. It is possible that graduates of a certain school do everything online such as communicating with others, shopping, paying utility bills, and donating to their favorite charities. With a school’s own website, their graduates would be able to maintain a connection to their alma mater and be informed of the latest activities. Their loyalty would encourage them to donate to school fundraisers. In addition, participating in such events is very convenient and easy.

One event that can be organized online is to sell merchandise. Students, teachers and the school administrators can have an online auction sale. They can invite the alumni to buy these merchandise and the proceeds will go to the purpose of the fundraising activity. The school can also make use of other website’s free fundraising tool and just pay a minimal portion of the proceeds to the websites.

There are also free fundraising web sites that can manage a school’s fundraising event for them. The school just needs to sign up with them and have an online presence. One website also conducts ways to raise funds for a school and sends the school the money collected once the desired amount is reached. The school just needs to send a link to the site to all their contacts which gives free advertisement to the website.
The school can also participate in online charity malls by registering to them. When the school sends a customer to the charity mall and he buys something from that site, the school will get a commission. If many customers are referred, the funds earned will be bigger.  Referral is the key therefore the school just needs to send the link to the charity mall to all its contacts via email or by posting the said link to its own website or social media accounts for their online visitors to see.

The school can also put a system in their website that allows people to donate funds via their credit cards. With just a click of the button, donors can immediately give money without any hassle. Depositing through banks is inconvenient as this entails going to the bank, filling out a deposit slip, lining up, and waiting to be called by the bank teller.

Online school fundraisers are the best way to raise money for the overall welfare and betterment of the school’s students and community.

School Fundraising – School Fundraisers Can Be Easy

Kids love being a part of school fundraisers because they get to win fun prizes or they get to help their school. The only problem is that some school fundraising efforts do not make as much money as they should. It is hard to raise a decent amount of funding when you have to work with a catalog that takes 50% or more of your profits away from you. There are smarter ways to fundraise, and they can lead you to all the money you need and more. Here are a few school fundraising ideas that can guide you through your fundraising efforts.

One of the first things you need to realize is that successful school fundraising comes from reaching a large group of people. While you can do that with children taking their school fundraisers to their parent’s workplaces, you are still limited in your audience that way. Think about how kids spend their time and you should find a much easier way to spread the work about your cause. That’s right – it’s the internet. If you use the web to market your fundraising efforts, you can reach a ton of people through the student’s social networking pages alone. Then you can earn more money from your campaigns.

It is also possible to hold school fundraisers online, which may be a good idea if you want to earn a lot of money. People like convenience, and they are much more likely to donate money to a cause when you bring the school fundraising to them. If they can stay at home and make a quick transaction through the computer, they are far more likely to make a donation. This turns out to be a more convenient option for you too, so you can manage everything you need to right from your computer. You won’t even have to go anywhere to earn money for your school.

Even though school fundraising can be tedious, it is well worth your efforts in the end. Online school fundraisers are much easier to work with than standard school fundraisers, and they are more successful in the end. Stop wasting your money on back sales and candle catalogs and switch to something that you can do without much effort at all. That way you can spend the bulk of your time making sure that your students are able to have a good time in school.

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

School Fundraising Ideas That Generate Donations For Fundraisers

There are many different school fundraising ideas that have been around for years at this point. Many of them are the same school fundraising ideas that have been rehashed from year to year and are literally beating a dead horse. Everyone in school has at one point or another has had school fundraising ideas that have included bake sales, selling candy, raffle tickets, or even trying to sell like pizza kits for homemade pizzas. All of these ideas have proven to be tried and true school fundraiser ideas and have been in the works in some cases for generations now. What people have not realized yet is that will the same old school fundraising ideas come the same school fundraising problems that have plagued other people who have tried to use the same fundraising ideas before. These ideas are both numerous and hard to solve for the average student going to school, as they all take up a lot of time and produce only a little to no return on investment of time, effort, and other resources.

The base of people that you’re trying to market your product to is extremely small and will not garner you a whole lot of support. Let’s be honest here, if all of your friends are trying to sell the same product as you then you can’t very well try and sell your product to them either. With that said and your younger and in school, that cuts out most of the people you know. Family and other friends may be able to fill this void but there are still very few people you can turn to help fill the gap this is apparent problem leaves behind. School fundraising ideas have slowly turned to the Internet as the Internet continues to gain in popularity for fundraisers.

This popularity was mostly due to the fact that the Internet started to be center stage in the lives of people who either use it as a social nerve or as a contact medium for any number of people. Using channels such as email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have become a standard for both getting your message about your school fundraisers out there. Another reason the Internet is so great for getting your message out about your school fundraising campaign is because it increases your exposure to not just people close to your school, but in other peoples social networks in other towns, cities, states, and countries. With normal and traditional school fundraising ideas, they were kept as close to home as humanly possible so that you would not have to go very far while you were involved in fundraising. However, with the advent of the Internet it has made it much easier to describe your fundraiser as well as send the message about your school fundraising ideas all across the world.

This will also help you reach people who may have interests that are extremely similar to your fundraisers but are not geographically nearby you. In closing, there are many different school fundraising ideas out there that will help students raise money for their cause. However, the only thing that is limiting you in the amount of exposure your school’s fundraiser has to do with both the outside world but also to the community around you. It would be a very good idea to explore all your options for you school fundraising online while you have the opportunity to do so.

School Fundraising Online Helps Students, Teachers, And Parents Raise Money The Easy Way

School fundraising is by far one of the best reasons to try and raise money for students and teachers. Everyone who has gone to attend school in the last few decades has tried this model of school fundraising at least once or twice to try to pay for a trip of some sort or at least lessen the costs of one. Actually, one of the best educational industries is the lottery. Every year they shell out millions of dollars to better promote a higher standard of education. However, school fundraising still has a very important place in the fundraising and non-profit industries. Many different groups have tried to organize school fundraising events and it can be a little bit of a challenge for a lot of schools to reach their goals. The reason for this is that most school unless they are at something like the university level is reaching out to a very small base of people. Their exposure is also really only contained to groups of people that people see in their everyday lives or are in relatively close proximity geographically to them. However, some of the best school fundraising campaigns have been the work that has been accomplished online. To raise money online, schools 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 world and therefore it would be a good idea to broaden the search for donors 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 for your fundraisers. These channels will most likely include using email, blogs, the press, websites, applications, mobile, 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. With these someone around the world from you can hear your message and understand the school’s cause that you are trying to raise money online for. These mediums 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. School fundraising typically uses some or all of these fundraising programs in their quest to raise money over the internet and the world. School fundraisers may be happening right now in your own town. School fundraising has a wonderful history of kindness and humility that should be considered the next time you try to either raise money for a school’s cause or when you may think about giving back to a school fundraiser. These school fundraisers seek to help students do things that they could not do before hand and will only help enrich their lives. Think about it, you were young once, had big dreams, were most likely active or into other activities fun to you. Students need the help, so donate to the school fundraisers close to you, today!

School Fundraising – School Fundraisers Can Be Easy

Kids love being a part of school fundraisers because they get to win fun prizes or they get to help their school. The only problem is that some school fundraising efforts do not make as much money as they should. It is hard to raise a decent amount of funding when you have to work with a catalog that takes 50% or more of your profits away from you. There are smarter ways to fundraise, and they can lead you to all the money you need and more. Here are a few school fundraising ideas that can guide you through your fundraising efforts.

One of the first things you need to realize is that successful school fundraising comes from reaching a large group of people. While you can do that with children taking their school fundraisers to their parent’s workplaces, you are still limited in your audience that way. Think about how kids spend their time and you should find a much easier way to spread the work about your cause. That’s right – it’s the internet. If you use the web to market your fundraising efforts, you can reach a ton of people through the student’s social networking pages alone. Then you can earn more money from your campaigns.

It is also possible to hold school fundraisers online, which may be a good idea if you want to earn a lot of money. People like convenience, and they are much more likely to donate money to a cause when you bring the school fundraising to them. If they can stay at home and make a quick transaction through the computer, they are far more likely to make a donation. This turns out to be a more convenient option for you too, so you can manage everything you need to right from your computer. You won’t even have to go anywhere to earn money for your school.

Even though school fundraising can be tedious, it is well worth your efforts in the end. Online school fundraisers are much easier to work with than standard school fundraisers, and they are more successful in the end. Stop wasting your money on back sales and candle catalogs and switch to something that you can do without much effort at all. That way you can spend the bulk of your time making sure that your students are able to have a good time in school.

School Fundraising Online: Now Easy As 1-2-3

Schools are educational institutions where we entrust our children’s learning and development stages.  Not everyone, however, can afford to send their children to expensive schools.  So, it would be understandable if the school where your child attends would need funds to improve the school or support the education of the children under their care.

It is necessary for us parents to help the school out with this initiative since our children would benefit from it as well.  School fundraising is a common activity in most schools.  Some raise funds to support their sports teams while some fundraise to be able to buy the necessary learning materials and equipment.  No matter what the fundraising is for, we should understand every detail and we should help out in every way we can.
School fundraisers do not have to be the teachers themselves.  The fundraising can also be initiated by the parents.  If they find the need to purchase additional chairs or tables for the students, the parents association can meet up and talk about organizing a school fundraising event to help them raise the money they need. There are different types of fundraising events that parents and teachers can organize to be able to encourage other parents as well as people within the community to donate money for the betterment of the children’s educational experience.

However, not all parents have the time to actually put school fundraising ideas into action.  Most parents have jobs to support their families.  They can barely make it on time for dinner, more so if they add fundraising events into their hectic schedules.  Even teachers would find it hard to man a school fundraising job.  They are busy with the children and with planning lessons as well.  But do not let this discourage you from making your good intentions happen.  There is a way that you can raise the much needed money even without enough time and help from others.

Becoming an effective school fundraiser is as easy as 1-2-3, thanks to Fundly, who is an  online fundraising platform that allows you to raise money online through the internet easily and conveniently.  The first step is to set up your account atFundly.com where it would ask for necessary information from you and your purpose in using this site.  The great thing about this is that you get to set up a free account in just a few minutes.  Secondly, create your online fundraisingpage.  Fundly has all the free fundraising tools you would need to create a page to promote your fundraising initiative, where the proceeds will go, and your appeal for the people to donate.  Each page can be adjusted so that it would look attractive and appealing.  This will help make your page more noticeable.

The third step is to start posting your school fundraising page online.  You can post it through the school’s website if they approve it, of course.  You can also post it on your own personal blog site if you have one.  Your fundraising page can also be posted on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.  This is the greatest part. After posting, all you have to do is wait for someone to contact you through the details you have provided on the page.  Your page also has a link for donations through online banking.  So it requires less effort and time but it is as efficient, if not more, as other school fundraising ideas that can help students, teachers, and schools raise money for their causes.