Raising money to cover classroom expenses and support students’ learning is a year-round effort, and it’s not always easy to keep the momentum going. Relying on the same events can lead to donor fatigue, but with so many fundraising ideas to choose from, it may feel overwhelming. The challenge becomes trying to pick events that are effective and will resonate with your entire school community.
As a K-12 school administrator or volunteer, you’re juggling a lot of different age groups and competing priorities. How do you create a balanced, engaging fundraising calendar that meets everyone’s needs?
That’s where this guide comes in. We’ll share three steps to speed up your decision-making process and host profitable fundraisers that support your school without causing burnout.
1. Evaluate your resources and past fundraising efforts.
First, revisit past fundraisers and take note of the resources at your disposal. You can dream up the ultimate school fundraiser, but without the right tools and a deep understanding of your audience, even the best plans can fizzle.
Before you commit to any fundraiser, consider your school’s:
- Fundraising capacity: Determine how much bandwidth and time your team can realistically dedicate to fundraising at different times of the year. Does your school have a development team, or will everything be parent-led? If parents are leading the charge, consider how busy your PTO is throughout the year.
- Volunteer availability: Certain fundraisers require more volunteers than others. Based on the size of your current PTO and volunteer sign-up rates for previous events, decide whether it’s feasible to host large-scale events this year.
- Past fundraising data: Look to your school’s fundraising database for answers about historical fundraising success. Which types of fundraisers had the best results? Analyze metrics like attendance rates, total revenue from ticket sales, number of new donors acquired, etc.
- Responses to other fundraisers: Speak with former PTO members or volunteers and revisit past post-event surveys to identify the fundraisers your community liked the most (or the least!).
- General donor preferences: According to Bonterra’s donor stewardship guide, adhering to your donors’ preferences is a key part of strengthening and retaining those relationships. Note if most of your donors prefer in-person, online, or hybrid events, and consider their communication preferences.
- Budget for events: Finally, verify your school’s fundraising budget for the year or for a specific timeframe. You might divide the budget evenly between fundraisers or set aside a greater portion for your largest event that year.
Based on your evaluation, leverage these insights to identify your school’s main strengths and challenges when it comes to fundraising. This clarity helps turn data into actionable steps as you begin planning your fundraiser.
Suppose you have a mid-sized budget, many volunteers, and a community that has historically loved family-friendly walks and runs. Based on this information, you’d know that your school should prioritize active event fundraisers rather than online or sales-based campaigns.
2. Choose one or two reliable, core events.
Using the information you gathered in the last step, identify one type of fundraiser that you’re confident will achieve good results to serve as your core focus for the year. This should align with an event or campaign that was previously successful, is well-liked by your community, and aligns with your team’s fundraising capacity. It might be:
- An annual school carnival
- A Fun Run or family-friendly 5K
- An upscale silent auction for parents
- A Read-a-thon that students of all ages can participate in
- Other school fundraising ideas that align with your audience and capacity
By focusing most of your energy and budget on a popular, tried-and-true fundraising event that you know will bring in significant funding for your school, you’ll anchor your fundraising calendar and increase your team’s confidence.
Plus, with more resources and budget behind a larger event, schools often turn to dedicated nonprofit software, like an auction platform or a peer-to-peer fundraising solution, to maximize their efforts.
Choosing a core fundraiser doesn’t mean you have to do the same thing every year. You can add variety to the event itself or use a rotating calendar. For instance, maybe you host an auction one year, a Walk-a-thon the next, then a carnival the third year, before starting the cycle over again.
3. Get creative with smaller seasonal fundraisers.
Now that the main event is settled, brainstorm a few smaller-scale, unique fundraisers to fill out the rest of your school calendar.
Adding seasonal or low-effort fundraisers will provide more revenue opportunities throughout the year without putting too much strain on your team. Even better, you’ll have a chance to get creative and try out new types of campaigns to see what works.
Here are some examples to consider for each season:
- Fall: During back-to-school season, try fall fundraisers like a donated school supply sale, a haunted house for Halloween, or a Turkey Trot around Thanksgiving.
- Winter: With the season’s spirit, you could host a holiday bake sale, a month-long cookie dough fundraiser, or a gift wrapping fundraiser.
- Spring: Along with Valentine’s Day flower sales or candygrams, eCardWidget recommends running aMother’s Day eCard fundraiser in the springtime.
- Summer: While students are out of school, give them a chance to see their friends at a pool party fundraiser or a drive-in movie night.
Be careful not to overwhelm your community with too many of these one-off fundraisers. Choose a few to try each year, and space them out to avoid overlap with your core fundraising event. If your annual silent auction is in December, then you wouldn’t try to plan any other fundraisers around the winter holidays.
Whenever you host a new type of campaign, track and analyze its fundraising results and collect feedback from supporters to gauge public opinion. If one of them is a big hit, you might even consider turning it into a main event the following year.
Balancing your school fundraising schedule
With these tips, your school can plan a more varied, balanced, and successful fundraising calendar. Try to choose all the fundraisers you’ll host this year before the school session starts, then you can determine their timing and logistics as each one gets closer.