Your school provides a lot to its students, from a quality education to after-school sports to a sense of community. But these efforts need continuous funding—and it’s often on your teachers and administrators to secure that funding.
We know fundraising can be a challenge, especially during times of economic shifts and uncertainty. To make your fundraising efforts more efficient, effective, and easy, we’ve put together a list of the top school fundraising platforms:
This technology will help you streamline your campaigns, save time through automation, reach more supporters, and ultimately grow your revenue. If you’re ready to start raising more money for your school, let’s dive in with some school fundraising FAQs!
Fundraising Sites for Schools: 3 FAQs
How can I raise money for my school?
There are many ways to raise money for your school. The method and idea you choose should align with your goals, fundraising capacity, and students’ interests. However, peer-to-peer fundraising is one of the most simple and effective fundraising models for schools, especially when paired with the pledge model.
Here’s how these fundraisers work:
- Step 1: Your school works with a fundraising platform to set up campaign-wide and individual pledge pages for each student.
- Step 2: You invite students to share their individual pages with friends and family on social media.
- Step 3: Students secure pledged donations from their networks. If you’re holding an event like a walk-a-thon, they might collect $5 pledges per mile walked.
- Step 4: Your school carefully tracks your progress to see if it’s likely that you’ll meet your goal. This way, you can course-correct if you start falling behind.
- Step 5: You hold your fundraising event and record each student’s performance. Then, you’ll receive the proceeds. For example, if a student walks three miles, the campaign will receive $15 from their fundraising efforts.
Peer-to-peer fundraisers are great for schools because they are fast and inexpensive to start up. They are also exceptionally shareable, meaning that you can quickly and easily reach a large audience of potential donors online.
What are some essential school fundraising platform features?
While the exact features your school needs will depend on your goals and priorities, there are some basic tools you should look out for. Specifically, choose a solution like 99Pledges that offers:
- Quick and easy setup—ideally, the platform should take care of this step for you.
- Shareable donation pages your school and students can link to.
- Simple, secure, and flexible payment options. Make sure the platform accepts all major payment methods, including credit and debit cards, PayPal, ApplePay, and GooglePay.
- Access to fundraising resources and/or a coach.
- Accurate data tracking tools.
- Communication capabilities so you can share email updates, reminders, and thank-you messages.
Additionally, note any specific requirements or capabilities you need in your fundraising software, including your budget and the number of users you’re able to have on the software.
Are there free fundraising platforms for schools?
Yes! There are free tools that can help your school effectively fundraise even if you’re on a tight budget. Often, these tools are free because they rely on tips from donors. Additionally, your school will still need to cover credit card transaction fees.
Keep in mind that not every free fundraising platform is created equal, however. Some red flags to look out for are required minimums, platforms that take a set percentage of your earnings, and “freemium” solutions that seem free but require you to upgrade to a paid plan for necessary features.
99Pledges: The Best Choice for Engaging School Fundraisers
99Pledges’ fundraising platform allows your school or classroom to easily set up a fundraiser, with each participant getting their own donation page. You can then encourage students to share donation pages, collect donations online, and track your progress toward your goal.
At 99Pledges, we specialize in “a-thon” fundraisers like walk-a-thons, dance-a-thons, read-a-thons, and more. These fundraisers are great for raising funds and help get your students, parents, and local community involved as well.
The best part is that 99Pledges is free—there is NO platform fee and NO startup fee. The only costs are the standard credit card fee of 3.49% plus 49 cents per transaction, which goes to credit card companies. This makes 99Pledges a great alternative to other, more expensive solutions.
When to Consider 99Pledges
Choose 99Pledges when you want to host a successful, affordable fundraiser that can involve a wide variety of age groups.
Because 99Pledges is one of the most affordable options for school fundraising, it is an excellent choice for anyone—but especially if you’re looking to get your community involved. Capping off your 99Pledges campaigns with a fun event will draw out large crowds of supporters who want to spectate the walk-a-thon, dance-a-thon, or hoop-a-thon.
Additionally, 99Pledges offers data tracking and communication tools, keeping all of your fundraising activities on a single unified platform. You can secure a donation, funnel that donor’s information into your database, and use it to send tailored communications to them. This way, you’ll make long-lasting relationships you can count on for future campaigns.
DonorsChoose: Classroom Supplies Fundraising
DonorsChoose is a platform for teachers to raise money for classroom supplies. Teachers can create their own fundraisers for the supplies they need. They can then share these fundraisers on social media to help them reach their fundraising goals.
When to Consider DonorsChoose
Share this tool with teachers at your school to use alongside your school-wide fundraisers. This platform is easy to use and puts the power right into teachers’ hands. The best part is that this platform is completely free for teachers!
Funds2Orgs: Shoe Drives
The Funds2Orgs platform allows you to set up a shoe drive to raise money instead of asking for monetary donations. They have different plans that offer varying levels of support to best fit your needs. All the donated shoes get repurposed and sold at a low cost to micro-entrepreneurs who can then sell them for a higher price. Their goal is to help you raise money while giving individuals in low-income communities a chance to earn a profit in their small businesses.
When to Consider Funds2Orgs
If your supporters are not often in a position to donate much or at all, or you have recently done a fundraiser based on monetary donations, Funds2Orgs can be a great way to raise money for your school without asking your community for their hard-earned dollars.
Bonfire: Product Fundraising
You can use Bonfire’s platform to create custom t-shirts that your school can sell in a fundraiser. This way, your supporters will receive something in return for donating, encouraging more of them to give. Additionally, the custom t-shirt helps bring awareness to your school and your fundraiser.
Selling t-shirts also pairs well with traditional peer-to-peer campaigns, serving as an additional revenue source. For example, you might hold a charity 5K, and create custom t-shirts for participants and supporters to purchase.
It’s 100% free to get started on Bonfire. Setup is easy, and the platform offers fast, secure payouts. Your school won’t need to purchase or hold any inventory, meaning there is no risk of over-purchasing shirts and wasting resources. Bonfire also handles order processing and shipping, taking the burden off your plate.
When to Consider Bonfire
If there is a specific event or fundraiser that your school is hosting, making custom, branded t-shirts to sell for that event can be a really successful, low-lift fundraiser. Their donation processing fees are typically 8%, but if your school qualifies as a nonprofit, the fee is lowered to 3.5% once you’re verified.
GoodUnited: Social Media Fundraising
GoodUnited can help you run Facebook fundraisers, thank donors, start a Facebook Challenge, and cultivate your community with personal automated messages. You can use all of their Facebook functionalities or focus on one aspect, like hosting a Facebook Challenge to get your community engaged.
When to Consider GoodUnited
Because many of the parents at your school are likely already on Facebook, this can be a successful fundraiser at just about any time. Especially when you’re not together, like during virtual or hybrid schooling, or just over the summer break, Facebook fundraisers and Challenges offer a more connected way to fundraise together.
ShopRaise: Raise Funds While Shopping
With ShopRaise, your supporters can use the ShopRaise app to shop for items they would normally buy. Up to 10% of their purchases will go to their cause of choice which is, in this case, your school! Their app is simple to use and comes at no extra cost to you or your supporters.
When to Consider ShopRaise
ShopRaise is a great way to raise extra money in addition to your planned fundraisers. This platform allows your parents and supporters to contribute funds without spending more money than they would in a normal month. Because it’s at no additional cost to you or your supporters, ShopRaise can be used simultaneously with any other fundraising tool on this list!
Double the Donation: Matching Gifts Software
Double the Donation’s matching gift platform, 360MatchPro, is the top matching gift automation software that schools and nonprofits can use. With access to one of the largest and most comprehensive matching gift databases, you can identify and send automated asks with all the necessary information to match-eligible donors.
360MatchPro is on the cutting edge of matching gift technology with its auto-submission tool. The platform checks whether a donation is eligible for a match, asks donors to authorize a matching gift request, and then automatically submits that request. With this feature, you can speed up the matching gift process, limit the number of steps donors are asked to complete, and ensure requests are completed properly.
Boosting the number of matching gifts your school secures means that you can easily double the impact that donors make—all without asking them to contribute more from their own pockets.
When to Consider Double the Donation
If many of your parents and community members are already donating frequently, investing in this software may be well worth it. Those donations you’re already getting can be greatly increased through corporate matching gift programs that many of your donors are likely eligible for.
GoFundMe: Simple Crowdfunding
GoFundMe is a popular crowdfunding platform that individuals, schools, nonprofits, sports teams, and other organizations can leverage. To get started, users will simply start a campaign, add a description and photo or video, and set a goal. Then, they’ll share the campaign page online with friends and family to raise money for their cause.
GoFundMe allows organizations to send updates during the campaign and thank contributors.
When to Consider GoFundMe
This platform is a good option for urgent needs because it’s so fast and easy to get started. It can also help you reach and engage a broad audience by circulating the page on social media. However, this platform isn’t the most sophisticated, so you could be missing out on crucial donor data.
Additional Resources
99Pledges is one of the highest-quality, most affordable platforms for hosting successful fundraisers that bring in revenue and bring your community together. Our method of fundraising through peer-to-peer fundraisers is great for any time of year and age group, and you can get started in just a day!
From walk-a-thons to read-a-thons, the possibilities are endless for planning exciting and engaging fundraisers for all ages. Get started today to experience our simple and effective platform for yourself.
To learn more about school fundraising tips and technology, explore these additional resources:
- Everything You Need to Start a Read-a-Thon Fundraiser. Curious about read-a-thon fundraisers? Learn how and what you need to get started with this guide.
- The Only Guide You Need to Team Fundraising Platforms. If you’re raising funds for your school’s sports teams or clubs, start with this guide to find the best fundraising tool.
- 55+ Genius School Fundraising Ideas: Shatter Your Goals. Feeling burned out or stuck with fundraiser planning? Check out these fresh ideas to reinvigorate your efforts.
