So, you are involved with an elementary school, whether as a parent, teacher, or administrator, and you have been chosen to find a fundraiser that is guaranteed to be successful for the school this year. It is likely that you have never managed a fundraiser before and that even knowing where to start seems like a daunting task. Well, it doesn’t have to be. This article should help walk you through the process of finding, choosing, running, and wrapping up the best elementary school fundraiser your school has ever seen!
First, you have obviously turned to the internet to find school fundraising ideas because you found this page. The internet is a great place to search for fundraisers. Every fundraising program imaginable is just a few clicks away. But how do you pick from all of the options?
To narrow your choices you should first answer a few questions. First, does the school have any restrictions on what fundraisers you can do? Many elementary schools no longer allow the fundraising programs to sell unhealthy items. Some schools also mandate what profit level your fundraiser must earn before they will approve it. If that is the case, make sure you know what that level is before you book your fundraiser.
The size of the school will also be an important deciding factor. For smaller schools, fundraisers with low minimum order levels are a plus but most larger schools never have to worry about meeting minimums.
One of the most important factors in determining the success of your elementary school fundraiser is the fun factor. If your fundraiser is boring and the kids aren’t interested in selling the products, your fundraiser is doomed from the get go. However, if you can find a truly exciting fundraising program, your sales will reflect that fun factor.
So, now you have picked the fundraiser for your school. To get started, how in world do you motivate the kids to sell? One of the very best motivational strategies is to set goals for the fundraiser and raise money for something the kids or their families want. The biggest and flashiest fundraiser kick-off won’t matter a bit if no one cares about why you are raising money. For example, instead of just “raising money for the general fund”, raise money to “go on a field trip” or to “add on to the playground” or to “buy new books”. These are tangible outcomes to the effort required for a fundraiser and make the effort more meaningful.
Having a reason also gives you a goal to strive for. People need goals in order to achieve. If you can break the goal down by elementary student that is even better. For example, if your school has 500 students and you need $5000 for a new playground, every one needs to raise $10 which usually means selling $20.
Now you have everyone motivated and the fundraiser has gone great and it’s time to wrap things up. The best fundraising companies will provide you materials to help keep everything organized as you get your order together. The best strategy is to have tally sheets where you write down everyones order. This also makes distribution easier because you have one list of who sold what. Once you have tallied everyones order, it is best to make a master order form that consolidates all of your sales onto one sheet.
Once your order is place and paid for your products will be shipped. If you did a food fundraiser that has frozen products, distribution day can be hectic. Everyone will need to know when and where to pick up their goods because you don’t want the products to thaw for too long. Non-frozen products don’t require as much care but it is still nice to be able to get everything out in an orderly and timely manner.
