Elevating Your Fundraising Efforts
Planning your fundrasing efforts can be a big responsibility. Picking the right program, the right timing and the right group of volunteers can make or break your campaign. Here are a few tips to help you get your program off to a great start and a successful finish!
Organizing a Campaign - Once you’ve chosen your program, it’s time to organize and manage your fundraising campaign. How you organize will depend on which type of fundraiser you’ve chosen: pre-sale, direct sale or online. The following are fundraising tips for organizing your fundraising campaign.
Planning Your Campaign
Set your goal: The goal you set for your group should include a dollar amount, as well as a tangible element. For example, a cheer squad could set a goal of ,000 (the dollar amount) to pay for new uniforms and competition fees (the tangible element). Basically, you want to say how much you need to raise and why.
Set a deadline: Your fundraiser should run for a maximum of 1-2 weeks. This is just enough time to get a lot of support and keep everyone motivated, but not so much time that your group starts to feel the effects of ‘fundraiser burnout’. A deadline also keeps you on track for reaching your goal, and is especially important for pre-sale fundraisers where order forms will need to be handed in on a specific date.
Know your group: Knowing how many group members will be participating, and how many volunteers you will have is key to organizing a selling strategy.
Motivate your group: It is important to maintain close and constant contact with your group members to motivate and encourage them throughout the campaign. Being a positive role model and maintaining an attitude of enthusiasm will be key to motivation.
Running Your Campaign
Delivery: Once you have placed your order, allow 2-3 weeks for delivery. Remember that with pre-sale fundraisers, products are ordered after your group sold products to friends and family.
Money collection: Group members should collect money at the point of sale, or when taking orders. With pre-sale fundraisers, it is usually easier for the fundraising organizer to collect one check from each participant for the entire sum of the money collected.
Tallying and packing orders for pre-sale fundraisers: A good tip is to solicit volunteers in advance for these tasks, and to appoint a chairperson to oversee. The chairperson and each participant should always check and double-check orders for errors.
Editor’s Note: Thank you to eFundraising.com for this article.
