Cindy’s Other Blog

Planning and managing a fundraising event can make you want to pull your hair out or perhaps start banging your head on the table out of frustration. Here are seven helpful tips that will help make your fundraiser a smooth and profitable success.

1.) Plan for Success

Efficient planning is a major part of the success of not only your fundraising campaign but any project you have looming before you. Without a concise and well thought out plan of attack, chaos will reign and your project will be doomed to suffer. In fact, you should have a primary plan as well as a secondary plan in place.

2.) There can be Only One Chief!

There can only be one captain of a ship and the same holds true for your fundraiser. Too many chiefs and not enough Indians is a recipe for failure.

3.) Delegate Authority

It is best to assign specific tasks to people in whom you have confidence and trust. In your planning, make a list of tasks that must be accomplished and choose personnel for each task. Ensure that each of your chosen delegates understands that they are accountable for their assigned task.

4.) Promotion is Key

Get the word out about your fundraiser. Proper promotion of your event will ensure that you reach your goal. Send out press releases to local media outlets. Don’t forget your own school web page is a great way to post your fundraiser and get the word out about it. Depending on the type of fundraiser you are planning will dictate if creating flyers and asking local business to place them in store windows would be helpful. There are many ways to promote an event and you should take advantage of as many of them as possible.

5.) Pre-Sell for a Successful Fundraiser

This tactic will work effectively for any type of fundraising event. If your event is a dance, dinner, guest speaker, or other ticketed type of event you must pre-sell your tickets. Start the revenue stream long before the actual event. When items such as cookie dough are your main product line, start mentioning it to friends, family, and neighbors ahead of time.

6.) Multiple Income Streams

Don’t put all of your hopes and plans into one fundraising event. Multiple streams of income have been a part of success in business for many years and you should be conducting your fundraiser just like a business. If all of your efforts are put into only one program, then you are taking a chance that nothing happens outside of your control which will mess things up for you. You might even have another nearby school start the same thing your were planning to do the week before your kick your fundraiser off. Planning several fundraising campaigns is an excellent way to reach your goal as quickly as possible and spread out some of the risk.

7.) Post Event Analysis

While not part of the actual event planning phase this is something that you should not overlook. Analyze how each of your school fundraising efforts performed. Which ones did your customers like the best? Which the least? Which ones made you the most money? Which ones were the easiest to do? You can use your analysis of your current campaign to enhance future efforts. It is especially helpful to write these things down in a journal for the next board to view in case all the faces on the board change from year to year, they don’t have to re-invent the wheel like you did!