Fundraising is a dirty word or at least it can be. At the amateur level, it doesn’t matter if your child participates in gymnastics, dance, hockey, or swimming, participation goes beyond participating in the sport. It comes with an expectation that your family will fundraise for the organization, association, or club.
My daughter’s sports team just finished a fundraiser with the world famous MacMillan’s processed food product. I am not stating at all that this is a poor fundraiser. It serves a purpose but here is what gets me. We have 100 members that have been encouraged to sell processed food that I feel defeats the purpose of exercise, etc and then go home and down some processed baked goods. For some, this is a way life, and it’s great. To organize this, here is what you will need; you need a couple of people to organize and distribute forms, rally the troups, keep encouraging, collect the money, hound more people for money, and don’t forget someone to ensure all pick up their orders on a specified day. And do you know what our group raised in total for 100 kids, a grand total of $1300 to the bottom line. To some you may be thinking, wow! I think differently about fundraising. Keep it simple, easy, and let their be a payback worthwhile.
Of course, I am biased but I have time and time again proved that the peer-to-peer online fundraising tool from RaiseAthon is effective, easy, and raises lots of money, and requires one person to drive the boat! Take for example our example of the Soccer RaiseAthon which was a Kicks for Kids Kick-A-Thon online fundraising program. The soccer team had 100 members and they each raised on average $100 (that’s like 2-3 sales of MacMillans’ products) and if you do the math that becomes $10,000 raised. We charged $200 for the site. PayPal charged the non-profit 1.9% = 0.30 trx fee – so it came out to approximately $240. There you have it, $440 for $9,560 to the organization. All you need is to provide a goal statement, a few photos, date of your event, and a way you go! It’s that easy. And the kids love the event, the spirit of competition of raising money against others, and the spirit of the actual event.
Friends, family, and colleagues are more apt to donate to your child’s goal of walking, kicking, running, swimming for the cause, not only for the organization’s goal, but to the child’s personal goal from their personal fundraising page. Online fundraising is the fastest growing segment and we have made it so simple.
Don’t let Fundraising be a dirty word! Don’t let parents shutter when they hear that they are selling chocolate almonds again!