As parents, we are constantly barraged with fundraising messages. Tons come from the school to donate to the walk-a-thon or annual campaign or your kid’s classroom fund, and if you have an uber-involved kid, you likely have requests for fundraising for the soccer team, Girl Scout cookie sales, gymnastics and maybe even a reading club for your kids (if you’re lucky).
Are you tired yet? This doesn’t even begin to cover the requests you get from your job, the kids wanting to know what’s for dinner, the telemarketers who want to sell you air conditioning to home security, the local shelter that will be in your area if you want to donate, the local police station wanting a donation and the national Cancer organization that also wants you to give. The fundraising messages keep coming…
It’s about now that I wish I had a huge bathtub and Calgon could take me away!
We all get it. We are overworked and bombarded. But if you are part of the team of parents that is in charge of the fundraising, you have to persevere and find a way to get the message through. How? There are lots of different ways. Here are just a few:
- Email blast through room parents
- Email blast to the whole school
- Phone blast from your principal
- Signs and banners outside classrooms
- Personal phone calls (phone tree style)
- Be visible on campus and TALK IT UP!
- Have the student council president send the message
If your principal is always the person sending the messages home, you will need to find another messenger to make your ask stand out. Some will argue that having a student do it is a sneaky way to “tug at heart strings” and tell you that the job of the student is to learn – not get parents to donate. I totally get that and for the most part, I agree.
BUT, I think it depends on what “the ask” is all about. If it’s something that the student is passionate about, I think it makes sense. If it’s just done to tug at heart strings, forget it. It’s not worth the trouble it will cause.
Do you have a strategy that works for you at your school? Tell me about it!
I want you to do two things for me: Share your answer in the comments on the blog (and click the link so it goes to Facebook too). Send this to anyone you think could use a little help with their fundraising, and if you haven’t signed up for my newsletter yet, please do! ———————-> I promise no spam!
To your success,
Sarah
Sarah has been fundraising for schools since 2008. She is the author of A Mom’s Guide to School Fundraising and has consulted for several schools and clubs. She has been featured on RetailMeNot.com, Scholastic: Parent & Child and The New York Times. She thinks all kids should be able to have a well-rounded education, team uniforms, instruments and support. Don’t you?
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