Great Fundraising Ideas
In this article, we’ve listed a variety of fundraisers that schools successfully planned and held over the years. We hope to give you a starting point for your planning. Eventually, we will be coming out with smaller guides that lay out step-by-step how to run with each one of these suggestions and many others.
Put Your Graduation Company to Work
Today your Graduation Supplier can also be your partner in fundraising. All you have to do is ask. There are many options available to fit almost any financial goal. From a few dollars to augment your ceremony, to sizable donations for capital improvements. One of the most successful programs we’ve seen uses graduation ordering portals. Our top recommendation to ease the fundraising process is to use pre-built ordering portals for your students. It is by far the easiest way to manage your graduation products. school fundraiser ideas
When you use a portal program, there is no need to measure students, collect money, or distribute gowns (besides providing them with the web URL). So the first set of savings you see comes with the limited energy spent on getting the gowns to students. Less time, less responsibility, and less help needed to get it all done. The graduation company you work with will handle all of the hard work and difficulties involved in ordering. With fast access to reports, you can see who made purchases and who’s outstanding. From there you can easily send students an email reminder to the help ensure that graduation goes off without a hitch.
In addition to the ease and hassle-free graduation that a graduation portal provides is your ability to turn a profit for your school and your ceremony. Many companies allow you to control the price after a certain point, which is the real reason we’ve mentioned this as a fundraising idea. Every cap and gown sold can help pay for the rest of the graduation expenses and other school expenses (depending upon your goals).
Support Your Graduation with Portals
If you work with a company that offers portal software simultaneously with a cash back program, you’re not only saving time, but you’re making money. The graduation company can set up your school to receive anywhere from 10% to 20% of the purchase price back as cash to help fund school activities. We list this as the first fundraising idea because it’s the easiest we’ve come across. GraduationSource offers this service. The video below outlines portals in greater detail:
PRO TIPS:
Go a step further when thinking about the graduation ceremony your school wants to hold. This event is huge. The attendance will be larger than most events your school will host all year long. Take advantage of it. The following ideas for fundraisers can all happen before or after your graduation ceremony. That’s guaranteed attendance! Just make sure that if you decide to capitalize on this highly attended event that you let parents and families know there will be other fun activates at the graduation.
Tag-A-Long Fundraising – Set Up Shop
Your school will have many events that draw a crowd. Graduation day is just one of them. There are school plays, concerts, sporting events, and other similar activities. Set-up a shop! The store can sell any number of things. Sell balloons and flowers to give to the students after they’ve walked across the stage at graduation, played their instrument at the concert, or performed their role in the play. Most parents won’t pass up a last minute opportunity to reward their children. Especially when proceeds can go towards things that benefit the school.