How to Keep Your School Fundraiser from Dragging

A primary goal for your school fundraiser should be to reach your money goal in as short a period of time as feasible. The idea that the longer you give your students to sell the more money you will make is not necessarily true. In fact, this philosophy can also work against you. The longer your fundraiser lasts, the lower the sense of urgency that your sellers will have and the more they will tend to procrastinate. Most actual selling takes place during the first 3-4 days of the sale so a two week selling period is usually optimal. Here are some things that you can do to ensure that your fundraiser doesn’t turn into a longer drawn-out experience.

Define and promote your end date
Make sure that your end date is set in everyone’s minds before your fundraiser ever starts. This includes reinforcing the date with you school staff and parents. You will also want to announce it to your students at your fundraiser kickoff as well as promote it throughout your sale. Put your end date in your parent letter as well as publicize it on Facebook. We provide our customers with a school fundraising guidebook which includes pre-made form notices that you can send home reminding parents about your fundraiser end date. The point is, make a big deal about when order forms and money are due by announcing it as often as possible and in as many ways as you can.

Have consequences for late orders and enforce them
You are bound to have stragglers so be ready for them. If you plan to accept order forms after the end date for your fundraiser, let people know that they only have a certain time period to turn them in. We ask our sponsors to mail their order forms to us for processing about a week after their end date. This allows time for them to collect and process late orders. Any late orders that come in after that time can still be faxed in; however, we encourage them to set an additional 2 day deadline date for faxed orders as well. Any orders that come in after that are not guaranteed to ship with the original order but rather will arrive in a separate late shipment.

Follow up with late money as quickly as possible
Make sure that everyone understands that money and orders need to be turned in together at the conclusion of your fundraiser. Ask people to double-check their order forms and money to make sure that everything matches up properly. For people who have not turned in all of their money with their order forms, make sure that you follow up with them as quickly as possible. Our customers are able to send them a ‘Late Money Collection Notice’ from our fundraising guidebook that informs them of the actual amount that they owe based on the items that are reported on the order form. Some schools will automatically cross off any unpaid items from the order form; thus the student won’t receive prize credit for those items. If you choose to incorporate this policy just make sure you warn people ahead of time. By doing so you are more apt to get people to turn in the correct amount of money with their order. Also, if you happen to have any bounced checks you can send out an insufficient funds (NSF) notice.

Stick with your plan
No matter how tempted you might be to make exceptions, avoid doing so if possible. If people see that you are enforcing your policies consistently, they are more apt to follow them. The old saying, “Give an inch, take a mile” definitely applies here. On the other hand, there are definitely reasonable exceptions that can be considered. Just consider each issue on a case-by-case basis.