The website was so easy to use. Text-to-give fundraising can bring in a high volume of donors, and it can be integrated with other fundraising methods. Your kick-off is the perfect time to showcase such incentives and get students excited to begin fundraising. Every kid doesnt have access to the same amount of books. It applies the a-thon fundraising formula to the concept of a canned food drive. Hayley White, a fourth-year student from Cumberland, Md., and captain of the Fayette THON team, said the team may be small, but . Love how fast you guys are at responding to questions. How will students collect pledges and donations? At the end of the day, the focus is to get students active and engaged whether that's physically and/or mentally. Say goodbye to manually collecting funds when you run an a-thon fundraiser. To begin organizing a read-a-thon fundraiser, you should review your options with your organization. Create as many unique text codes as needed for all your campaigns, events and more. What kind of organizations use text-to-give fundraising? Profit: Medium. Remind your child to break out a book and record their reading time this Spring Break! Then, they followed up with a Quarantine Read-a-thon to support their city's local economy. This incredibly easy, highly lucrative, engaging, and educational fundraiser has quickly become a favorite for many of the over 5,000+ schools that use Read-A-Thon! Congratulations!! Hour-a-thon, which exhibited at the 2021 . Cost: Low. Everything You Need To Know to Run Your Read-a-thon. a dance-a-thon, these sports fundraisers are fun and engaging events for your entire community. The best part is, it is extremely simple to start and utilizes the ease of donating on mobile phones. Donorbox comes with all these fundraising tools and a simple-to-use donor management system to offer you a one-stop-shop for all your fundraising needs. Crowdfunding leverages social media and online marketing tools to gather many small donations from a large audience of potential donors on the internet. However you organize your information, make it fun and easy to understand. Read-A-Thon Fundraiser. Those that donate in-kind or financial gifts to your read-a-thon will receive marketing opportunities. Wilson High School students are taking a page out of Penn State's playbook and are dancing to help fight childhood cancer. Also, see below to get specific ideas from a few of the schools we've worked with. And surprisingly, the typical text-to-give user is actually a woman between 49-59 years old who has a college degree. A typical Write-a-thon may run for 1-2 months, depending on computer availability at school and home. A receipt and a thank-you email follows directly after that. Announce the fundraiser to students/parents (without pressuring to participate). Themes can make your read-a-thon more fun and give kids a way to get involved from the beginning. You can make your swim-a-thon a memorable and successful fundraiser with creativity and planning. With some of the next-generation platforms, you also get payment information, the number of times each donor has donated, and how much theyve donated each time. While all of the fundraisers on this list have the potential for major fundraising success, read-a-thons are one of the only campaigns that enrich your students' educational experiences as they raise money. You can share this picture on social media, in the local press, and in the organizational newsletter that goes out to all supporters. Wilson High School students took a page out of Penn State's playbook and danced to help fight childhood cancer. He and his family will enjoy their all-expense paid trip later this year. This makes it simple for family & friends to support them (which often doubles or triples the amount raised). This information is then easily exported into your donor database. The Best Fundraising Ideas Idea # 8 A-Thon-a-thon There are several ways to do an a-thon-athon, but the easiest way is to give supporters a series of tasks that they have to do in quick succession, like a triathalon (biking, swimming, and running.) As you consistently share your replicated donation pages to promote the fundraiser, you'll begin to collect donations. Just follow these simple steps and youll be well on your way to fundraising success. Get your students reading Golf Tournament. Single participant a-thons are common, where only one person is completing an activity and collecting per-unit pledges for their cause. One of the most widely publicized text-to-give campaigns was The Red Crosss relief efforts after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Our intuitive, highly accessible platform takes no time at all to integrate into your school's normal fundraising activities, guiding you every step of the way to host a more successful and rewarding fundraiser than you could have ever imagined. A custom text code is unique to the nonprofit that creates it and to the campaign it supports. Traditionally, you have your supporters pull out their checkbook, envelope, and stamp to mail a donation. 9th Sep, 2019. Some make a distinction between text-to-give and text-to-donate, believing that in a text-to-give process after supporters text a keyword to a shortcode, the donation amount is added to the supporters phone bill. However, this may depend on what text-to-give software you choose. Virtual fundraisers can replace in-person galas, concerts, walk-a-thons, races, and more. If you want to raise money to build or purchase land (or other big projects), add a read-a-thon to your capital campaign and promote it to the rest of the community. Will the school have free reading time for contest participants? These are just examples to get you started. Jog-a-thons can take pledges per mile. Including it in board members email signatures and display it prominently on your website. Had students route out their own map to walk for the school. Campaign organizers or individual participants can enter activity results into the PTFundraiser system at any point during or after the fundraiser. After donating, they will automatically receive a thank you note and receipt (if you are a 501c3 nonprofit organization, you can include Tax ID in the receipt). If your PTA or school is holding this event, you can take teachers and parents help as well. Read-A-Thon is a literacy based fundraiser that helps schools and groups raise more money than any other fundraiser with minimal effort involved. We hope our ideas and insights will help you decide if text-to-give fundraising is the right method for you, and if so, that youll be able to get the most out of it. Read-a-thon: Students choose their books and track their minutes read at home for a 2-week period. - 25% of donors complete their donations on mobile devices. Letting donors set up recurring weekly, monthly, or annual donations, in addition to increasing revenue, bring in the much-needed stability to a nonprofits finances. Shes passionate about meaningful work, sustainability, and social movements. You'll gain access to Fund-A-Thon fundraising campaigns, which will include your very own replication donation pages. A: Your support of our twice annual Book Fairs pays for all of the book prizes. IN PICTURES: 24-hour ski-a-thon raises over $150K. For example, Overall, 76% of Haiti text donors say that their friends or family members did indeed make a contribution to earthquake relief using their phones. Donorboxs text-to-give was built keeping in mind the ease of use for nonprofits and more importantly, the donors. Create your signature and click Ok. Press Done. B. The pages get an average of 4,550 views within 3 weeks. Join the 50,000+ nonprofits already raising funds online. Whether you are in the room or #OutsideTheRoom, at an event, or over a text-to-donate campaign, all donations go straight to your organization's bank account. Recipient of Society of Women Engineers Certificate of Merit, RIT Computing Medal, AP Scholar with Distinction, top 30 individually at Maine State Math Meet for class of 2021 in both 2017 and 2018 . During your virtual event, have families email pictures & videos that you'll post on your organization's website or have them post on your community page (e.g. Want to keep it super simple? We would love for you to take these ideas and build upon them to make them your very own! To help you pick the best possible online fundraiser for your school, consider the following points: Before you fall back on old habits with a cookie dough sale or pick a random idea out of a hat, be sure to weigh out the pros, cons, and finer details of the fundraising options you have available to you! Text-to-give requires its own strategy, set up, marketing and promotion, and monitoring. Virtual 'a-thon' Fundraisers for Schools Make any school fundraiser completely virtual & social-distancing friendly Written by Rodrigo Ramos Updated over a week ago 99Pledges runs thousands of successful fundraisers every year. Learn how to make the most of Text-to-Donate on our Resource Hub (for members, but open to all). As a fundraiser, you should not be running any event on your own and walk-a-thons can take more work than one person can handle. Join a 30min Live Demo to see how Donorbox can help you reach your fundraising goals! Show your donors the impact their donation will have. Colonial Elementary raised $36K at the start of the year with their first-ever Read-a-thon. The entire process only takes minutes to complete. What kind of aid (ex: volunteers, investment funds) do you need and have available to you? Usually, through word-of-mouth, through digital marketing means, or at an event/service, a donor is asked to give via text. We can help you prepare. In what ways can my nonprofit use Text-to-Donate? The first 3000 dollars helped us provide food and basic necessities to 50 at-risk children. With thorough planning and the right support, you can host a memorable fundraiser that could become a staple in your yearly fundraising strategy! Your funds, lightning fast So spreading the word about your online fundraiser to the student body should be one of your greatest concerns. Hour-A-Thon is a LIVE fundraising experience that does not use e-mail; it only involves a direct text from players followed up by a "personal touch" phone call which in turn becomes a donation. To guide your purchasing decision, also consider if text-to-give will be a one-off method or an integral part of your fundraising strategy. Furthermore, the keyword will typically indicate which campaign the donor wishes to allocate their contribution to. That's how confident we are that your online fundraiser will be a success! No pledge chasing necessary. Kids and parents of all ages and income levels can participate. You will also have a rough idea about how many kids will be willing to participate and how much funds you may raise. This comes in handy if your a-thon runs for extended periods of time. Donors text/SMS a special text code to 44321 (valid with U.S. phone numbers on U.S. carrier networks) and receive a text reply with a link to a secure, mobile-ready fundraising page where they can then donate. After theyve given, donors should automatically receive a confirmation email in their inbox that includes a, Nonprofits receive donations either directly from online. When choosing the right text-to-give platform for you, make sure your providers software offers all the below-mentioned features. For instance, if youre hoping to build a new gymnasium on your school premises, your read-a-thon theme could be Read for Your Health.. ", so let's settle that now: 99Pledges is Free. Q: How are the daily book prizes paid for? Remember to help kids and parents raise more money with any marketing material they may need. Read-A-Thon not only provides print marketing packages, but social media, text, and email marketing tools to help you maximize promotion for your online fundraiser. From auto-generated participant fundraising pages and leaderboards, to easy payments and instant collections PTFundraiser has what you need. Nonprofit organizations will generally collect donors names, phone numbers, email addresses, and billing addresses. Now more than ever, we're seeing schools adapt their annual "a-thon" fundraisers to be 100% virtual. Grade level: Elementary school, middle school, high school. And remember, our customer service will help every step of the way as well. 7. It started . Choose a theme Themes can make your read-a-thon more fun and give kids a way to get involved from the beginning. This Penny War Fundraiser Packet is a perfect way to end the school year. When organizing the faculty, staff, or volunteers that will make up your fundraising team, be sure to keep everyone informed about what is expected of them and how they can complete their tasks. Soon enough, you'll be making a profit while also encouraging school pride across your local community. A person participating in the spell-a-thon for example, would add the number of words they spelled. Running an a-thon online allows you to hold a "pledge-per" fundraiser without the need for paper forms or tracking people down for payments. Re-imagined their annual Rainbow Run-a-thon into a Rainbow ReCreate-a-thon. Reading keeps our kids' brains engaged and active so they can return back to school ready to learn again! Remember to take a picture of the winners along with parents who helped and donated. You will have access not only to your students' reading hours, but also key metrics like the number of sponsors and dollars you've collectively raised over the course of your Read-a-thon's sessions. Play PRODUCT FEATURES Parents Love not having to sell or deliver items. Or, if you'd like to learn more about Read-a-thon fundraising and the Read-A-Thon platform, schedule a meeting with one of our specialists. Decide on what kind of signature to create. Yes. OCEAN25 instead of just DONATE) and ensure your code is relevant to your mission. Choose My Signature. Minimize required fields, use large text, and dont cram your page with design elements to maximize your conversion rates. If you don't have a StoryJumper account, click "Sign Up" at the top of this page. Celebrate everyone's success. That's why we've compiled a list of profitable, tried and true virtual school fundraising ideas to kick off your next online campaign! To begin this simple, effective, and rewarding online school fundraising program, create your free account with Read-A-Thon. It also meets donors where theyre at, which is often on their phones. As part of organizing a dance-a-thon, individuals or groups of people set a fundraising goal and ask friends, family, and community members to pledge on their behalf as a way of raising funds for an organization. Like a fun run, golf tournaments can be simple to coordinate with an experienced golf course manager, or as complicated as a PGA event. You dont want to make any individual child feel ashamed or left out, but by making it a competition, youre able to gain excitement and raise more funds. You'll no longer need to waste precious time and resources trying to set up an effective online fundraiser that might not earn its cost of investment. Challenges: Run/Walk/Bike, Jump Rope, Dance Tutorials, Kids Workout, & more. See how much money your school can raise with our Read-a-thon calculator: Click Here, Get the answers to your basic questions in our Read-a-thon FAQ section: Click Here, Get a brief explanation of how our Read-a-thon system works: Click Here, Check out a sample prize store: Click Here. We are so excited for Johnny Grabowski from East Dover Elementary. Shortcodes are ideal for text-to-give campaigns because of the nature of high-volume messaging. From tracking funds raised to providing social media and text marketing tools, Read-A-Thon will handle the entire fundraising process. Try something New, Easy, Profitable and Educational! Our favorite part was that we could encourage a love of reading while raising money for the school. Our simple-to-embed, customizable donation widgets make it easy to collect donations directly on your own website. I plan to have the charity event in NC is TBD. They will never be charged any more than that, even if the per-unit pledge activity exceeds their limit. Optimized for on-the-spot giving by many simultaneous users, Custom text codes run as short as three characters and never expire, Donors receive link to contribute via a secure web page, Unlimited use of our five-digit short code, 44321, Multiple payment options including digital wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal, Text-to-Donate page design inherits the look and feel of associated campaign, Progress meters can track and exhibit donations in seconds on Campaign Page and Live Display. Organizers. The costs associated with text-to-give software include costs for the software itself, the payment processing fees, maintenance and set up fees, vendor fees, shortcodes, and additional keywords and messages. Getting Started with Read a thon Watch on Online fundraisers have rapidly become a cornerstone of school fundraising programs, offering an organized, safer, and more effective way for you to raise money for your institution. You keep 75% or 80% of your profits. Consider using other Give Lively products and solutions alongside Text-to-Donate to achieve best results. In case youve opted for a more traditional text-to-give vendor, theres usually a $5-$10 caps on all donations. Baker PTA earns a percentage of sales from Scholastic, our book fair vendor. Team Jaguar Fundraising Committee Online Read-A-Thon and Fundraiser February 27 - March 12, 2023 Students choose whatever they want to read and log their reading on their secure social media style profiles while parents can invite sponsors via email, text, and social media. All you need to do is promote your online fundraiser. Public schools around the country have struggled to address this issue due to financial difficulties. (7) $3.75. Donorbox has helped 50,000+ nonprofits and organizations raise money online through their fundraising campaigns and events. Thanking donors is always important; so it is with text-to-give fundraising. Once a catchy text code has been created and linked to a campaign, it can be shared on social media, blogs and your website; in promotional videos, livestreams, print materials and Live Display; at press appearances, live and virtual events and much more, all with the goal of increasing a campaigns visibility and the likelihood of receiving donations..