Approaches For Choosing A Good Fundraising Program
Nearly all schools depend on fundraising to pay for their budgets. School fundraising provides much-needed funding for education and extracurriculars and also provides opportunities to connect with your community and to have fun.
However, fundraising for schools also involves work, traditionally involving hundreds of volunteer hours to develop and run successful campaigns. This is why PTAs and PTOs use school fundraising platforms to increase the efficiency of fundraising and be more effective.
What is a crowdfunding platform?
Fundraising platforms help schools plan and manage fundraisers. There are numerous fundraising platforms that can be used to fulfill a range of needs. However, the best platforms simplify the following steps:
Campaign creation - for example, setting up a donation portal or campaign webpage.
Campaign management - managing all stages of the campaign after it's started
Monitoring your progress and goals - Reporting on your progress towards the goals you have set for your donation
The management of donors, for example, making online donations easier as well as automating communications, acknowledgments and encouraging donor engagement.
Event planning - for example automated task reminders
Promotion of events - such as the link to your donation page that is easily shared
Certain fundraising platforms are made to be used for specific types of fundraisers such as crowdfunding or silent auctions. They can only be used for one purpose, such as event planning, donation tracking or even for the actual event.
Other options are more extensive. They let you customize the campaign to meet your specific goals and monitor and analyze results from start to the end.
Before making a purchase, it is essential to know your fundraising goals.
Whatever type of fundraising events you are looking to engage in, a good fundraising platform should be efficient, functional and user-friendly. Keep reading to find out the best way to choose a school fundraising system that is in line with these requirements.
What should you look for in an online platform for school fundraising
1. Comprehensive support
A 2015 survey of Software Advice revealed the top characteristic that customers were looking for in a platform to raise funds was greater functionality. The level of support you get is an essential aspect of the functionality of fundraising software.
At the very least, a fundraising platform should include a full technical support team that can help with issues related to how the software works on both the administrative and donor side. The support team should communicate efficiently and quickly so that issues can be solved quickly.
Booster Tech is more than providing a helpful tech support staff to answer any questions you or your donors might have.
2. Visibility and reporting
Another essential aspect of a fundraising platform is the amount of visibility it provides you. Administrators should have a clear picture of donors, donations, campaign tasks and much more.
You should ensure that any platform you're looking at offers an easy-to-use dashboard with user-friendly reports, so you can keep track of the progress of your campaign in all of the time. You'll feel more secure that your donations have been appropriately acknowledged and properly recorded.
The MyBooster fundraising platform provides top-of-the-line reports which allow you to view information by type of donor and also manage rewards and prize delivery. You also have a nice dashboard to manage campaigns from one place.
3. Goal and progress tracking
The platform you use for fundraising should monitor the development of your campaign. This will not only help keep the campaign on track, but it also lets you play games that could increase the engagement of donors.
Booster's fundraising platform allows for exciting contests that help students and donors get excited to participate. Schools can view the accomplishments of donors in real-time and it's a fantastic motivation for volunteers, students as well as all other members of the school community who work to make the fundraiser an absolute success.
4. Useful Integrations
The majority of schools employ a mix of a variety of fundraising events throughout the year to maximize the amount of money they earn. It's ideal to have a platform for fundraising that is capable of supporting the most diverse campaigns possible.
It is also important to look for connections between free fundraising platforms for individuals, and other software or programs. Double the Donation, for example, connects to MyBooster's fundraising platform, so that users can run corporate gift matching programs in the same location they manage all fundraising activities.
5. Communication capabilities
Fundraisers for schools will only be successful if the people are aware of them. If you're in search of fundraising platforms for individuals make sure it facilitates easy and effective communication between the organizers and administrators and donors, participants and the general public.
Your school's fundraising success can be increased by integrating with popular social media outlets and email platforms, as well as text and other tools. For instance, with Booster Tech, families can create unique videos about their students by simply uploading a photo. Then they can share it across social media to promote the school's fundraiser.
6. Donor management
No matter how hard your team is working It's the donors who will make or break the success of your fundraiser. That's why donor tracking is an essential part of any fundraising campaign.
The best software will enable users to get rid of spreadsheets and handle donors and donations within the fund-raising platform. You should, in the end, be able track the types of donations and donors and communicate with and thank donors through your fundraising platform.