school fundraising

School fundraising

I’ve been keeping busy getting the Box Tops for Education submission for my kids’ school ready to meet the March 1 deadline for this school year. Then I’ll move on to submit the Campbell Soup Labels for Education. These are great, simple fundraisers for the school.

For additional fundraising, the school decided a few years ago to move away from selling various items such as greeting cards and wrapping paper. The school chose instead to have an annual service event coupled with social fundraising, where family and friends pledge donations to support the students and school in conjunction with the event.

This fundraiser has been effective for the school.  Students have worked on several service projects appropriate for their age groups.  Family and friends believe in the mission of this private Christian school and are willing to donate to support it.

Since the beginning of this fundraising approach, the school has worked with a fundraising company for consultation on planning the event and for use of their technology to accept and track donations. Now that the fundraising team has gained experience with this type of fundraiser, I was asked to research technology options if the school decided to work independently this year – without the outside consultant.

I had hoped I would quickly find a list of fundraising options online. It wasn’t that easy. I had to do quite a bit of research on the Web to compile options. I wouldn’t wish that task on anyone else!  Therefore, I’m providing the results of my research below with the hopes that it may save another fundraising committee some time.

Online fundraising sites that support individual fundraising pages

DonorDrive by Global Cloud
DonorDrive allows individual families to set up personalized online fundraising pages and send e-mails from the website regarding the school fundraiser. The site accepts online donations and applies them to the individual fundraiser’s total. Pricing includes a setup fee, annual fee, and percentage of online donations.

DonorPerfect
DonorPerfect is a fundraising system allowing school families to set up individual online fundraising pages and send e-mails regarding the fundraiser. The site accepts online donations and applies them to the individual fundraiser’s total. Pricing includes a setup fee, monthly fee, and gateway/merchant account fees.

Qgiv Hobnob
Qgiv Hobnob allows participants to create individual and team fundraising pages and send e-mails regarding the fundraiser. Pricing includes a setup fee, annual renewal fee, and merchant account fees.

Online fundraising options that don’t appear to support individual fundraiser pages

Razoo
Allows creation of a customized fundraising page for special projects or events. Supporters can raise money with a team fundraising feature. Enables organizations to accept donations on their own site. Pricing: a percentage of each donation.

GoFundMe
Enables creation of an individual GoFundMe donation page. Donations are accepted and held until requested for withdrawal. Shows a progress meter for the fundraising campaign. Pricing: processing fees are deducted from each payment.

Givezooks!
The givezooks! platform enables fundraising campaigns with a customizable fundraising page for online donations. Funds flow directly from the donor to the organization, and the fundraising progress is tracked online. Pricing: a monthly fee and other options.

Piryx
Piryx enables online fundraising campaigns. Pricing: transaction fee to cover donation processing.

Fundraise.com
fundraise.com enables creation and management of online fundraisers. Pricing: A percentage plus credit card processing costs that are charged to each donation processed through the fundraiser page.

Bundled fund management solutions that offer online fundraising

  • The Raiser’s Edge
  • ActiveEducate.com
  • Abila.com

I’m no fundraising expert, so this list is not a comprehensive resource and details may change.  It’s provided as a starting point to help with researching fundraising options.

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One thought on “School fundraising

  1. Jennifer | The Deliberate Mom

    Oooh, I’ll keep this in mind for myself/friends for the future. I hadn’t heard of several of these sites before!

    Thanks for doing all the legwork.
    xoxo

    Reply

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