Engaged Directors = 🚀 Participation
Engagement is critical to the success of this fundraiser. Hands-on directors and staff members inspire a great culture which results in higher level of participant participation. The more participants, the more money you will raise! Your goal is to have 95% of your organization contributing to the fundraiser. (95% of participants have donations)
Below are success factors I have found from other organizations who have executed this fundraiser.
Call to Action
If you are a director, please read these and reflect on when and how you can be engaged.
If you are a volunteer, please make sure your directors read this and if possible, talk about how the team can be amazingly engaged with participants and families.
The participant to director link is so critical! The most successful groups have directors who are very involved with this fundraiser. What does an engaged director look like?
An Engaged Director!
The director(s):
- Are 100% committed to doing the prep work to get the fundraiser off the ground
- Engage the parents and broader community on this fundraiser and explain a clear purpose of why the $ is needed
- Inspire participants to participate in the fundraiser
- Clearly communicates to the participant why this fundraiser is needed and how the money raise impacts the participant
- Clearly communicates the fundraising overall goal and the individual participant goal
- Partners with the boosters to design fun/memorable incentives that are cost effective
- Dedicates rehearsal time to have participants create campaigns before the kick-off event
- Provides a simple example of how easy it is to reach the fundraising goal at an individual level.
- For example, telling all participants, “If 10 of your 25 contacts donate $25, you have met your goal for this fundraiser!”
- Talks about the fundraiser often
- Before the fundraiser starts they inspire participants to create a healthy contact list
- During the kickoff the directors are with their group interacting with them and having a fun time with them
- Participates in the incentives that are most fun for the participants (director torture :-))
- During the momentum phase (post kickoff) of the fundraiser interacts with participants daily regarding the fundraiser. A couple ways to do this.
- At the start of each rehearsal recognize the group by telling them thank you for already raising X amount of money
- Look at reporting daily and recognize the teams and rally the rest of the teams.
- After the kickoff, dedicates time each week to reward the participants for their efforts (weekly incentives)
- At the close of the fundraiser dedicates time to end the fundraiser by giving away the end of fundraiser incentives and hosting a community event (if that is part of your plan)
The WHY for parents
The most successful way to relate the why of this fundraiser to parents is to show them the impact this fundraiser will make to them and then the success of the program.
Impact to the parents
The simplest way to relate how this fundraiser will impact the parents is to build a table that shows if this fundraiser impacts how much the student fees will go down (or up unfortunately). If we raise $25k, the student fee will be $300, if we raise 30k, the student fee will be $275. Build this table and show it to the parents at the beginning of the season via meetings and email communications to parents.
Impact to the program
Many parents want their student to be invovled with successful programs. The most successful programs are able to fund the necessary items needed to be successful. The best way to explain this is to be transparent on the funds needed to build a successful program. This will look different for each program but again, simply building a table of where the funds are going and where you need to expand funding really helps parents understand why raising funds is so important.
The WHY for participants
Beyond just having fun, it is important to explain to students how these funds benefit them. This is also transparency. Simply show tables of information of how the participants benefit from these funds per group. For example, for color guards show how if we raise X amounts you will be able to buy higher quality silks, higher quality costumes, more elegant costumes, new rifles etc… For band members this can be custom uniforms, higher quality music, more staff to help them be able to march better, and finally better props and updated technology for the show.
For dance teams show the participants this is also explaining how higher quality costumes and music will impact the program. For sports teams you can show them the difference between a standard uniform and a higher quality uniform, you can show them the new updates you want to make to the practice facilities etc.
No matter the type of team the most basic and easy thing to do is just be tranparent and show the participants how the funds will impact them personally and for the better of the program.
