A
Guide to Online Fundraising Success for Your School Band
7
Reasons to Fundraise Online
14
Ways to Boost Your School Band’s Online Fundraising Dollars
Fundraising
The nature of online
fundraising is very different than traditional fundraising. Here are a couple of things to keep in mind.
With
online fundraising, you’re dealing on a much larger scale. The audience is larger and more diverse but
much harder to engage and coerce action from.
Providing the right incentives is key. Modonna School located in San Jose, conducted
a raffle with a $1.5 million, 2800-square-foot dream home as the prize. They sold 32,000 tickets at $150 each, for a
total of $4.8 million. This shows just
how effective an online fundraiser can be.
By eliminating geographic limitations, and providing the right
incentive, the rewards grow exponentially.
2. Partner With Online Fundraising
Providers
To greatly expand the audience for your auctions,
consider selling on Ebay Giving Works. (http://givingworks.ebay.com/)
Ebay Giving Works is dedicated to non-profit and
charity listings. To do this, start by
signing up to MissionFish. MissionFish makes
it safe and easy for nonprofits to sell on ebay. AuctionPay (www.auctionpay.com)
is another resource that can help create bidding activity outside your school’s
local geographic range. St. Mark’s
School instituted AuctionPay’s Online Auction
Solution and managed to raise $25,000; more than one-fourth of the school’s
total revenue of $97,000. A bidding war
even erupted between two grandmothers, one in Florida and one in California,
over a lunch with the school’s teacher followed by a movie at a local
cinema. The item sold for $2,200. (www.nptimes.com) For raffles, RaffleSoft (www.rafflesoft.com)
offers good online raffle software.
3. Measure
Everything
One of the great things about fundraising online is there are many
useful ways to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Some of these include normal metrics you
should gather with your email campaign including email open rate, click-through
rate, forward rate, opt-out rate, and email list growth rate. Track valid website metrics as well,
including traffic growth, and the number of visitors who register. It’s also important to keep track of online
versus offline funds raised, and the number of participants that are new
donors.
Communication and
Promotion
Maintaining
ongoing communication with potential donors ensures they are up to date on
upcoming concerts and fundraising events.
Keeping people engaged with your music program is very critical. The more involved they are, the more they
will give. A few ideas are outlined
below.
4. Start an email Campaign
Starting an e-mail or e-newsletter campaign is the #1
most crucial factor in the success of your online
fundraiser. If people aren’t informed, they
won’t be willing to help. The tips
provided below will make your newsletter campaign a success.
Ø Tailor emails for Each Recipient’s
Interests: Build
detailed profiles for each potential donor.
This can be done by sending an initial email that defines recipient’s
needs and demographics, or over time using surveys and polls. The second option is often best. It allows for better relationship building by
gradually gathering information and developing continually more tailored
emails.
Ø Purchase email Marketing Software: Email marketing software will save you a
great deal of time and money. This
software allows your donor database to be uploaded directly into an email
marketing application, eliminating the need to manually upload data. Emails can be easily tailored to a
recipient’s interests. Emaillabs.com
offers great basic email marketing software.
WildApricot, Convio,
GetActive, and LocalVoice
are designed specifically for online fundraising and offer a handful of
specialized tools general email applications do not offer.
Ø Do Not Solicit in Initial Mailings: The importance of not soliciting recipients
with their first email cannot be emphasized enough. Initial emails should be used to gather
information on the recipient needs and interests in order to provide more
valuable content. There is a direct
correlation between the relationships built with potential donors and the
amount they will give.
Ø Establish a Schedule for Writing and
Distributing: The
whole point of an email marketing program is to hold a recipient’s attention by
keeping them continually informed.
People will look forward to receiving your email. A set frequency should be established based on
time constraints and your program’s ability to produce relevant news or
content.
For
more information on email marketing read my article “Email Marketing for School
Bands: Why and How.”
5. Start Band Blog and Forum
Blogs
are especially great for school band websites.
Hearing about current issues from the band director’s perspective is
something that’s very valuable to people.
A forum gives students, community members, parents, and faculty a place
to share ideas and become involved.
6. Incorporate a Web Calendar
It’s essential to integrate a web calendar into the
band website. A web calendar allows visitors
to quickly view upcoming fundraising events.
There are many web calendar applications out there. Trumba event
calendars (www.trumba.com) are easy to use
and boast a number of features. Google
and Yahoo both offer free event calendars.
7. Integrate an RSS Feed
RSS
feeds allow for subscribers to be automatically updated on new content without
having to check your website. New blogs,
email newsletter shipments, and upcoming fundraising events should be placed on
an RSS page. Doing this will greatly
increase fundraiser participation. For
more info on creating RSS feeds visit http://www.wilsonweb.com.
8. Create Wiki Pages
A wiki page is a webpage that has the capability to be
edited by website visitors. Wikipedia is
the most commonly known wiki site, offering a visitor edited, free
encyclopedia. Consider designing a wiki
page for the band. This will allow
parents, students, faculty, or whoever is involved, to contribute unique pictures
and stories about your school’s band.
This not only helps establish a sense of community but also informs the
entire community on current events. JotSpot provides a fully integrated wiki application that
makes creating wiki pages a breeze.
While most wiki pages are mostly text based, JotSpot
allows you to create rich web-based
spreadsheets, calendars, documents and photo galleries with ease. For additional information
on general wiki page creation, visit www.intersci.ss.uci.edu.
9. Create and Distribute Charity Badges
A charity badge is a
small widget often including a picture, brief description of the organization,
and link to where you can make a donation.
The beauty of the charity badge is that it allows users to share with one
another by simply clicking on “get this badge,” and copying the html code onto
their website or blog. Using charity
badges is good practice for any fundraising campaign. Although they may or may not produce large
donations, they are a very effective way to promote a fundraiser. Having your badge placed in specific targeted
locations can help you reach new demographic groups. Also, charity badges are often shared from
one friend to another, making requests targeted to individuals who may
donate. They are also very inexpensive
and easy to create. They cost no more
than the time it takes to make them, which is minimal (simply follow
step-by-step instructions though providers such as CareBadges or ChipIn).
To get your band’s charity badge started, first choose
a provider and create a badge. Then, donate
to your charity badge yourself, and have co-workers and friends do the
same. People are much more likely to
donate if they feel they are part of something bigger. After this, you can start emailing those who
would be most likely to make a contribution or share the badge with others, and
begin promoting your badge though your school blog, or social networking sites.
The Basics
Here
are some basic tips that will help make any fundraising effort more successful.
10. Base Appeal on Benefits, Not Needs
Communicate how your band and community will benefit
from funds. Don’t act desperate in an
attempt to receive donations out of pity.
11. Create a Sense of Urgency
Communicate the need for urgent calls to action with
clear deadlines and purposes. The idea
is to catch people in the moment, when they are most likely to make a donation.
12. Provide Convenience for Donors
Give donors the convenience of paying online, over the
phone, or via mail. Establishing several mediums for
submitting donations, or purchasing raffle tickets, will increase the
likelihood that people will participate.
13. Following up with a Thank You
Don’t forget to send thank you notes to any direct
donors, big raffle ticket customer, and purchasers of auction items.
14. Use Online Fundraising as a Supplement
Encourage online participation, but don’t let this be
the only alternative. Many people do not want to become engaged
with the online process. Make sure
traditional fundraising activities are still in place, they are the backbone of
your fundraising efforts.
Lance Trebesch
and Colt Lapham
clapham@TicketPrinting.com