Your online fundraising tool can be the best means to boost your outreach and raise more donations. In order to ensure a successful event, we recommend that you start planning at least six months in advance. Wilson High School students are taking a page out of Penn State's playbook and are dancing to help fight childhood cancer. They are the people who will help you promote this page and raise more money. Since youll have a lot of kids collecting pledges and donations from people, it is advisable to turn your crowdfunding campaign into a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign. Best of all, it encourages a love for reading amongst young people of all ages. With minimal effort and setup needed from the school itself, read-a-thons simply require that sponsors donate money to your school for every increment (every 30 minutes, for example) that a student reads. If your PTA or school is holding this event, you can take teachers and parents help as well. Promote the event. There are hundreds of great school fundraising ideas to choose from! Fun Runs, Jog-a-thons, & Walk-a-thons become Stay-Fit-a-thons, Move-a-thons, Excercise-a-thons. Friends and family knew she struggled. Text-to-Donate is our easy, mobile-first method for capturing contributions when donors are on the go. After their books are done, kids can feel frustrated that they cant find more. Take your donor experience to the next level! Here is how you can sign-up and get started! Your funds, lightning fast Adapted annual Walk-a-thon to a Virtual Walk-a-thon. 1. With Read-A-Thon, your return on investment is guaranteed, and you should be ready to launch your own virtual Read-a-thon in a matter of minutes. Of those who encouraged a friend or family member to contribute, 75% did so by talking with others in person, and 38% did so via voice call. Blue Mountain fundraiser features relay-style event and 24 hours of skiing and snowboarding down the Smart Alec run. Speaking of educational fundraising, library fundraisers are another great way to support a love of learning while bringing in critical funds for your school. Here's a sample of what your virtual fundraising process could look like: Set up your fundraiser page with 99Pledges for free. Just be sure to pick out high-value goods and experiences that participants would be willing to bid on, partner with a reliable auction software provider, and promote to parents and community members. See our Resource Hub (for members, but open to all) for a complete list of what donor data Give Lively collects. It started . Peer-to-peer and team fundraisers Explore popular topics GIVE LIVELY MEMBER NONPROFITS Start fundraising Manage your Give Lively account Integrate with Salesforce Set up and use Stripe Manage donors DONORS Support your cause Manage your donation FUNDRAISERS AND TEAM LEADERS Learn to fundraise CHARITY NAVIGATOR'S GIVING BASKET The Ultimate Online School Fundraising Program, How Read-A-Thon's Online Fundraiser Works, many companies that match gifts for schools. Youll also want to find ways to excite students with the prizes and class competitions. To begin selling your own custom merchandise, create an online store on your school website. To begin this simple, effective, and rewarding online school fundraising program, create your free account with Read-A-Thon. Say goodbye to raffles and bake sales! The kids LOVED the Read-A-Thon! This lowers the barrier to giving and opens the door to a whole new pool of donors. You can hold an all-day event that gives kids time to read on their own and as a group, including food, costumes, prizes, and more. Donorbox Text-to-Give is very easy and quick to get started And, theres no additional fee to participate in the trial! "We've had more donations coming in . What kind of statement or impact do you wish to make on your local community? Read-a-thons are a great way for schools, other educational organizations, libraries, PTAs, book clubs, churches, and many other nonprofits to kill two birds with one stone. Additionally, these widgets also offer tips for students to find and attract sponsors, allowing them to funnel attention to their fundraising webpage and expand your network of supporters. While this sounds like matching gifts are exclusive to nonprofits, there are actually many companies that match gifts for schools! Donorbox has helped 50,000+ nonprofits and organizations raise money online through their fundraising campaigns and events. Furthermore, the keyword will typically indicate which campaign the donor wishes to allocate their contribution to. PTFundraiser gives you the ability to customize, automate and effectively manage a full-fledged a-thon fundraiser without any time-consuming manual work or limitations. After all, knowing where you stand and the health of your fundraiser is your greatest asset to maximizing the success of your campaign as it unfolds. Each organization will have a different reason for holding a read-a-thon. You can also use this as a way to start community partnerships with businesses and corporations. Your sponsorship is a tax-deductible donation toward the program that helps pay for fees, travel costs, equipment, uniforms and much more. Volunteer opportunity: If you're passionate about mental health services and eager to support a great cause, we want you on our team! Results dont need to be recorded at the same time, which means that your participants can enter them when theyre done. You can add an event-ticketing form to your page, multiple ticket levels as per your strategy, and highlight the tax-deductibility of the tickets by inputting fair-market value and the tax rate. Once you have done this, the system will calculate each supporters total donation based on what they pledged and the activity results you entered. 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. Say goodbye to manually collecting funds when you run an a-thon fundraiser. Create as many unique text codes as needed for all your campaigns, events and more. Getting Started with Read a thon Watch on Revolutionizing fundraiser for teams and groups. At Donorbox, with years of in-depth understanding of the fundraising needs of nonprofits, we created a simple-to-use text-to-give feature so that nonprofits can sign up and start raising funds very quickly, we also added repeat donation a feature that lets your donors repeat their last donation with a single text message. All you need to do is promote your online fundraiser. That way, the system can calculate results and charge donors for their pledges. Remember to take a picture of the winners along with parents who helped and donated. In a matter of days, watch as hundreds of reading hours and thousands of dollars roll into your Read-A-Thon account, all for an activity that your students are already doing! 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. A hit-a-thon fundraiser comes with a high profit vs investment in materials. Thank you so much! When we sent emails asking them to encourage Claudia through Read-A-Thon, I was overwhelmed. Have the coordinator plug the information that you collected during the text-to-give process (i.e., donors names, phone numbers, email addresses, and billing addresses) into your existing donor database or CRM and use it to better your segmentation and outreach efforts. Before starting the read-a-thon, youll need to educate kids and parents on how to track reading progress, create their individual campaigns on your chosen fundraising tool, and collect funds online. Enter the number of students in your school below to see how much you could raise. Its essential that you work with a PCI-compliant service provider. Donorboxs text-to-give was built keeping in mind the ease of use for nonprofits and more importantly, the donors. HAVE A GREAT SPRING BREAK. -Two week period, out of class time, etc. The learning curve is low, so donors can give without much hassle. 1. Check out this example here. Nearly half41%of its Haiti mobile donors were 34 years old or younger, far below the age of a typical Red Cross supporter. Read more about their experience with us. Due to the pandemic & financial hardships, VC Academy notified supporters that it was completely understandable if they wanted to withdraw their pledge. The activity can be almost anything, from reading to running to bowling. zoom_out_map open_in_new . Usually, with most text-to-give platforms that lead donors to a mobile donation page, yes. You'll gain access to Fund-A-Thon fundraising campaigns, which will include your very own replication donation pages. The website was so easy to use. Donorboxs Text-to-Give lets you start fundraising within a few simple steps. Youll want to keep your expectations and goals reasonable. Read-a-thons are also a great, simple peer-to-peer fundraiser that can help you raise a lot of money without many overhead costs, especially if you host a virtual read-a-thon. Furthermore, since the opportunity to give is so immediate and the process so fast, donors are more likely to follow the initial urge and less likely to get distracted. With thorough planning and the right support, you can host a memorable fundraiser that could become a staple in your yearly fundraising strategy! Organizers. 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. Our dynamic fundraising platform was designed to help you simplify the a-thon fundraising experience for your organization, and your donors. Join the 50,000+ nonprofits already raising funds online. Please note that Text-to-Donate is not the same as "Text to Give. The latter is when someone sends a text message with a donation amount, rather than a text code, to a special short code. Text-to-give will likely be convenient for many of your donors, no matter their age. And they have free and unlimited use of our five-digit short code. Text-to-give is one of the simplest ways to donate. Regardless of how your organization decides to run the fundraiser, read-a-thons are an excellent way to raise significant amounts and encourage more kids to read. Baker PTA earns a percentage of sales from Scholastic, our book fair vendor. In spite of these limitations, text-to-give is a powerful, yet often untapped, fundraising tool. In case youve opted for a more traditional text-to-give vendor, theres usually a $5-$10 caps on all donations. These donations are coded to you and are tracked and reported within your Fund-A . Shortcodes are phone numbers shortened to 5-6 digits. Donorbox also lets you accept donations from the event page. 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). Wonderful experience! You can either use a read-a-thon company to help set up and execute your fundraiser, like this one, or choose to organize this event yourself. Jog-a-thons can take pledges per mile. Put together a social media and marketing plan to promote your campaign. Your organization needs to take care of the marketing with newsletters, reminder emails to parents, flyers, press releases, social media posts, paid ads on social media, and more. Will the school have free reading time for contest participants? 7. Create a code Create your own text codes that are catchy and easy to remember, like "EQUALITY", "GIVENOW" etc. While this fundraising type can be a bit trickier and require some research, crowdfunding has the potential to bring in massive amounts of revenue for your school! Take advantage of our outreach and marketing toolkit to spread the word about your Read-a-thon! Collect the forms weekly and determine whos in the lead. Maintaining the support of this new generation of philanthropistsand immediate access to them via their phonesrequires restraint. Go here if you're looking for a Sports & Music Fundraising version of this article. This worry is understandable, with the United States literacy ranking 125th worldwide. 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. Kick-off events are critical in the larger fundraising sales process, as the initial excitement for your campaign will often determine its overall trajectory. First, seek out a crowdfunding platform or use your own crowdfunding website. Decide on what kind of signature to create. A typical Write-a-thon may run for 1-2 months, depending on computer availability at school and home. Other than a couple of hiccups with the system we were extremely happy!! Teachers . The only requirements for your child to win books and awards is (1) READ and (2) submit those minutes through the app. This might include an animated video, a slideshow, or even a guest speaker explaining your campaign. Text-to-give fundraising can bring in a high volume of donors, and it can be integrated with other fundraising methods. No Contracts. Parents Love not having to sell or deliver items. Congratulations!! You can read more about all of these fundraisers on our Fundraising Ideas Page. It only takes 10 minutes to set up your account and kick off the easiest online school fundraising program you've ever hosted. Minimize required fields, use large text, and dont cram your page with design elements to maximize your conversion rates. 3/3/2023 9:00 am. Launch fundraising campaigns in minutes with beautiful, customizable and responsive donation pages. Math-a-thon: Students receive a math worksheet at home based on their grade level and count how many math problems were solved correctly. 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. Donorboxs text to give feature went live in January 2021. In keeping with our commitment to data privacy and security, Give Lively takes full measures to protect all collected data, both where it is stored and when it is transferred between authorized parties. You can make your swim-a-thon a memorable and successful fundraiser with creativity and planning. Begin your fundraising campaign with a bang and generate as much support as possible by organizing a memorable kick-off! Otherwise, you might be overwhelming your donors. This way of fundraising allows organizations to raise money anytime, anywhere. Encouraged families to post pictures and videos on their Facebook School Group page. Every kid doesnt have access to the same amount of books. From there, usually, one of two things will happen: If their mobile device is equipped to use the Internet and when they are online, the donor is guided to a donation landing page where they give. Take a multi-channel marketing approach to ensure that students, parents, and the community are aware of your upcoming text-to-give campaign. 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. It consists of signing up, tracking your progress, sharing your fundraiser, and raising funds! Most text-to-give providers will accept payment methods including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. GivingTuesday is November 29. You have the option to log in as a fundraising admin, a teacher, or a student. These campaigns provide critical funding for your institution and you can't afford to invest time and money into campaigns that might not work. The below online fundraising campaign used a simple donation form to accept donations through a read-a-thon. Additionally, print marketing materials, such as flyers or posters with QR codes, are another must, even for fundraisers that are going to take place entirely online. -Fifteen twenty minute sessions, during class, over three weeks. Donorbox Events lets you create simple online event pages. St. Francis - St. Stephen School raised $5,352 with 99 students that went directly to their financial aid fund to support returning & newly enrolled students. Most people use mobile phones on a daily, so donating via texting is quite an intuitive process. The goal remains to give each business at least $2,000. Re-imagined their annual Rainbow Run-a-thon into a Rainbow ReCreate-a-thon. CHESTERTOWN Sho'men Aquatics swim team for youth ages 5 to 18 raised nearly $7,500 in its recent fundraiser at the Casey Swim Center on the Washington College campus. They decide how much theyll read and the amount they hope to raise. You keep 75% or 80% of your profits. They will never be charged any more than that, even if the per-unit pledge activity exceeds their limit. Thank you!! We have secured a total of $7,500 so far, and we hope to reach $50,000. And remember, our customer service will help every step of the way as well. Read-A-Thon Reading Reminder! Read how to Set up a Text to Donate Campaign with Donorbox or watch this short video on how to set up text-to-give on Donorbox in minutes! Remember me . And surprisingly, the typical text-to-give user is actually a woman between 49-59 years old who has a college degree.

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