As schools and universities turn to host their 2020 Homecoming virtually, here are the top 5 best practices employed by Alumni Relations & Fundraising teams to maximize fundraising profit potential at their Virtual Homecoming this fall.
It’s that special time of the year again - Homecoming! For schools, colleges, and universities across the country, the Homecoming weekend is a grand, festive celebration where students, alumni, and faculty come together to show their school pride. For alumni, homecoming is a truly memorable experience as they look forward to meeting their old friends, teachers, mentors, current students and making new memories. The nostalgia associated with homecoming also encourages alumni to give back to their alma mater and learn more about the philanthropic possibilities.
While the pandemic has definitely made it difficult to host a traditional Homecoming this year, it is incredible to see how institutions are coping up to deliver the best experience to their communities via a virtual or a hybrid format. As raising funds become all the more crucial amidst a pandemic, schools, and universities are leveraging creative opportunities to maximize fundraising profit potential at their Virtual Homecoming this fall.
Here are the top 5 fundraising ideas to boost alumni donations at your Homecoming this year.
A virtual talent show is a great, fun-filled way to encourage your alumni to showcase their talents and are perfect for making small fundraising appeals. Inspire alumni to flaunt their artistic side, be it singing, dancing, music, or even magic. Set a theme that your alumni would be excited to perform to and collect registrations well in advance. You could also use an event management tool to create a branded event page with details about the theme, attendees, timings, and urge alumni to make a donation on the page.
Make the event more interesting by conducting a live poll amongst your alumni to decide the winner. You can also live stream the event on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram to boost engagement during the event and appeal to those engaged online to make a gift. In addition to making fundraising appeals a part of your event registration process and promotions during the online event, you can also add a payment link to your communications (emails and social media) after the event.
As the pandemic has forced everyone to stay confined to their homes for a majority of the year, health, and wellbeing has become a priority across the globe. So, this homecoming is a wonderful opportunity to help your alumni take actionable steps towards their health and well-being with a virtual race/walk-a-thon/marathon.
Post inspiring posts on your event page, garner support from alumni volunteers, and create awareness via social media. Also, remind your alumni that your institution too needs the support of their loyal donors to be able to power through this economic crisis. You can charge just a nominal fee per ticket for participants and also encourage alumni during the course of the event to support your cause.
See how Manchester University in Indiana hosted a 30-day Virtual 5K race at their Homecoming 2020, encouraging alumni to embrace the community spirit by joining the event along with their family and friends.
Since the onset of the pandemic, people have missed going out to movies with their friends. Bring the movie watching experience home to your alumni this homecoming by organizing a watch party. Take a poll to select the movie and set a designated time for the watch party. Connect your alumni over a Zoom call, so they can watch the movie together while being able to chat with each other real-time. You can also have all your alumni assemble on the call and then assign breakout rooms for different class years to have their own watch parties while they get to talk to their friends.
You can create a ticketed virtual event and encourage alumni to make a contribution to support your cause. Choosing a compelling theme and making a personalized appeal for donations can go a long way in boosting your fundraising this Homecoming.
Good food and conversations are a usual part of homecoming, but this year calls for a different approach. As your alumni cannot come together for a dinner party, you could organize a drive-through dinner to comply with the social distancing guidelines in your state.
Set up your registration page early and inform your alumni about what they should be expecting. From tacos to hot dogs, take your pick and promote the drive-through via social media, emails, and your alumni website. To spice it up, you can even create a themed-dinner and your volunteers can go live on Facebook or YouTube right before the event starts to boost engagement. It is also integral to let your alumni know how you plan on using the proceeds from their purchases.
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Get ready for #GivingTuesday with a plan from MobileCause that guarantees to win over the hearts and minds of all your supporters with proven strategies that will help drive awareness and attract new donors to your nonprofit organizations this year on November 28, 2017. This infographic lays out everything you need to know to maximize your efforts on #GivingTuesday.
#GivingTuesday Infographic: Campaign Planning Tips
This #GivingTuesday, try out these proven strategies to help drive awareness and attract new donors to your nonprofit organizations.
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Fundraising is a necessity for any school to support its educational activities.
It seems you can never fundraise too much or accept too many donations, but you don’t want to bore your supporters with the same fundraisers year after year. Is your school tired of the same old fundraisers and looking for new ideas that are guaranteed to work?
Your search ends here! Follow these 7 proven fundraising ideas for schools to raise money for your students:
1. Walkathon
2. Partner with a local restaurant chain
3. Multicultural fair
4. Car wash
5. Coffee Drive
6. Trivia Night
7. Envelope Fundraiser
Want something focused specifically on fundraising for private schools? Look to DonorSearch’s 5 Steps to A+ Private & Independent School Fundraising.
Read on to boost your mentoring skills and learn about these school fundraising ideas!
Typically annual, a walkathon event is a long-distance walk meant to fundraise for a cause.
Walkathons are usually encouraging and successful events because they support:
1. Health: All participants walk around your designated course, encouraging a healthy habit.
2. Community: Usually hosted on a public field or in a public park, walkathons are open to the public for the most exposure and therefore, evoke a sense of community and develop relationships as they bring people together.
3. Accessibility: Participants will be at different levels athletically, and that’s fine. Some will be participating to challenge themselves, and some will just be participating for fun. The more the merrier.
4. Affordability: Walkathons are fairly inexpensive fundraising events.
Pledges are placed on participants and how far they’re able to walk the day of the event. For example, if Sabrina pledges $5 for every mile Alex walks and Alex walks 7 miles, you’ve raised $35 for your school.
There’s a list of things to do when organizing your walkathon event.
1. Determine a location. You’ll need to decide if you want a course that gets you from Point A to Point B or a circular course that starts and ends at Point A, a straight course or a circuit course, respectively.
2. Pick a date and rain date. Make sure you pick a date in a warmer season, but not a hot one. Try May instead of August. And select a rain date, just in case!
3. Recruit sponsors. Approach previous gala sponsors to see if they’d like to run tents or water stations.
4. Promote your event. You can look into merchandise providers to customize your own t-shirts and water bottles. Promote your event through flyers and word-of-mouth, as well.
For a more extensive description on organizing a walkathon, check out Booster’s walkathon guide.
There are plenty of restaurants that partner with schools and educational clubs to help create awareness and raise money. These restaurants will have school fundraising nights, during which a portion of the sales from the night are donated to the school.
Everyone has to eat. The partnership between restaurants and your school converts a daily task into a charity event.
All you have to do is:
1. Pick a participating restaurant. Many fast food places like Chick-fil-a or Moe’s Southwest Grill have fundraising programs. Just contact your local restaurant for more information. Be sure to check with your local small-business restaurants, too! Many of their owners’ kids have gone through your school system and will be open to help you fundraise.
2. Promote the night. Send out email blasts, create flyers, even make t-shirts, if you’d like. Your fundraiser’s success will depend on your dedication to promotion.
Turn your community’s next good meal into a successful fundraising idea by partnering with a restaurant!
A multicultural fair allows students to showcase their heritage and learn about their peers’ heritage.
Students get a chance to perform cultural demonstrations and sell their culture’s products and food. On top of being a great fundraising opportunity and satisfying the mentor in you, it’s educational and a fun way to immerse the students in different cultures.
There’s a bit of planning that goes into organizing this fair:
1. Pick a location. This fair will be easiest if you have an accessible field if weather permits. If it doesn’t, try a gymnasium.
2. Set a date. If it’s outside, choose a rain date, too.
3. Recruit students to participate. Start a discussion and sign-up sheet to see which students would like to hold a booth at the fair. Ask which foods they’ll be making and selling and which cultural performances they’d like to display.
4. Promote! Post flyers. You might try to schedule the fair during lunch periods to reach the most students and/or during the evening to reach parents, too.
No matter what, make sure your students will have fun during the event–they need to be excited enough to sell and excited enough to learn.
Your school can put together a group of students to organize a car wash. Besides being a quick and simple fundraising idea, it gets your students outside (and away from tablets, phones, and the tv).
A car wash is an easy fundraiser to set up. Plus, everyone needs the pollen rinsed off their cars in the spring so who can pass up just $5 for a car wash?
There are just a few basic planning steps before you hold your car wash:
1. Pick a location. The school’s parking lot is probably your safest bet, just make sure it’s close to a hose!
2. Gather the materials. You need minimal supplies for this event. Invest in some soap, sponges, towels for drying, buckets, and of course, make sure you have a hose!
3. Promote and Advertise. Charge $5 per car and spread the word. You can advertise the day off by having students holding signs at the closest busy road.
Now that you have everything to start, pick a sunny day and hold your fundraiser.
With 83% of American adults drinking coffee, a coffee drive is bound to be a successful fundraiser. Partnering with a fair trade roaster can let you sell both packaged coffee beans and hot cups of joe.
Your students can sell beans to their peers, family, and others, while your school sells cups of coffee during lunch periods. Local coffee shops may partner with you and sell your school coffee at a discounted rate.
You’ll need to find a wholesaler to work with. Do your research and decide which blends at what prices work for your school’s community. Once you’ve found a supplier, all that’s left to do is promote and sell!
Get the word out and recruit students to sell.
Depending on how you want to organize sales, you can have students directly sell the product or keep a sales and orders sheet, like how girl scouts sell cookies.
Be sure to plan out your fundraiser and promote your coffee drive!
A trivia night will spark a friendly sense of competition among your students. You can have students register as teams or individuals.
Again, this fundraiser brings your students together to form a community. It works because who doesn’t love a little bit of rivalry and healthy competition?
Pick a location to host your trivia night. Your school’s gymnasium is a great option, but you can always try to partner with a local restaurant for space.
Make sure you have a plan for advertising and promoting your event to draw a crowd! Charge a small admission fee to trivia teams who want to compete. Plan out how your trivia game will start and finish. You don’t want an unorganized game.
Your trivia night can easily be an exciting and successful fundraiser as long as you plan ahead and organize.
An envelope fundraiser is a super inexpensive and simple way for your school to raise some extra dough. You’ll need 100 envelopes numbered 1 through 100, which you can easily find in your school’s office. Then, supporters who pass by the envelopes will choose one and donate that amount. For example, if Sally picks up envelope 13, she’ll give $13.
Easy, easy, easy. A fundraiser can’t get much more simple than this one. Plus, the envelope fundraiser doesn’t pressure supporters to give!
Get a pack of 100 envelopes and number them. From there, you can pin them to a corkboard in your school’s lobby or front office so students, parents, and others will see it and can make their donations.
All you need is 100 envelopes and a place to hang them and with the generosity of your supporters, you can accept donations.
Just remember to spread the word about your envelope fundraiser so people know where and when they can give because you’re relying directly on individual supporters’ donations.
Throughout your fundraising event, whichever idea you decide to go with, you can build a relationship with your students, like a mentor should. Don’t put too much pressure on them to sell and raise money, but instead encourage them to have fun with the fundraiser.
Still, want more ideas? Check out this list of fundraising ideas for schools and education.
Adam Weinger is the President of Double the Donation, the leading provider of tools to nonprofits to help them raise more money from corporate matching gift and volunteer grant programs. Connect with Adam via email or on LinkedIn.
7 Proven School Fundraising Ideas
Fundraising is a necessity for any school to support its educational activities. It seems you can never fundraiser too much or accept too many donations, but you don’t want to bore your supporters with the same fundraisers year after year. Is your school tired of the same old fundraisers and looking for new ideas that are guaranteed to work?
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As the COVID-19 outbreak continues to disrupt alumni relations and fundraising, institutions around the world have found themselves in a tight spot as a consequence of canceled events, giving days, and other planned alumni engagement activities.
With this new world order settling in, advancement teams are looking for unique ways to engage their alumni digitally. While a lot of institutions have been engaging alumni digitally for a while now, in this blog post, we’ll be looking at some of the most creative engagement ideas that we’ve seen being implemented during COVID-19.
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With alumni confined to their houses and being forced to work from home, everyone’s missing out on those Friday night Happy Hours. But wait, who said social isolation’s equivalent to the end of Happy Hours?
Virtual happy hours are a great way to encourage social interactions among alumni during these difficult times. You can organize your next virtual happy hour as a 1-hour event open to limited registrations. Create a dedicated event page for collecting RSVPs and lay down all the details on this page. Ask alumni to grab a beverage of their choice and join the meeting link. To add structure to your virtual event, encourage your event attendees to share something about themselves during the event like a short introduction, some insight into how they’re dealing with the crisis, or what they’re doing to help those in need.
St. Thomas University School of Law created a dedicated event page for its first-ever Young Alumni Virtual Happy Hour and promoted the event via social media.
According to a recent survey by Goldman Sachs, 51% of America’s small-business owners said they could not weather more than three months of the current economic environment.
With small business owners struggling to stay afloat throughout this crisis, this is a good time to offer your support to your alumni who own small businesses by leveraging your alumni network.
Create a web page listing small businesses owned or operated by your alumni and promote it on all your official websites and various social media platforms.
Here's how Centenary College of Louisiana offered its support to alumni small business owners.
Since the educational fundraising landscape has evolved as an outcome of the coronavirus situation, the approach that institutions have been adopting for fundraising asks has also transformed. Since schools and universities need funds now more than ever to be able to support their students, but feel apprehensive about asking their alumni for monetary donations, a lot of them are choosing to opt for fundraising in kind.
Similar to other institutions, Nicholls State University also had to move its classes online. However, the university realized that many students did not have webcams at home which served as a major obstacle to conducting online tests and smooth functioning of classes.
With the ongoing coronavirus situation, raising funds for webcams wouldn’t have been possible and so, the university appealed to its alumni to help students out by donating webcams.
With everyone confined to their homes, forced to work from home, limitations on social interactions, and physical fitness taking a back seat, health and well-being of alumni has become a major concern for institutions across the globe.
Aid your alumni through this phase of social isolation and encourage them to make exercise a part of their routine by organizing a virtual race. A virtual race can have participants from any location within a predetermined time. Photos shared by alumni during their walk/run can further be shared with the alumni community via Facebook or alumni website, helping drive engagement and registrations.
The College of Idaho’s ongoing ‘2020 Coyote Dash [Virtual 5K] race’ is helping connect its alumni who are located miles away from one another during these testing times.
Read the complete success story here 👇
With COVID-19 leading to stress and anxiety as a result of social isolation and financial pressures, the mental health of alumni is a rising concern for all schools and universities. Many institutions are organizing virtual exercise or yoga sessions for their alumni to help them deal with stress, depression, anxiety, energy, fatigue, and motivate them to work towards their overall physical and mental well-being.
William Peace University, a liberal arts college in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, roped in its former Alumni Board President, Alli Leggett '01 to organize a virtual yoga session for alumni to join from the comfort of their home.
Alumni photos that capture happy moments is another great way to engage your alumni and get them to interact with one another. You can start a photo contest by encouraging your alumni to post their photos on your alumni website or alumni group on social media.
Bob Greene, Alumni Director at Serra High School started a ‘Picture Time’ contest via email, urging alumni to share pictures while they’re at home with their families or any picture that makes them feel happy.
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Social isolation during COVID-19 means that you can’t invite your alumni to your school or university for a fun game of soccer but, how about hosting a virtual event for alumni to engage in some healthy competition over online games?
Bring your alumni together for a fun night of online Charades, Monopoly, Pictionary or Cards against Humanity. Take it a notch higher with special appearances of some of their favorite staff members.
Encourage your alumni to show off their creative side by hosting a virtual coloring contest open to them and their families. Coloring is known to be great for mental, emotional, and intellectual health in adults and serves as a wonderful hobby that keeps children calm and entertained.
Chestnut Hill College organized a fun virtual coloring page contest for alumni and their families where campus photos and logos were converted into coloring pages using the Colorscape app. Take a look at the coloring pages here.
The college also took to social media to launch a contest by encouraging alumni to download coloring pages and participate by coloring and sharing it with the alumni community. The best submission will be chosen by the alumni community and receive a CHC prize pack.
8 creative ideas to boost alumni engagement & fundraising amidst COVID-19
Here's a look at the 8 unique and creative ideas that we've seen advancement teams implement to engage their alumni digitally during the COVID-19 crisis.
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2020 has been a rough year, particularly for Liberal Arts Colleges. The resulting disruption has caused advancement teams across the country to rethink their programming and find unique ways to engage alumni and donors. With the fall spirit of Giving upon us, now's the right time to start thinking about ways to boost donations at your fall Giving Day 2020.
Giving Day is a powerful online fundraising campaign conducted for 24 hours with the purpose of raising money and finding new donors. Giving Days provide alumni with the ideal opportunity to serve their alma mater by helping the institution in a time of need.
As the pandemic continues to unfold, it's evident that Giving Day 2020 will be unlike any of the previous Giving Days. With Liberal Arts Colleges like yours shifting their focus to raising money online at their fall Giving Day and upcoming Giving Tuesday, here are 5 innovative strategies to help you get started.
It's always a best practice to start promoting your Giving Day as early as possible and build-up to the day of the event. While you can't invite your alumni to campus to let them know about your fall Giving Day, countdown posts on social media are a great way to spread the word.
Instead of merely creating posters or event notifications at intervals like, say, 15, 10, and 5 days before the Giving Day, think of ways to incentivize donors to participate. For instance, along with every countdown post, you can also share testimonials of past donors on social media. Seeing a friend believe in your institution’s cause can be a strong motivator for more alumni to donate.
Including photos and videos of how your institution has utilized funds raised at past fundraising events is another great way to motivate potential donors.
As the pandemic forces us to be confined to our homes, now more than ever, is the perfect time for your institution to invest greatly in building and growing an online community that your constituents can benefit from.
While an online community is great for driving engagement, not all potential donors will react the same way to your fundraising asks. For instance, an alum who's been working for 10 years might be more receptive to your fundraising ask this Giving Day than a young alum who's just graduated college and is still reeling under the pressure of repaying his student loan.
Personalizing your fundraising asks, therefore, plays a crucial role in building a unique connection with each constituent and paving the way for lasting relationships. Use dynamic segmentation to segregate your constituents based on class year, location, donation history, interests, etc. and personalize your emails right from the first message to the final thank you. Almabase can help you boost your fundraising with dynamic alumni groups and personalized email outreach. Talk to a fundraising expert today.
While promoting your Giving Day via in-person events does not look likely this fall, an increasing number of Liberal Arts Colleges are contemplating virtual events.
2020 has seen a ton of successful virtual events being implemented by Liberal Arts Colleges, big and small. Many have seen a steady rise in participation at virtual events because they're easily accessible irrespective of location or time. Virtual events, therefore, can help you tap into a wider network of donors and be a valuable addition to your marketing plan for Giving Day 2020.
As an added tip, you can use virtual event management software to engage alumni and drive participation at your fall Giving Day 2020.
As online engagement becomes pivotal for a successful Giving Day campaign in 2020, it is equally important to make the best use of the channels at your disposal.
Social media is the ideal place to meet and connect with new people, with platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook enabling you to explore potential donors. While you may already be connected with some of your donors on shared groups, use the network of your existing supporters to influence new donors. In addition to social media, emails and personal one-on-one calls are popular channels employed by most Liberal Arts Colleges for fundraising asks. If you are worried that alumni might ignore your email requests, here are some tips for you.
While driving more donors online may be your priority, also ensure that the online giving experience is smooth and flexible.
Now that you have done your bit to promote the campaign, how can you leverage your supporters to maximize the impact? Your donors are the ones who can carry your fundraising campaign forward by spreading the word through their networks.
You can find ways to make social sharing easy for donors and create more incentives for them to influence others in their network. For example, encourage your supporters to broadcast and share their contributions on social media. Offer them a customized template and prompt them to share this message on social media right after they've completed a gift.
You can also create a filter for Instagram or Facebook that donors can apply to their profile photos. Seeing their peers support their alma mater's cause can act as a strong driving factor for other constituents to contribute to the same cause.
Gamification techniques like leaderboards, challenges, and tributes are some additional great ways for invoking a healthy sense of competition amongst various constituent groups and amplifying the impact of gifts at your Giving Day this fall. William Peace University, a nationally ranked private liberal arts college in North Carolina, leveraged various gamification techniques at its Founder's Day of Giving 2020 and successfully surpassed its fundraising goal by 230%. Head over to the campaign page.
Planning a Giving Day has never been an easy task, but, with the pandemic leaving a majority of institutions around the world with a severe financial crisis, Giving Day 2020 is a big opportunity.
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Liberal Arts Colleges: 5 Fundraising Tips for Your Fall Giving Day
As Liberal Arts Colleges across the United States start preparing for their Fall Giving Day 2020 and Giving Tuesday campaigns, here are 5 innovative strategies to help them engage donors and boost fundraising this year.
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