Fundraising

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?

Fundraising ideas

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!

Almabase's Ultimate Giving Day Toolkit

Walkathon

What it is

Typically annual, a walkathon event is a long-distance walk meant to fundraise for a cause.

Why it works

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.

How to start

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.

Restaurant chain

What it is

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.

Why it works

Everyone has to eat. The partnership between restaurants and your school converts a daily task into a charity event.

How to start

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!

Multicultural fair


What it is

A multicultural fair allows students to showcase their heritage and learn about their peers’ heritage.

Why it works

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.

How to start

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.

Car wash

What it is

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).

Why it works

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?

How to start

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.

Coffee drive

What it is

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.

Why it works

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.

How to start

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!

Trivia Night

What it is

A trivia night will spark a friendly sense of competition among your students. You can have students register as teams or individuals.

Why it works

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?

How to start

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.


Envelope Fundraiser

What it is

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.

Why it works

Easy, easy, easy. A fundraiser can’t get much more simple than this one. Plus, the envelope fundraiser doesn’t pressure supporters to give!

How to start

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.

Table of Contents

Subscribe

See how modern advancement teams bring alumni engagement and fundraising together.

Keep exploring with free resources

Related Blog Posts

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a powerful social giving tool that many educational institutions have employed to increase their donations while expanding their donor audience. Through peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns, these organizations empower their supporters to raise money on their behalf.

While peer-to-peer fundraising is an effective fundraising strategy especially for nonprofits, other forms of educational institutions too have raised a lot of revenue for their programs and missions by leveraging social networks.

How Scranton Preparatory increased its Giving Day donations b y 5 times with a peer-to-peer fundraising approach


Here’s how to get started with a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign:

1. Develop a campaign page featuring your institution's fundraising goal

2. Recruit supporters (e.g., current students and alumni) to create their own campaign pages that demonstrate their personal tie to your institution's cause

3. Share their pages with friends and family and encourage them to donate

4. Provide them with the tools to make peer-to-peer fundraising social, mobile, and fun!

Peer-to-peer fundraising is a great way to maintain relationships with alumni. To get the most out of it, there are certain strategies you should incorporate to ensure success. These include:

1. Using a peer-to-peer platform

2. Offering training

3. Promoting on and offline

4. Leveraging giving days

5. Using gamification

6. Combining with events

Are you ready to take a closer look at peer-to-peer best practices to grow your fundraising? Get ready to take some notes!

1. Use a peer-to-peer fundraising platform

Providing an easy giving experience is one of the most important things you can do when launching a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign for your institution. This means offering easy-to-use donation pages that provide a mobile-optimized experience and an overall convenient process.

How a peer-to-peer fundraising approach helped St. Ignatius College Preparatory successfully rise its Giving Day donations by 80%

Why is mobile optimization important? 

The majority of the population owns a cell phone and with mobile users increasing, donors are also starting to prefer making contributions via their mobile devices. Therefore, your cause needs to meet supporters where they are: on their phones, giving them the tools to donate anywhere and anytime.

To provide the easiest experience, it’s critical to invest in a peer-to-peer fundraising platform. Peer-to-peer software will allow your institution to:

1. Easily set up a main donation page for your fundraising goal

2. Let your college supporters create personal pages that harness their social networks

3. Track your progress and analyze important data

A peer-to-peer fundraising platform streamlines your fundraising process and expands your potential donor circle, introducing friends, family, and other alumni to your cause.

2. Offer training and support

When you prepare to launch a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, it’s important that you offer training opportunities to your supporters. Most of your supporters might not have a ton of experience as fundraisers, so getting them set up on the platform and providing tools will boost results and engagement.

Managing your modern day alumni relations is a great way to encourage alumni to become fundraisers for your cause. To make fundraising easy for them, be sure to provide the following resources:

1. Training: Educate supporters about your cause so they know exactly what they’re fundraising for. Make sure you have access to your platform’s tools and resources so you can pass along training knowledge to your supporters.

2. Mission and impact: Tie supporters to your cause and help them understand why this campaign matters. Social donors prioritize understanding the mission and impact of their efforts, as key motivators for fundraising.

3. Templates. Social media and email templates are an excellent way to give your supporters the materials they need to get the word out. This makes it easy for them to share the campaign and ask for donations while still adding their own personal touch.

4. Ongoing support: Regularly check in and monitor the progress of your supporters. Offer words of encouragement where needed and recognize high-performing fundraisers for their achievements.

5. Customizable pages: Give your supporters the ability to customize their individual campaign pages so they can demonstrate their connection to your cause. Allow them to upload photos, for example, and create their own content to tell their story.

Offering training and support is a surefire way to set supporters up for success. In order to reach your institution’s fundraising goal, your supporters must communicate to their networks in the way you need them to, while offering their own personal touch to the campaign. This will encourage donors to pay attention and give to the causes their friends and family care about.

3. Promote both online and offline

While your students may be online constantly, it’s a good practice to diversify your promotional strategies to create maximum reach. According to the OneCause guide to peer-to-peer fundraising, this means using a mix of traditional and modern marketing methods. 

Donor and alumni networks consist of different generations, so be sure to encourage your peer-to-peer participants to meet all of them where they are. Use multi-channel promotional strategies, including:

1. Social media

2. Email

3. Direct mail

4. Printed marketing materials

5. Phone calls

While the above list is a combination of all the approaches that your peer-to-peer participants should leverage, which approach works best needs to be identified with respect to your donor audience. If your older alumni prefer direct mail or email, that’s what your participants must resort to. Similarly, if your younger alumni prefer social media, that’s how they should be pursued. 

4. Leverage giving days

Giving days are designated days of the year where donors will contribute to a cause or institution they care about. These are often virtual fundraising campaigns with a 24-hour time-frame to capitalize on donations. 

Why Giving Days should be a critical part of your fundraising strategy


The most popular giving day is, of course, Giving Tuesday. Widely recognized as an annual day of giving, Giving Tuesday has helped universities engage with potential donors and raise the money they need. Paired with a peer-to-peer fundraiser, you can raise even more.

In order to make the most of Giving Tuesday and your peer-to-peer campaign, you should:

1. Plan ahead: While giving days are only one day out of the year, there’s a lot you can do to plan ahead and make sure donors know about your institution's giving campaign and ways to get involved. This ranges from social ads to printed marketing materials and ensuring your internal operations run smoothly. Prepare your peer-to-peer participants to make use of these materials.

2. Create a compelling campaign theme: A compelling theme will help your donors connect with your cause and inspire. Create a unique hashtag and make your campaigns easy to share among peers.

3. Call on your top supporters: Solicit personal appeals from famous alumni, board members, and other influential people associated with your institution. These peer-to-peer participants will further encourage donors to give. One thing that has worked well for institutions is "Gift Unlocking". Influence your top donors to pledge a donation based on a goal. For instance, once your Giving Day hits the 500 donor mark, a donation of $5000 will be made by the donor who had taken the pledge.

4. Show gratitude: Be sure to acknowledge those who contribute to your institution on Giving Tuesday. Appreciation goes a long way toward ensuring donors know their gift will go to good use and encouraging them to give again in the future.

Giving days can make a huge difference in donor acquisition and retention rates, and are a great way to spread the word about your institution and fundraising mission, especially during a peer-to-peer fundraiser. Explore even more ways you can leverage Giving Tuesday with best practices like gamification and others with this guide by OneCause.

5. Use gamification

Who isn’t motivated by a little friendly competition? Donors love to be recognized for their contributions, and your institution can benefit from leveraging gamification tools throughout your peer-to-peer fundraising campaign.

Gamification tools include:

1. Influencer dashboard (Reward those who influence donations)

3. Matching gifts

4. Fundraising thermometers

Gamification motivates supporters through friendly competition. These peer-to-peer tactics create and sustain momentum, inspiring donors to continue giving so you can reach the next benchmark in your fundraising progress.

By incorporating gamification tools into your institution’s peer-to-peer fundraising campaign, you’ll encourage more giving, more participation, and boost your chances of reaching fundraising goals.

6. Combine your campaign with an event

Peer-to-peer fundraisers work well with events. Whether you’re planning a walkathon, gala, or other engaging event for your institution, there are many ways your peer-to-peer fundraiser can boost engagement and promote your event. For example, people who donate to their friend’s peer-to-peer campaign will also be more likely to attend the event.

In addition to this, you can leverage:

1. Recognition: Events are a great way to recognize your fundraisers. Highlight some of your top supporters at your event to show them how much you appreciate their effort.

2. Merchandise: Set up a table at your event to sell items that promote your institution’s cause. You can even offer free event merch to your top peer-to-peer participants. This will also help raise awareness after the event when people walk around wearing your merch!

3. Social elements: Peer-to-peer fundraising campaigns pair well with active and community-based events such as 5K races, obstacle courses, walkathons, and others. Encourage friendly competition and teamwork, just like the campaign itself!

4. Wrap around events: “Wrap around” events are usually managed by teams and individual participants and can include smaller events like car washes and garage sales, or larger events like auctions. These activities foster a community vibe and attract new donors.

Pairing your peer-to-peer fundraiser with an event is an impactful way to bring your campaign full circle. You can even set the event date as the last day to fundraise to drive a sense of urgency in your supporters and encourage them to reach the goal.

About the author

Joshua Meyer

Joshua Meyer brings over 14 years of fundraising, volunteer management, and marketing experience to his current role as the Director of Marketing for OneCause. Currently, as a member of the OneCause sales and marketing team, Josh manages all of the firm’s marketing efforts. He has a passion for helping to create positive change and loves that his current role allows him to help nonprofits engage new donors and achieve their fundraising goals.


Peer-to-Peer Fundraising in Higher Education: 6 proven strategies that bring success

Here's our detailed guide on how to get started with a peer-to-peer fundraising campaign and proven strategies that can boost your fundraising.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

October 14, 2019

12 minutes

Read

Here are two main reasons why Online Giving is the best place to invest your time and talent.

1. It is the hottest form of giving right now – Online giving in Education sector has risen by a staggering 12.3 % and 15 % in last two years.

2. It has seen the largest adoption rates by the Millennials

62% of donors worldwide prefer to give online

Our experience with over hundred partner schools across the world had taught a few things about various friction points on Giving Pages. Some common examples include:

1. excessive steps or clicks in the giving process

2. multiple or conflicting calls-to-action, non-essential buttons, menus, or navigational elements.

Simple math tells us that:

1. Even under the assumption of a very conservative conversion rate of 1 % for every 1,000 visitors, you will have 10 donors.

2. For the same 1,000 visits to your online donation form, if 3% of them convert into donors, you’ll have 30 donors. That’s a 200% improvement! And depending on your average gift amount, this could equate to a significant increase for your organisation.

7- Effective Online Giving Practices

Here are two main reasons why Online Giving is the best place to invest your time and talent.1. It is the hottest form of giving right now – Online giving in Education sector has risen by a staggering 12.3 % and 15 % in last two years.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

12 minutes

Read

With the overwhelming success that Giving Tuesdays have shown to have brought to schools and universities across the globe, it is time we started talking about how to make the most of your Giving Tuesday.

Giving Tuesday, widely recognized as an annual day of giving, is a great opportunity for your school or university to engage with potential donors and raise funds. 

With Giving Tuesday 2021 just around the corner, here’s our checklist to help you plan an awesome Giving Tuesday. 

Plan ahead & set clear goals

1. Choose your core team, define responsibilities, and have regular meetings to plan and track execution

2. Set a defined structure, target audience, and actionable goals while creating the plan

3. Finalize the budget

4. Identify and begin to solicit prospective donors and other sponsors

5. Create a branded donation page to showcase your school spirit. Data shows that donors are much more comfortable to donate on a donation page that looks like yours than to an unbranded Venmo or Paypal page.

Build a compelling campaign theme

1. A unique and compelling theme helps your donors connect better and acts as an incentive for them to donate to a cause that they believe in. One of our customers, Don Bosco Prep High School raised more than $25K, asking its alumni to donate towards the specific cause of building a Wellness Center for its students. 

#GivingTuesday

2. Build all of your communication collateral about the Giving Day around it

3. Create a unique hashtag to help spread the word about your Giving Day further and faster on social media.

Mobilize your ambassadors

1. Bring your ambassadors on board to promote your Giving Day and take ownership or share your team’s responsibilities

2. Solicit personal appeals from influential people of your school like teachers, famous alumni, board members, etc. further inspiring donors to donate

3. Spread the word about your Giving Day extensively amongst your faculty and staff inclusive of board members, class representatives, and chapter admins

Ensure a smooth giving experience

1. With recent trends suggesting that an increasing number of donations are being made from mobile devices, ensure that your platform is mobile compatible

2. Enable peer-to-peer solicitation for your donors to reach out to their network

3. Display challenges and leaderboards to help donors get a sense of their contribution and encourage more participation through healthy competition

Leverage social media marketing

1. Create a detailed communication plan and calendar much ahead of your Giving Tuesday

2. Build a social media toolkit to help your team and ambassadors promote your Giving Tuesday campaign

3. Use Facebook or Instagram Live scheduling to actively engage with your donors and share with them live updates on the day itself to influence bigger contributions.

Leverage different content formats & multiple channels

1. You don’t have to necessarily stick to one format or channel. Experiment with multiple formats such as images, videos, or long-form captions.

2. Videos can help a great deal in the promotion of your Giving Tuesday campaign and encourage donors. Just a short video created with a smartphone can create a more personalized approach aimed at your donors. Try to involve the head of school or faculty in creating these videos.

3. Utilize offline channels to promote your campaign. Publishing updates in your print newsletter and distributing flyers in local coffee shops are some of the techniques you can try to publicize your campaign offline.

Thank all those who contributed

Sending a simple and short thank you email to your donors at the end of the day is a great practice to let them know how thankful you are for their contribution. Ensure that this note doesn’t ask for another donation and instead, only is a means of expressing gratitude. The thank-you gesture has shown to have increased the chances of the same donors contributing again.

Giving Tuesday has become a global movement that celebrates and supports giving and philanthropy with events throughout the year.

We wish your team make it BIG and make the best of this Giving Tuesday.

Need more pointers on planning your Giving Day?
Check out our Comprehensive Guide on Planning A Giving Day for Schools & Universities.

how to plan a successful giving day

How to make the most of Giving Tuesday?

Get this GivingTuesday checklist for hosting a successful campaign for your school, college, or university in 2021. Boost alumni donations & drive peer-to-peer fundraising.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

September 30, 2020

12 minutes

Read

If you’re involved in fundraising efforts for your school, chances are you’ve already been hearing a lot about Giving Days. With this year’s #GivingTuesday i.e. December 3rd fast approaching, it’s likely you won’t stop hearing about it any time soon.

How to plan your Giving Tuesday campaign

Giving Day was first introduced in 2012 and has since helped institutions around the world boost their fundraising efforts tremendously. A well-planned Giving Day can entirely transform your fundraising approach by helping you acquire new donors, enrich the giving experience, and instill a culture of giving in your constituents. 

However, the success of a Giving Day depends not only on planning but equally on its promotion. While there are many ways to promote Giving Days, in this blog post, we’re looking at the 8 most effective ones that have helped our customers achieve Giving Day success. 

1. Make your donors believe in your cause

One of the best means for influencing donors is by carefully selecting a cause that they relate to and would most likely contribute towards. Making donors believe in your cause is pivotal to your fundraising efforts. Here’s how Archbishop Riordan High School targeted its alumni by asking them to contribute towards campus improvements.

Giving Day Facebook Post 2017

2. Create a catchy hashtag

If you’re on social media, you obviously know how hashtags can boost your marketing efforts. While #GivingTuesday is a generic hashtag that almost everyone follows during the Giving season, creating a unique hashtag, relevant to your cause is highly recommended. Using your own unique hashtag makes it easier for your community to share your posts on their network, and for you to effectively monitor and further promote your social message. Calvert Hall College High School made great use of a unique hashtag. Check the full post here.

Giving Day Facebook Post 2017

3. Plan ahead with countdown posts

You might have seen a lot of people use countdown posts as a part of their social media marketing plan. They have proven to be highly effective as they help serve as constant reminders for the upcoming event and also arouse curiosity.
Here’s how Scranton Preparatory School got this right.

Giving Day Facebook Post 2017

4. Provide donors with opportunities to actively engage with you 

A great way to capture the attention of donors is to create opportunities that influence them to actively engage. Unlike fundraising campaigns that are run over a period of time, Giving Days provide an opportunity for your constituents to donate to your cause within a 24-hour time frame. Other than the sense of urgency already being created, any low-effort activities on your part can help channel your donors toward making a contribution. 

For the college’s 3rd Annual All Day Hall Day campaign, Calvert Hall College High School asked its followers on Facebook to show support by applying the All Day Hall Day filter to their profile pictures. Calvert Hall’s followers loved this approach and many took to applying the filter to their profile picture and pledging support to the Giving Day campaign. Here’s how Calvert Hall creatively provided an opportunity for its Facebook followers to actively engage & support the upcoming Giving campaign. 

All day hall day week

5. Incorporate videos into your social media marketing plan

As of 2022, videos are undoubtedly the most powerful marketing tool. 

People gaze five times longer at video than at static posts on Facebook & 71% of people have increased their online video viewing in 2018 alone.

As users on social media increasingly prefer the video format, it is a good practice to incorporate more videos in your Giving Day marketing strategy. Here are some ways in which schools have leveraged videos on their social media:


a. Give a passionate pitch to donors by linking your legacy

Creating a video that boasts of your school’s legacy is a great way of showing donors why their contributions matter. In this video, Calvert Hall College High School’s CAO/Director of Advancement, Joe Baker talks about all that Calvert Hall stands for and passionately urges donors to contribute to keep the tradition of the school intact. View the post here.

Facebook Post

b. Create a slideshow video capturing the essence of the campus & showcasing students and faculty members

If you’re worried that a professional video might be too expensive or time-consuming, a simple slideshow video is the next best thing! Including pictures of students and faculty members clicked on-campus in the video can be a great way to influence participation from donors. Calvert Hall created an amazing music slideshow video for its 3rd All Day Hall Day giving campaign.

Facebook Post

c. Go live during the event

Going live on the day of the event is one of the most commonly employed methods to promote Giving Days. This helps donors view real-time progress and get an inside picture of the events and activities planned during the day.

According to SproutSocial, Facebook users spend 3X more time watching a live video than a pre-recorded one.


Here’s David Lin, Director of Boarding at Archbishop Riordan High School going live on the school’s campus, during 2019’s Giving Day campaign. View the post here.

Facebook Post

d. Make updates fun 

When it comes to sharing updates about your giving day via videos, go beyond the usual formula of simply announcing these updates. Check out how Calvert Hall College High School created an awesome video, sharing updates from its 2018 All Day Hall Giving Day campaign.

Facebook Post

6. Showcase the team behind the cause

The team responsible for running your giving campaign definitely deserves a special shout-out for their endless dedication and hard work. There’s no better way to do this than showcasing their efforts for donors to see. This creates a sense of gratitude and acts as a strong incentive for people to do their part by contributing towards a noble cause. Here again, Calvert Hall wins our hearts by creating a beautiful video dedicated to its passionate team members.

Facebook Post

7. Create an email outreach campaign that is relevant and personal

Email marketing continues to play a crucial role in the success of Giving Days for most schools. 

Here’s a look at how email marketing has been leveraged by schools to boost Giving Day donations:


a. Create awareness much ahead of the Giving Day campaign

While schools start planning their Giving Days much ahead, why don’t a lot of them recognize the need to market their campaign in advance? From the initial announcement informing potential donors about the campaign right down to the thank-you email to all participants, every email must be well-timed and carefully crafted. At the same time, be careful not to overdo it by sending too many emails. Take a cue from Scranton Preparatory School’s immaculate planning for the school’s Giving Day 2022 campaign.

Email Campaign
Scranton Prep’s email to alumni two weeks prior to the Giving Day campaign

b. Ask for early bird donations by providing incentives

In addition to generating awareness about the upcoming Giving Day via emails, another way of capturing donors is by informing them of incentives. By providing exclusive benefits to select donors, the chances of securing early bird donations significantly increase. 

c. Personalized email campaigns

Your approach to marketing a Giving Day can vary greatly depending on who you’re reaching out to. Long-time donors, for instance, are the most loyal of your followers and therefore, it is best to personalize your approach while asking for their contribution. Here’s how Scranton Preparatory School created a customized email invite for its Class of ‘79, asking for their support during the school’s Giving Day 2019 campaign.

Email Campaign

8. Leverage peer-to-peer fundraising

Peer-to-peer fundraising has proven to be highly effective for most schools. Emails or referrals from peers help create a personalized touch and act as a strong incentive for fellow alumni to contribute.

8 Proven Ideas for Promoting Giving Days

The success of your Giving Day depends not only on planning but equally on its promotion. While there are many ways to promote Giving Days, in this blog post, we’re looking at the 7 most effective ones that have helped our customers achieve Giving Day success. 

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

October 15, 2019

12 minutes

Read