A proper fundraising event calendar can make or break schools meeting their financial goal and with proper planning, even surpassing it beyond the school year. Fundraising is all in the planning. If you don’t have an event calendar in place, your school could miss out on some really valuable and timely fundraising opportunities. With the latter plan in place, your school year is sure to start off on the right note and establish a productive fundraising operation. This post explores the myriad advantages to a considered fundraising calendar, and offers some advice about how you might go about creating one.
The Importance of a Fundraising Event Schedule
There are several benefits to planning your fundraising events in advance:
- Save Valuable Time
It takes you less time in the long run if plan ahead. A comprehensive fundraising calendar: Keep in check the necessary resources and amount of volunteer time needed for each event by having a good : This also eliminates last-minute madness preparing for an event, making for a better execution. Planning also allows you to more easily see overlapping resources between events, so you can save even more time.
- Capitalization on Other Funding Opportunities
The following year — Cycle 2 Form vs. Opportunity: A scheduled fundraising campaign calendar will provide a birds-eye view of your year, specifically what cycles you should focus on or missed opportunity in all the other Levels. It allows you to find out about key dates, holidays and events in plenty of time to plan for moments where it would be fantastic to do a creative fundraising event. Balancing out the year with many different kinds of successful fundraisers will make it easier for donors to remain engaged without overburdening them or making them feel like you are nickel and diming them.
- Raise More Funds
The more orderly and deliberate your schedule, the greater the chances of growth in donations. The more kinds of fundraisers you run, the less likely your donors are to get fatigued — and the more opportunities they have to support their favorite school. The result? More total funds raised for the year
- Set Bigger Plans And Objectives
An expansive fundraising event schedule also allows you to set sights beyond yearly goals. As you raise more, you can look to fund strategic bigger projects such as technology upgrades, improvements to the school or expenses that need covering for multiple years (e.g. field trips or new equipment)
Building Your Fundraising Event Calendar
Ready to get started? Here’s how to create an epic fundraising calendar in 4 steps.
- Set Clear Fundraising Goals
Figuring out your timetables, what you want to raise and when>{@}@ What are you raising money for this year? Long-term projects that will require funding in the future? Identify your goals to decide how many and what types of fund raisers you will need.
- Identify Key Dates and Events
Consider important dates, activities, and holidays that correspond with your school fundraising opportunities. Such as a Valentine’s Day Fitness event or selling custom gifts for Mother/Fathers May. Align with Important Dates: Plan your fundraisers around more significant dates so that they feel current.
- Assign Resources and Volunteers
Be sure that you have the resources and volunteers to make every event a success. Have a means of transforming all fundraising activities into checklists of items to be collected, people to be involved, and times that will need to be reserved for either tasks or events. So make sure to distribute labor intensive events that might lead to volunteer burnout ensuring each fundraiser is well supported.
- Diversify Your Fundraisers
Plenty of Fundraisers○ Different types will ensure donor involvement in every season. Provide alternative opportunities to contribute, such as a back-to-school gear sale, a restaurant night or holiday gift fundraiser. All these events are to raise the money, which in turn increases the probability of donors giving more than once a year.
After you complete your year of fundraising, earnestly evaluate what worked…and what did not. So now you can go back to how the previous days events planned out for you strategically —you will be making some tweaks from there and you are going next level!
Conclusion
A balanced schedule only will help achieve your annual fundraising goals, but also keep your schools fundraising efforts neat and methodical. When you provide properly structured events, leverage important dates and set realistic goals for each event, your community will get involved and help contribute more to your charity–and getting a routine started that is sustainable for long-term success..
Want to step up your school’s fundraising game? Use Werbylo to simplify your events and enhance your fundraising. Get in touch with us now at support@werbylo.com to know how we can help your school raise the funds.
