Along with thousands of other good causes and charities across the UK, Sunrise Christian School in Glasgow has seen the benefits of fundraising with easyfundraising, allowing them to develop as a school thanks to their supporters simply shopping the easyfundraising way and collecting hundreds in funds from our retailers.
We spoke to Stephen McCollum to find out the three actions the school took to ensure easyfundraising success and which led to them raising £624 over the past year since joining. The school has even got their pupils involved in the purchasing of their textbooks!
Stephen said; “We have also used easyfundraising for all our textbook purchases this year and we plan to do the same in the future. Our pupils enjoy using easysearch!”
1. Talk about easyfundraising
Initially, I introduced the school community to easyfundraising. It took us a while to get going but eventually all the small donations began to add up. We would also take the opportunity at school events to remind parents to sign up and also send flyers home on a few occasions. We used social media periodically throughout the year to show how much easyfundraising was making a difference for us.
I went through a period where I thought that people would be sick of hearing me talk about easyfundraising, but then I realised that people had good intentions to sign up or could see the merits of it but kept forgetting to do it. People might see a post about easyfundraising on our blog but leave off reading it until later. It doesn’t hurt to remind them again. Another big thing for us was when some parents gathered up new supporters too.
2. Set a fundraising challenge
We began a challenge to see how much we could raise in a year. It was hard to know what was a good goal and one that could be achievable but also that would stretch us. We set the goal as £500, however by November we had already reached our goal so we set a new goal of £600 until the end of the year. Again we made that goal! For 2017 we have set the goal of £1500.
We track our progress by using a thermometer on our school website. This shows how much we have raised and how much we have left to go to reach our target. I think that a challenge like this keeps people focused and shows how worthwhile easyfundraising is. When you see the amount of money that can be raised by working together you are more likely to get involved.
3. Download the Donation Reminder Toolbar
We have quite a few supporters but some use easyfundraising more than others. I think that those who have raised the most either use the reminder toolbar or the app. So many people forget to use easyfundraising when making a purchase, but then it’s too late! Those supporters that have raised a lot don’t often spend a lot of money on one thing- they just have the reminder there for them to help them.
Here’s all the tools you need to keep reminding your supporters to raise!