It started around 6 p.m. with a . While this sounds like matching gifts are exclusive to nonprofits, there are actually many companies that match gifts for schools! Customize your mobile-responsive donation pages with logos, fields, and gift amounts. That's how confident we are that your online fundraiser will be a success! The parents were happy, the teachers were happy and the students were able to focus on reading! No Contracts. -Two week period, out of class time, etc. We the Parent . Find local businesses that cater to kids and families. From that point on, you're free to customize or expand your virtual art class to best suit your specific group of participants. Usually, with most text-to-give platforms that lead donors to a mobile donation page, yes. Traditionally, you have your supporters pull out their checkbook, envelope, and stamp to mail a donation. We recommend that you invest in dedicated online fundraising platforms, like Read-A-Thon, which will more effectively track these key metrics and provide you with an accessible interface to organize your campaign. Then, they followed up with a Quarantine Read-a-thon to support their city's local economy. 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. Create your signature and click Ok. Press Done. Due to the pandemic & financial hardships, VC Academy notified supporters that it was completely understandable if they wanted to withdraw their pledge. Encourage your child to get creative with his or her letters! 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. Create a tracker. Hayley White, a fourth-year student from Cumberland, Md., and captain of the Fayette THON team, said the team may be small, but . 2. Download your adjusted document, export it to the cloud, print it from the editor, or share it with other people . They can choose easy per-unit pledge or make a flat donation. A typical Write-a-thon may run for 1-2 months, depending on computer availability at school and home. Ultimately, your school's students and parents are going to be the ones doing most of the actual donating or fundraising. While Read-a-thons might be one of the most lucrative, educational, and fastest growing online school fundraisers out there, we don't claim to have a monopoly on the market. 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! START A READ-A-THON Easy to setup Outrageous results Set up a Read-A-Thon in less than 10 minutes and start raising funds for your school Everything You Need to Know About Read-a-thon Sign up for free We provide all the materials that you need for your Read-A-Thon. Wilson High School students took a page out of Penn State's playbook and danced to help fight childhood cancer. Colonial Elementary raised $36K at the start of the year with their first-ever Read-a-thon. Here are the advantages a text-to-give fundraising offers: Text-to-give technology allows donors to give to nonprofits of their choice directly through the text messaging app on their mobile devices. It only takes 10 minutes to set up your account and kick off the easiest online school fundraising program you've ever hosted. Also, pledge pages are mobile-friendly, so they can make a quick donation while waiting in line at their local grocery store. Parents consistently worry about whether their children read enough. Text-to-give doesnt naturally facilitate building deeper relationships with donors, making it more difficult to retain supporters through this channel than others. Your online fundraising tool can be the best means to boost your outreach and raise more donations. Tokenization is a security process in which sensitive personal data like credit card information is replaced by a token between a text platform and a payment processor. The pages get an average of 4,550 views within 3 weeks. 9th Sep, 2019. You can also hand out physical data forms to track reading progress. And depending on the type of fundraiser, you can enable an option for supporters to also make a performance-based pledge (e.g. Campbell Elementary Loved the Read-A-Thon! Your next read-a-thon event can help you raise more money and acquire new donors when powered by expert coaching and premium tools. The customized shortcode that your donors will use to donate and the numbers they text it to should be short and easy to remember. Thank you for making this the easiest and most successful fundraiser we've had! To help you pick the best possible online fundraiser for your school, consider the following points: Before you fall back on old habits with a cookie dough sale or pick a random idea out of a hat, be sure to weigh out the pros, cons, and finer details of the fundraising options you have available to you! 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. More specifically, Give Lively and its member nonprofits can never view a donors full payment details as they are handled exclusively by a secure third-party payment processor -- they are captured and stored securely by them without passing through our servers -- although some credit/debit card metadata and general payment information is accessible by Give Lively. Teachers . The GiveSmart subscription gives you the freedom to add a variety of fundraising elements to any of your events and campaigns, all powered by online fundraising. Take the stress, surprise, and hefty investment costs out of your school's online fundraising program! Another way to gain more participation is to hold additional reading events during the read-a-thon. A fundraising coach to help meet your fundraising goals, An account ambassador who guides you through challenges, Team of tech experts whenever you need their support, High-performance tools that guarantee more donations and better donor management. Take to popular platforms such as Instagram and Facebook to announce your campaign, share donation pages, and ensure that your fundraiser gets the traction it needs. Work with a vendor who offers plenty of options, so you can provide your donors with the most flexible and convenient donation experience. Other than a couple of hiccups with the system we were extremely happy!! 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. Speak aloud, share on the web or social media, print on handouts or project it at events with Live Display. From sip-and-paints for adults to arts and crafts nights for your young students, virtual art classes are a simple way for you to engage your different volunteers at little to no cost. 0% Platform fee. Any creative a-thon you can dream up can be created with PTFundraiser. That means that 81% of first-time donors will never give again. Promote this kick-off event in your community to attract more parents attention. Post-Katrina, the Red Cross has reserved text campaigns for extreme circumstances, according to McAndrew. For example, Read-A-Thon not only encourages students to read, but also incentivizes them to participate in return for redeemable prizes from our online store! Kids can bring old books theyve already read and exchange them with those of other kids. Join the 50,000+ nonprofits already raising funds online. 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. 1. Adapted annual Walk-a-thon to a Virtual Walk-a-thon. These donations are coded to you and are tracked and reported within your Fund-A . You dont want to make any individual child feel ashamed or left out, but by making it a competition, youre able to gain excitement and raise more funds. How will students collect pledges and donations? Read-A-Thon Fundraising Company Inc. All rights reserved.All Content and materials on Read-A-Thon.com are the property of Read-A-Thon Fundraising Company Inc. Readathon and Read-A-Thon are trademarks of Read-A-Thon Fundraising Company Inc. 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. Text giving is a fast and convenient way for people to make a donation that can help save the day for people in need. Each organization will have a different reason for holding a read-a-thon. Keep an eye on important metrics such as how many gifts you have secured, total donations raised, return on investment, and conversion and engagement rates for your online communications. Crowdfunding is a proven way to raise more money with time-bound projects like a read-a-thon. 6 Simple Ideas to Make Your Read-a-Thon a Success, 12 Donation Form Best Practices to Inspire Your Online Fundraising, How to Set Up a Nonprofit Donation Page (5-Step Guide), 100+ Best Fundraising Ideas for Everyone (Quick, Unique & Easy) in 2023, How to Choose the Best Nonprofit Donor Management Software, How to Start a Nonprofit Organization [10 Step Guide] | Donorbox. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development. Will the school have free reading time for contest participants? BarrieToday Staff Feb 27, 2023 6:30 PM. We power Text-to-Donate, not Text-to-Give. $30, $60, $100, etc.). 5.0. Read-A-Thon Reading Reminder! Get a monthly curated round-up of our best posts and feature updates. Blue Mountain fundraiser features relay-style event and 24 hours of skiing and snowboarding down the Smart Alec run. When organizing the faculty, staff, or volunteers that will make up your fundraising team, be sure to keep everyone informed about what is expected of them and how they can complete their tasks. In return for their fundraising efforts, Love My Library will give students the chance to choose virtual books from over 3 million different titles. This makes it simple for family & friends to support them (which often doubles or triples the amount raised). Minimize required fields, use large text, and dont cram your page with design elements to maximize your conversion rates. BASIS Chandler Primary held a Math-a-thon to raise funds for their Annual Teacher Fund. Keywords like YEMEN 19 or MARINE help differentiate campaigns for both donors and nonprofits. All donations from all pages will go to your original campaign account. Wonderful experience! (Psst! Request a file on the File Exchange forum in the Message Boards. Parents Love not having to sell or deliver items. 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. This "war" is so much fun. We recommend using a multichannel approach when it comes to promoting a text code. What a-thon activities can I create with RallyUp? See our Resource Hub (for members, but open to all) for a complete list of what donor data Give Lively collects. Get the Hit a thon fundraiser template completed. Note: PCI-compliance speaks to a set of security standards set out by the Payment Card Industry. CREATE AN A-THON Effortless fundraising Take pledges per-lap, per-hour, per-anything. One of the most widely publicized text-to-give campaigns was The Red Crosss relief efforts after the devastating earthquake in Haiti in 2010. During your virtual event, have families email pictures & videos that you'll post on your organization's website or have them post on your community page (e.g. Everything was very easy to navigate. (You can unsubscribe anytime.). This excites them about the event. There is also a text-to-donate option. All you need to do is promote your online fundraiser. It was a strong introduction to a phenomenon that would soon become more and more common. Crowdfunding leverages social media and online marketing tools to gather many small donations from a large audience of potential donors on the internet. Each student will be responsible to raise money based on a team average of 100 serves per event. There are three variants; a typed, drawn or uploaded signature. According toNonprofits Source, these are essential text-to-give statistics: 1 in 4 donors use mobile devices to discover nonprofits they were previously unaware of. Profit: Medium. They are using their funds to have Chromebooks for all students and new Virtual Learning Technology. 25% of donors complete their donations on mobile devices. No pledge chasing necessary. This happens because donors are required to either just text a code to a number (where theres no immersion with your brand whatsoever) or are led to a simplistic donation page where they enter minimum information. . Also, see below to get specific ideas from a few of the schools we've worked with. Even the youngest students can easily join your Read-A-Thon campaign with just a few simple clicks, all while furthering their own education. The campaign raised millions of dollars, including $32 million for the American Red Cross, from a mass of $10 texts to the word Haiti.. Ask your volunteers to assist them whenever needed. Get a monthly curated round-up of our best posts and feature updates. The best part is, it is extremely simple to start and utilizes the ease of donating on mobile phones. These partnerships can lead to more event sponsorships and grants for your nonprofit. Now is the time to celebrate as a team and hand out prizes. The first group you should address is your board. Simply go into the platform to monitor the progress of your online fundraiser. Kick-off events are critical in the larger fundraising sales process, as the initial excitement for your campaign will often determine its overall trajectory. Once a catchy text code has been created and linked to a campaign, it can be shared on social media, blogs and your website; in promotional videos, livestreams, print materials and Live Display; at press appearances, live and virtual events and much more, all with the goal of increasing a campaigns visibility and the likelihood of receiving donations.. So spreading the word about your online fundraiser to the student body should be one of your greatest concerns. Your callers must listen and show them you want to hear their ideas. From tracking funds raised to providing social media and text marketing tools, Read-A-Thon will handle the entire fundraising process. The goal remains to give each business at least $2,000. We wrote a list of everything your text-to-give platform needs to have. Set the ground rules. Include both the keyword and shortcode on all promotional materials, website content, and advertising that runs for the campaign. It allows children to participate in a healthy competition with other classrooms while having fun 'sabotaging' their finds and other classrooms. -Ten half hour sessions during class, over two weeks. Edit your hit a thon fundraiser pledge form online Type text, add images, blackout confidential details, add comments, highlights and more. Choose My Signature. This incredibly easy, highly lucrative, engaging, and educational fundraiser has quickly become a favorite for many of the over 5,000+ schools that use Read-A-Thon! Donorbox also lets you accept donations from the event page. When it ends, the platform automatically charges your donors. Decide on what kind of signature to create. START A READ-A-THON You could raise $63,937.50 If 75% of your students got just 5 sponsors each based on an average donation of $34.10 per donor Use the sliders below to adjust your participation and donor levels. A Read-a-thon is a great way to raise money because 100% of the money raised goes back to our school! Revamp your website and online donation forms so they will load faster and be more easily navigable on mobile devices. Set a specific timeline and add a goal thermometer to your crowdfunding page. It is the simplicity of this fundraising method that makes it a successful fundraising method and popular among nonprofits and donors. (You can unsubscribe anytime.). Read-A-Thon not only provides print marketing packages, but social media, text, and email marketing tools to help you maximize promotion for your online fundraiser. Can-a-thon. Part booster-thon and part book fair, library fundraisers encourage students to collect online donations for their school or local libraries and in turn gain access to virtual books of their choice. Follow the step-by-step instructions below to design your walk a then forms: Select the document you want to sign and click Upload. You can read more about all of these fundraisers on our Fundraising Ideas Page. Text-to-give is one of the simplest ways to donate. Heres an example of a reading event held by a book club, for which theyre selling tickets to the community with a simple event-ticketing form. Display a thermometer showing donors how close you are to meeting your fundraising goals to encourage even more giving! To ensure the success of your school's future fundraising, you need to have a strong grasp of the steps and best practices for organizing your own online school fundraising program. The kids can then promote their pages and collect donations. Auctions are a popular and highly lucrative type of fundraiser, and now modern auction software has made it possible to not only make your next auction completely virtual, but also mobile-friendly!Online auctions work in much the same way as a regular auctionexcluding the cost of a venue and catering. From physical flyers to email blasts, be sure to instruct donors that by sending out a special text keyword to a specific number, they will be directed to a mobile-friendly online donation page. Step by step procedure: Deciding a schedule for your read-a-thon is quite a crucial choice. From tracking key fundraising metrics to providing robust online marketing tools, Read-A-Thon has everything you need to dive into your most successful online fundraising program while still remaining extremely easy to use. With Read-A-Thon's effortless online platform, you can raise thousands of dollars just by encouraging students to read. The challenging task is choosing an online fundraiser that will best suit your school's needs. An "a-thon" is a peer-to-peer style fundraiser that involves participating in a certain activity and gathering donations for participating in said activity. Read-A-Thon charges nothing to your institution upfront. We're sure your first question will be, "How much does this all cost? We would love for you to take these ideas and build upon them to make them your very own! A receipt and a thank-you email follows directly after that. Nearly half41%of its Haiti mobile donors were 34 years old or younger, far below the age of a typical Red Cross supporter. In what ways can my nonprofit use Text-to-Donate? Whether you are in the room or #OutsideTheRoom, at an event, or over a text-to-donate campaign, all donations go straight to your organization's bank account. Jog-a-thons can take pledges per mile. The longer or more complex the code, the more likely your donors will forget it or abandon the process. Start Early A bowl-a-thon isn't organized in a few days or even a few weeks - rather, it takes months to plan one. The goal is to create a memorable text code that increases a campaigns visibility and the likelihood of receiving donations. Choose My Signature. Its essential that you work with a PCI-compliant service provider. Your organization can use individual peer-to-peer campaigns as signup for each kid. They encourage participants to do activities at home safely (social distancing) while raising much needed funds for their school.