Schools often need to do some fundraising to be able to afford things they want to do to enhance the learning experiences of the children.

While they do of course get a budget to use for essentials, schools who want better technology or to be able to arrange the most educational field trips have to find the money from other sources, and so they generally need to fundraise in the local community with parents and other people with an interest in the school as their target donors.

How Schools Fundraise

There are lots of ways schools can raise money, from the very innovative and creative to the very traditional. Some schools sell merchandise such as t-shirts, mugs and keyrings designed by the kids, or greetings cards like the specially printed school designed ones by IQ Cards. Others arrange for shows, plays or other entertainment to be put on by the kids and charge people to buy tickets.

The other most common way that schools try to encourage people to donate money to help them reach their education goals is with events like summer and Christmas fairs, where families of the children can come and buy things, play games, enter prize draws, and participate in activities that contribute money to the school.

What all of these types of fundraising have in common, is that without some good marketing, they wouldn’t be a success!

Why is Marketing Important for Schools for Their Fundraising Efforts?

You may think that all schools really need to do to sell their merchandise or get people to come to their event is send a message home to parents with the kids. This used to be how things were done, but it was never the most effective thing – children may forget to give information to their parents, and parents may not decide to spread the word to other family and friends.

In the modern age, it is far easier for schools to keep in touch with parents directly and with the wider community using things like their Facebook page and Twitter, when fundraising is happening they can promote things much in the same way as a local business might promote an event or special offer to people in the community. Many schools even have blogs now, where parents can read all about these types of things and get involved. All of this yields more interest in events and school merchandise, and more money raised!

Is Online Marketing the Only Style of Business Style Marketing Schools Use?

Online marketing is certainly helping schools with fundraising, however they also employ other methods used widely in business to get a greater impact. Many businesses find that face to face marketing is a great way to cut through all of the messages everybody sees online every day and grab people’s attention – and it is easy to see how schools have the perfect army of direct marketers readily to hand in the form of their enthusiastic pupils!

It is interesting to see how non profit, locally focused things like school fundraising use the same methods used in business to reach out to their target audience.