6 Tips for a Successful Fun Run Fundraiser

If this is your first time planning a Fun Run Fundraiser, you might feel much like an early explorer navigating a new territory. Where do I start? How do I begin? How long will this take? What tools do I need? 

In this blog, you’ll learn more about: 

• What to Do First
• How to Get Your Volunteers Involved
• How Booster Can Help with Your Fundraiser

In this blog, we’ll give you our top 6 tips for executing successful Fun Run Fundraisers so your PTA/O team can start your fundraising journey on the right foot.

Tip 1: Start Your Planning Early

Engaged couples plan a wedding months in advance. Teachers spend their summer planning for the school year. And if this is your first time organizing a Fun Run, then you’ll need to start early to be successful too. So make sure to give yourself plenty of time to plan. 

Pro Tip: Take great notes for future Fun Runs! This will save you or future PTA/O’s hours.

During this initial planning phase, you’ll want to find answers to key questions such as: 

• How many volunteers will I need? 
• What is our fundraising goal? 
• What are we raising funds for? 
• What type of budget will I need to pull off our Fun Run? 
• Do we want to utilize a fundraising company's expertise and resources or plan a DIY Fun Run fundraiser? 
• If we want to use a school fundraising company, which one will work best for us?

Which leads into our next tip….

Tip 2: Offload the Heavy Collection Work to a Donation Website

Gone are the days of handwriting out pledges and keeping track of so, so, so many numbers, names, and checks. Meet your new best friend: the school fundraising platform. 

Take time to research, compare and contrast. There are plenty of stress-saving features that the best school fundraising platforms can offer like: family dashboards for families to track their donations, an admin dashboard to view real time data and stats, text and email features to easily send donors to your school’s fun run fundraiser page to get the word out.

And, in the vein of “getting the word out”...

Tip 3: Create a Promotion and Communication Calendar

If you are not a marketing pro, promoting and communicating can start to feel overwhelming. There are so many ways to communicate: social media, email, text, in person, marques, flyers, your fundraising website, video, and more. 

Plus there are so many different groups of people you will need to communicate with such as students, parents, businesses, teachers, administration, donors, and community leaders. 

Our best advice? If you don’t have a company with communication resources and expertise leading this initiative, then find a single volunteer who will manage this component for you. Make them the Communication Volunteer! They decide the answers to: who do we need to communicate to? How will we communicate to them? When will we communicate to them? 

Remember, your communication plan needs to include: teaching parents about your fun run fundraiser, sharing key fundraising information to donors, and notifying students about your awesome fun run!

And since we brought up students…

Tip 4: Build Momentum in the Week Leading Up to Your Fun Run for Students

A common mistake is to just put all the focus and hype on the actual fun run. But before you get there you have a week or two of fundraising to do. Students need motivation and inspiration to stay engaged in the fundraising process. Get creative and have fun!

 To dream up something really inspiring for your students, answer questions like: 

• Do we want a theme? 
• Are there volunteers who can put on engaging presentations during the week? 
• Is there a company that offers program resources? 
• How could we use decorations? 
• What should we do to motivate our students? 
• How should we reward or celebrate the student or class who receives the most donations?

And speaking of the students who receive the most donations…

Tip 5: Reward Students and Incorporate Incentives

Whether you choose to reward individual students, a whole class, or the whole school, when you incorporate incentives into your fun run it inspires students to stay on track and keep working towards the fundraising goal.  

Incentives should absolutely be a part of your fun run! When thinking through the best incentives for your school you’ll want to discover the answers to questions like: 

• What is our budget? 
• Do we want to reward students with actual prizes or with an experience like extra recess? 
• Do we want to reward individual students, classes, or the whole school? 
• If we reach our school goal, what will we do to celebrate the students’ hard work? 

And on the note of celebrating…

Tip 6: Think of Your Fun Run Event as One Big Celebration

Everyone has done a ton of hard work. YOU deserve to celebrate. School parents deserve to celebrate. Students and the entire school deserve to CELEBRATE! So when you plan the actual fun run event, think celebration. 

The day of the Fun Run could include decorations, awards, a speech at the end, refreshments, and music. This event could become one of the most memorable events at your school, and something families look forward to annually. Many school communities already see their fun run as their favorite annual event!

If this sounds like a lot, never fear! There is a company who has already thought through all these fun run details and tips for you. In fact, they are the leading expert in school fundraising in America. 

Booster have perfected the whole communication calendar and strategy. They will plan your entire fundraiser. They offer the most innovative donation website to power your fun run fundraiser. They’ve created a week long, Hollywood-quality program for your students leading up to the fun run. They’ve interweaved all types of incentives for students, classes and schools. And they put on one of the most epic celebrations your school community will ever have all while helping your school profit more than ever before! So what are you waiting for? See how Booster can help your school rock the fun run fundraiser this year!