How to Use Social Media for Spring School Fundraising 2024

By Kids' Kastle Holiday Shoppes on March 12, 2024 / High School Fundraising, School Fundraising Tips, Spring School Fundraising

How to Use Social Media for Spring School Fundraising 2024

Springtime is coming our way and with it comes new Spring fundraisers for 2024 – Easter eggs, special treats, Smencils, pretzel snacks, and more. This time of year, we get a lot of PTA members, teachers, and even students asking how they can better improve their high school fundraising promotion.

One of the top ways to promote your school fundraiser this year is with social media. Social media for school fundraisers is fast, affordable, endless, and can get everyone involved in the event. Take a look at some of our top tips on how to use social media to promote your school fundraiser this Spring 2024.

11 Ways to Promote School Fundraisers with Social Media

Boost Your Spring School Fundraiser on Different Platforms

The first tip to using social media to promote your school fundraiser is to use different platforms. Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok all offer different avenues, audiences, and content creation.

To pick the right platforms, you want to consider who your audience is and how you plan on promoting your Spring school fundraiser. If you are selling primarily to the community or parents, Facebook and Instagram are very popular.

For more commercial-focused goods that benefit local businesses, LinkedIn offers a good opportunity. If you’re trying to reach an audience beyond your local community, Twitter/X and TikTok offer viral opportunities and a larger audience.

Involve Students in the Marketing Creation

Content is best when it’s exciting and engaging and the best people to help with that are the students. Students who are involved in the fundraiser, marketing, tech, or art programs are a great source! And it helps them practice real-life marketing and content creation scenarios.

Reach out to other classes, grades, and student groups to get students involved. Offer tasks like writing ad slogans, sharing the media, creating videos, and more to engage everyone in the program. This also takes tasks away from the PTA and parents while giving students valuable experience and learning opportunities.

Take Behind the Scenes Videos

If you need content ideas, behind-the-scenes videos are always a huge success in promoting school fundraisers on social media. Behind-the-scenes videos are personable, easy to make, and make the audience feel a part of the action.

Whether it’s unpacking the products, showing set-up for the fundraiser event, taking videos of the planning process, or something else entirely, get people in on the action with behind-the-scenes sneak peeks.

Share Photos of the Products

The best way to promote what you’re selling is to show what you’re selling. Share photos of the products or events you’re hosting as part of the Spring school fundraiser. This could be photos supplied by your school fundraising company or photos you and the students take yourselves.

Be sure to highlight the key aspects that everyone wants from your fundraiser. Focus on the details of sweet treats, the fun of an in-person event, or the solution a product can solve. Get creative, have fun, and keep it simple.

Remind Everyone Where the Money is Going

People want to be connected to a cause, and social media allows you to boost your cause with ease. Remind people where the money is going from your Spring school fundraiser. This can be done via photos, videos, links, or any other promotional materials.

At the end of the day, remind people why they’re getting involved and how their money makes a difference. The better people feel, the more involved they want to be.

Feature Your Top Donations and Contributors

As you start taking donations, feature your top contributors weekly or monthly. It’s important to give a big thanks to everyone who gets involved and the best way to do this is through mutual promotion on social media.

Take photos with top donors and ask them to share their contributions online. Tell a little story about their involvement, give a big thanks, and remind everyone they still have time to get involved. The more you feature those who help your school fundraiser, the more the community grows and expands.

Link to an Online Donation Shop

Part of social media for school fundraising is to make it easy. Work with your school or fundraising group to create an online shop for easy donations so people can make a contribution directly from their smartphone or computer.

If you can’t set up an online donation link, make it really easy to tell people how to get involved. School media for school fundraising promotion is all about convenience, so make it easy for people to find you and get involved.

Have a Branded Hashtag

School fundraisers do best when people know more about them and one of the easiest ways to do that online is to have a branded hashtag for the event. Hashtags on social media help people show their support and spread awareness with ease.

Create a hashtag that is catchy, easy, and sums up what your school is doing. It makes it fun, easy to find, and helps spread the word to get people engaged with the movement and the cause.

Partner with the Community

If you have partners in your school fundraiser, like a local restaurant or business, tag them online and ask them to share your fundraiser on their social media, too.

Social media lets you reach a wide range of users when used correctly. Use your community and school fundraising partners to tag those who are involved. This will show your school fundraiser to their followers and help broaden your reach without having to do so in person through other advertisement means.

Go Live

Social media promotion allows you to go live and this is a fun chance to connect even more with your community and followers. Go live during the set up, when planning, or as the fundraiser is happening. Show the fun, the hard work, and everyone who is involved.

Going live online also helps you answer questions, explain more about how to get involved, and feels personable to all who follow you. Even one go live on social media can help connect you to more parents, teachers, and community partners who want to be involved.

Show Positivity from the Students and Faculty

Remember, social media should be an extension your school fundraising efforts, so make it fun and show the support you’re gaining from the school and from the students. You want it to be fun, autnethic, and easy.

Don’t overthink it, don’t get too fancy – just embrace the theme, let the cause speak for its self, and make it easy for everyone to get involved.

Fast Tips to Promote Your Spring School Fundraiser on Social Media

Post daily
Involve the students
Be thankful
Make donations easy
Remind people to share
Respond to comments
Answer messages

Get Started on Your 2024 Spring School Fundraiser Today

Fundraising season is an exciting time of year at any school, for any grade level. The money helps with dances, technology, arts programs, sports, school resources, and more. You want to share that excitement with others and social media is the perfect way to do so.

Using our 11 easy tips to share your school fundraiser on social media, it should make promoting your school fundraiser a breeze this year. For more tips, check out 10 more ways to market a school fundraiser and 12 new high school fundraising ideas.

If you’re ready to get your fundraiser started, contact Kids Kastle in New Jersey for our 2024 Spring fundraiser catalog.

12 Easy & Creative High School Fundraising Ideas

By Kids' Kastle Holiday Shoppes on March 11, 2022 / High School Fundraising, School Fundraising Ideas

12 Easy & Creative High School Fundraising Ideas

Fundraising is critical for all grade levels to raise funds for school activities, trips, resources, and more. As students move from grade school to high school, finding interesting and creative fundraising ideas that don’t conflict with busy high school schedules can be challenging.

If you’re looking for high school fundraiser ideas for after-school clubs, sports organizations, field trips, and more, we’ve got you covered. Check out our 12 creative high school fundraising ideas that are easy and simple.

Quiz Competition

A quiz competition can be a great way to raise funds in high school. Not only is it fun, but it’s also educational and aligns well with practice for AP courses and SATs.

To host a quiz competition, you must first decide on a theme and it’s best if students are involved in the process — do you want to focus on SAT prep or something fun like Pop Culture? Then, all that’s needed are the invites.

You can fundraise by having an entry fee per team and then a small entry fee per audience member. Be sure to get a great MC host to make the night fun and have prizes for the winning team. Partner with a local restaurant or cafe if you want to boost promotion and participation, too.

Sports Day

Nothing gets students and families more excited than sports. For a high school fundraiser, arrange a sports day where you set up various games and activities. This can include classics like field day activities or you can create tag-teams for basketball, soccer, football, volleyball, and more. Use indoor school space for E-sports as well and get even more participants involve.

As a fundraiser, charge spectators a small entry fee and sell merch like snacks, drinks, and custom shirts and more.

Yard Sale

Yard sales are a classic fundraiser you don’t want to miss out out on! Don’t keep those yard sales limited to your house.

Ask students, teachers, and parents to donate items that aren’t extensively used. Along with that make sure you double down on marketing — post on social media, send home postcards, and promote across your community that the local school is having a yard sale for their newest fundraiser.

Art and Science Exhibitions

Organize multiple exhibitions, such as art exhibitions or science exhibitions, for a creative high school fundraiser. Make it competitive, declare a winner, or the best presentation to encourage participation.

Charge visitors with a ticket & give a discount for people who come in groups. By doing this you not only have an amazing fundraising event but also make it creatively enriching for the students, it’s a win-win. Plus, high school students can add the exhibit to their high school resume when searching for creative jobs after graduation.

Food Stalls

What better way to have fun and raise money than with good food. Allow students to set up food stalls -by themselves or with parents- for a fun fundraising event.

Don’t fail to expect a big crowd, because no one is saying no to food. After subtracting the costs incurred, all the profits raised can go towards fundraising. To make even more sales students can sell packaged items like healthy chips and cookies. Encourage bake-offs, creative recipes, and more. Plus, food stalls can be active at all other high school events.

Talent Show

A talent show is probably the biggest event that can be performed at scale. We all know, no school is deprived of talent, if anything, it’s overflowing. Your students know how to beatbox, teachers are somewhat of a magician themselves and who knew a parent is a melodic singer.

Sell tickets in advance and possibly charge the participants as well for a small entry fee if you rent out a large venue or theater. Also, to make it even better try to find a local sponsorship for the event to partner with and help promote.

Costume party

Every day can be Halloween if you let it. When the season is right, host a costume party with music, gifts, and costume prizes. There can be a small entry to enter the costume contest and a small fee to enter the dance.

Encourage everyone to participate, including teachers, for this fun seasonal high school fundraiser.

Car Wash

Set up a small car washing station at your school during the warmer months. Advertise it outside the school gate and on the street to help boost awareness in your local community. Have teachers, parents, and other students bring their cars and charge a small fee. This is fast, fun, and a great way to raise money.

Yoga day

Over the last decade, yoga as a form of exercise has received a lot of attention. Not only are parents doing it but so are many college-going students. But there are also many who want to do it but haven’t yet.

Dedicate a day to yoga: where an instructor will run everyone through the basics of the discipline and perform the required introductory exercises. Everyone can be charged a small fee and a voluntary donation box can also be set up. Include tips on wellness, sell healthy snacks, and more to help boost even more sales. If you can, partner with a local group for puppy yoga or goat yoga.

Virtual Concert

In the past year, a lot of big artists arranged virtual concerts and the craze for them was no less than the stadium ones. To organize a virtual concert, contact a local band and ask them to donate a performance.

Students, from the comfort of their home, can attend it by giving a small fee. Also, the supporters of the band wouldn’t mind paying extra to have a Q&A with the performers, and that’ll make for some extra bucks. This is a great way to reach students and parents all across your community.

Auction

This could be a great opportunity for people who’ve been procrastinating on getting that art piece to a pawn shop. Every family has an item they wish to exchange in return for money.

Organizing an auction can be done offline and online. Collectively everyone lists a certain item and a decided percentage of the sale goes towards the fundraising. If done right, this can be a great success and gets everyone involved with the bidding. Also donate parking spots, gift baskets from local stores, and more.

School Calendar

One of the best ways to raise funds and at the same time promote your brand is by creating a school calendar. A school calendar can be targeted towards students and parents involving students’ artwork, class photos, and pictures of school events. All the profits can be dedicated towards the fundraiser. Make sure to include notable school days and easy reminders so the school calendar is functional and fun.

Unique School Fundraising Ideas

By Kids' Kastle Holiday Shoppes on July 18, 2020 / High School Fundraising, School Fundraising Ideas, Spring School Fundraising

Unique School Fundraisers

Fundraising Ideas for Any Grade Level

It may be early for the holidays, but school fundraising can happen any time of the year and shouldn’t be put off until just winter. When trying to raise money for various programs and a bright new school year for both faculty and staff, taking advantage of fundraising for every season can be the most beneficial way to go.

School fundraising is great all year round and can utilize a host of different school christmas shop ideas. If you’re looking for unique school fundraisers in New Jersey, companies like Kids Kastle cater to every grade level with creative school fundraising ideas. Some of the best school fundraisers are those that are simple and unique to your area, and a company based in your location can help recommend the most successful fundraisers they have helped to host.

Here are just a few holiday gift shop fundraisers that you can tweak to your liking or use as is. Whatever you choose, remember that school fundraising is supposed to be fun, and the best school fundraisers usually involve the entire school as much as possible to maximize the fun and to make the students and faculty realize that this will have an impact on everyone.

Cookie Dough Fundraisers are a Tasty Idea

Is it making your stomach growl and your mouth water already? A Cookie Dough Fundraiser could be held in a couple of different ways, but the preferred method is to sell homemade dough that can be specially made for each individual order.

It’s a lot of work to be certain, but with dedicated and capable workers and volunteers for a good cause, this could work, and be a sweet treat that could earn a lot of goodwill in the community and for the school. If homemade cookie dough isn’t an option for your cookie dough fundraiser, there are plenty of companies that offer catalogs you can utilize instead to get the word out!

Candy Fundraisers Attract a Lot of People

Candy fundraisers are typically something you’d see for baseball, softball, and other sports’ teams, but there’s nothing like a good candy drive, especially if you buy in bulk and give people options when purchasing what they want.

It might sound like a unique school fundraiser, but in truth, it’s taking an idea and expanding it a bit to ensure that people have more than one choice and can buy what they want while helping with a good cause. Utilizing New Jersey school fundraising companies that offer multiple candy options is a great way to expand on the traditional candy fundraiser.

A Snowman Building Event is a Great Unique School Fundraiser

Next up is creating a realistic goal and budget for your holiday fundraiser. A lot of fundraisers fall short because of budgetary reasons. As a matter of fact, as many as 43% of organized fundraisers fail because of misuse of the budget, according to a recent study. According to the study, the biggest misuse of funds came from overestimating incoming dollars and donations.

When you are creating your budget, it is very important to use dollars you actually have and not to base it off of future donations or fundraising. If you do want to create a budget based on future dollars, then set goals and only use the money if certain milestones are met.

An example would be if we hit X dollars then we are going to host a dinner but if we hit Y dollars then we are going to host a gala; only start planning the events when you hit the right dollar amounts. The most common mistake is to host an event or spend money you don’t have, thinking the dollars spent will bring in a return on the investment. If your event doesn’t get you what you thought, that is when your fundraiser fails.

This is true even for smaller fundraisers or events. If you are raffling off items, offering rewards, or doing giveaways, make sure minimum thresholds are met and that those thresholds will cover the costs of your giveaways.

A Virtual School Party is a Fun Get Together for All Grades

Sometimes, the best school fundraisers are going to be those that will be able to promote some type of social distancing while still keeping things fun and engaging. While a virtual party isn’t quite the same, it’s a fun way to connect with people and maintain a good line of communication among the community.

Games can even be planned online that will be fun for everyone involved, for a small donation of course. Have online raffles, promotions, talent shows, and more! The great thing about a virtual party is that everyone can attend!

A Picnic Can Be a Simple Idea for School Fundraising

Although picnics may sound simple, these are easy to arrange and simple to plan with endless possibilities. The event can be the picnic itself, a competition for the best picnic meal, a picnic on location somewhere new and exciting, or something else entirely. Picnics are great for every grade level and every season.

One of the Best School Fundraising Ideas is a Movie Night

Plenty of people still love watching a good movie with their family, and an outdoor feature is a good way to practice social distancing while raising money for your school. All a person needs is a big enough surface, plenty of space to sit, and a few dollars for concessions, and voila! Investing in a projector and some comfy blankets will really boost the level of the event, and people will be lining up to donate for access to the premier.

A School Play is Timeless

Whether in person or as a virtual showing, donations towards a school play could go a long way towards the continued education and appreciation for the arts that many children enjoy.

The emphasis on the arts is definitely an idea that can help an institution benefit from school fundraising, as many schools have had to cut back over the years. Get the students involved in the play and whether it’s a short production or a longer one that uses every grade level, parents and families will enjoy the show while donating to a great cause.

A Parent/Student Trivia Show Is a Fun and Unique School Fundraiser

Why only allow the kids to have all the fun? This idea can go a long way towards getting kids and their parents together to do something fun that can be modified for each grade level and can possibly earn enough donations to make a difference for various school programs.

Plus, getting parents and children together to think of the answers while competing against other parent/children duos could be a lot of fun as it could test the parents’ knowledge as much as the children’s. No matter what way you frame it, everyone will have a great time!

Talent Shows are One of the Best School Fundraisers

It feels as though this type of fundraiser is overlooked quite often, when it is actually one of the school holiday shop fundraiser ideas in New Jersey to utilize! Talent shows can include singing, dance, art, or anything else! Done online or in person, talent shows use very little finances to begin and can raise a lot of money for those who wish to attend and donate. Plus, the kids get to be the star of the show!

A School T-Shirt Fundraiser is a Creative and Engaging School Fundraising Idea

This is definitely one of the more unique school fundraisers as it’s typically undertaken by a lot of schools in very different ways. In a lot of ways, it does depend on the grade level as to how involved a community might get, as middle and high schools tend to become far more involved in sports and overall design.

However, it is entirely possible to hold a t-shirt fundraiser for grade school, depending on the involvement of the community and the unit cost. It gets the entire community involved and is always a showstopper!

Conclusion

There are many unique school fundraising ideas out there to pour through, and many of them are bound to pique your interest. But one thing to always think about is the community that a school belongs to and what would best serve their interests when seeking to raise funds for your institution. The possibilities are out there, it is up to you to explore them!

High School Fundraising