Online School Fundraising Programs: 9 Ideas & Tools

From engaging classes and extracurricular activities to field trips, your school strives to provide top-notch learning experiences for its students. But to continue enriching your school’s offerings, you need reliable funding.

That's why online school fundraising programs are so important. Online school fundraisers are convenient, require few volunteers, and have a much larger reach than traditional in-person fundraising campaigns.

In this article, we'll discuss everything you need to know about virtual school fundraising to help you rally your community and tap into more financial support. We'll cover:

• Read-A-Thons: The Best Online School Fundraising Idea
• More Standout Ideas for Online School Fundraisers
• Online Fundraising for Schools: FAQs 
• Tips to Improve Your Online School Fundraising Results

Your school needs quick and easy fundraising ideas so you can stay focused on creating rewarding learning experiences for your students. With software such as Read-A-Thon's platform on your side, you can raise more with less effort. Let's jump into the basics you need to know to launch a successful online school fundraiser.

Read-A-Thons: The Best Online School Fundraising Idea

Read-A-Thons are a popular, reliable way for schools of all sizes to raise money. Plus, they have the added benefit of enriching your students' education at the same time. With Read-A-Thon's intuitive online platform, you can earn thousands of dollars simply by encouraging students to read.

To start meeting and exceeding your online school fundraising goals with Read-A-Thon, simply follow these basic steps:

• Sign up for a free account. Read-A-Thon charges nothing upfront—that's how confident we are that your online fundraiser will be an astounding success! You can log in as a fundraising admin, a teacher, or a student. From there, the Read-A-Thon platform will guide you through the rest of our easy signup process.
• Share your school fundraiser. There's no need to scramble to create marketing materials for your fundraiser. Read-A-Thon comes equipped with print, email, social media, and text resources to help you spread as much awareness as possible.
• Track your online fundraising progress. After you've created your account and shared instructions for students to sign up and log their reading minutes, Read-A-Thon will take care of managing the rest of your campaign. Simply go into the platform to monitor your fundraising progress. You can examine data such as your students' reading minutes, number of sponsors, and total dollars raised at any given time.

Once your Read-A-Thon is up and running, all you have to do is encourage your students and watch as your fundraising revenue grows! Sponsors can donate using our secure credit card payment processing system and, when your campaign is complete, we'll mail your earnings directly to your school.

The Profound Impact of Read-A-Thons

Typically, we recommend Read-A-Thons last two weeks to give your students enough time to participate and maintain momentum from start to finish. The whole process comes with no upfront costs, requires little volunteer commitment, and—depending on the model you choose—you'll keep 75%-80% of total donations earned.

80% of children agree that reading aloud is a special time with their parents and frequent readers report experiencing better mental health than infrequent readers. With this in mind, Read-A-Thons are a win-win-win for your school, students, and students' parents.

To learn more about the benefits of hosting a Read-A-Thon, check out our brief video overview:

As the video highlights, getting started with a Read-A-Thon is both fast and easy. It only takes five minutes to sign up and join 5,000+ schools that use Read-A-Thon to raise thousands every year. Howard Perrin Elementary and Sonoran Sky PTO are just two successful examples:

Plus, schools such as Prestwick Elementary and Westside Elementary noted the responsiveness of Read-A-Thon's support team in answering questions throughout their fundraisers. Whether you're preparing to celebrate Read Across America or simply looking to nurture a stronger love for reading among your students, Read-A-Thons can be an easy, game-changing addition to your school's fundraising strategy.

More Standout Ideas for Online School Fundraisers

If you're looking for more tried-and-true fundraising ideas to inspire your planning, check out the following:

1. Online Auction

Modern auction software empowers you to make your next auction completely virtual and mobile-friendly!

Online auctions operate similarly to regular auctions, except they exclude traditional venue, entertainment, and catering costs, allowing you to funnel more funds toward your mission. Select high-value goods and experiences that participants will want to bid on, partner with a reliable auction software provider, and promote your event to parents and community members.

Online Auction Platform: 32auctions

32auctions is an online auction software that simplifies silent auction management. Launch high-return on investment (ROI) auction fundraisers by following these four steps:

1. Create your silent auction. Share your auction details with 32auctions, and pick a custom URL for your school’s auction website. Then, personalize your page with your school’s branding, sponsors, and more.
2. Add your auction items. Enter up to 1,000 items, complete with descriptions and images. If you’re not sure what starting bids should be, just provide 32auctions with each item’s market value, and the platform will calculate starting bids for you.
3. Let the bidding begin. Throughout your auction, you’ll get notifications whenever participants bid, letting you track engagement while on the go.
4. Raise more! Let participants pay final bids through 32auctions. From there, distribute prizes to complete a successful online auction.

You can run silent auctions entirely online or include an in-person element. For example, you might manage bidding online but bring supporters together to browse items, socialize, and celebrate your school.

2. Custom T-Shirt Sale

Branded merchandise, such as water bottles, bracelets, and (of course) t-shirts, is a great way for students and parents to show school spirit and raise money for your institution.

To begin selling your own custom merchandise, create an online store on your school website. Then, design and bulk order your gear from a custom t-shirt designer and advertise your products online and at other school events.

T-Shirt Fundraising Platform: Bonfire

With Bonfire's t-shirt fundraising platform, your school can design custom t-shirts and raise funds by selling them to parents and other community members.

Some of the platform's main features include:

• Easy t-shirt design tools.
• Custom campaign page creation for selling t-shirts.
• Peer-to-peer fundraising.
• Dedicated customer support team.

After your t-shirt fundraising campaign, Bonfire will handle printing and shipping the shirts to everyone who purchased one. Then, you'll take home 100% of the profits your school raised.

3. Matching Gifts

Matching gifts are a type of corporate philanthropy in which companies match donations their employees make to charitable causes. Many of these companies will match gifts for schools!

Take advantage of these readily available corporate gifts by sending out newsletters and alerts about corporate matching gift programs. You can even integrate a matching gift search tool into your online donation form to make it easier for donors to submit matching gift requests to their employers.

With this online tool, you can create a long-lasting, hands-free online fundraising initiative that multiplies the worth of every donation. Research even indicates that one in three donors would give a larger gift if they knew it would be matched!

Matching Gift Software: Double the Donation

Double the Donation is the top corporate giving database, boasting giving insights into over 24,000 companies. Your school can start doubling its online donations thanks to Double the Donation’s top matching gift features:

• Matching gift database that supporters can search to check their eligibility
• Automated email reminders to encourage donors to complete their matching gift request forms
• Over 100+ fundraising integrations to start boosting all of your online fundraising programs

Plus, Double the Donation isn’t just a matching gift tool. If your school has a volunteer program, Double the Donation can help you supercharge it by identifying supporters who are eligible for volunteer grants, volunteer time off, payroll donations, and in-kind gifts and grants.

4. Text-to-Give

Mobile giving is a simple and effective way to appeal to donors on the go, empowering your school to leverage the widespread use of mobile devices. After all, Americans spend an average of four and a half hours on their phones every day.

Instruct donors on how to participate using multiple marketing channels, including physical flyers and email blasts. Depending on your text-to-give provider, this process usually involves texting a special keyword to a specific number. From there, they’ll either be prompted to text their gift amount or get directed to a mobile-friendly online donation page. With the help of a trusted text-to-give service, your donors can give in a matter of seconds.

Text-to-Give Software Provider: Txt2Give

Stay connected with your community through a user-friendly text-to-give tool like Txt2Give. Designed to be affordable for schools, this platform offers text-to-give features that can maximize donations, including:

• Recurring gift prompts that encourage supporters to make their text donations monthly contributions
• Real-time dashboards that let you see how donors are responding to your marketing campaigns
• Multiple campaign management, allowing you to raise money through text-to-give for various initiatives, such as field trips, clubs, supplies, and more

Txt2Give also lets your school manage payments however you want. Connect your existing donation payment gateway or choose from one of Txt2Give’s 17 partners.

5. Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding leverages social media and online marketing tools to gather many small donations from a large audience. The idea behind this fundraiser is to cast as wide a net as possible and gain a lot of support in a short amount of time.

First, seek out a crowdfunding platform or use your own website. Then, create your crowdfunding page. Set a specific goal, and on your website, explain why you want to reach that goal and how long you have to do so. Finally, encourage students, parents, and your supporters to share this page.

While this fundraising type can be a bit tricky and require some research, crowdfunding has the potential to generate significant revenue for your school!

Online Crowdfunding Platform: GoFundMe

GoFundMe is an online crowdfunding platform that makes it easy for schools to reach a wide audience of supporters and meet a variety of fundraising goals.

Whether your school is looking to raise money to purchase new computers, expand its extracurricular offerings, or something in between, the platform allows you to:

• Set up and personalize a GoFundMe fundraiser.
• Use a mobile app to manage your school fundraiser on the go.
• Share your school fundraiser via text messages, emails, and social media.
• Access 24/7 support from Customer Care Specialists.

Unlike some other crowdfunding platforms, with GoFundMe, your school doesn't even need to hit its fundraising goal to access the funds you earned, making it an extremely low-risk, high-reward tool.

6. Shoe Drive Fundraiser

A shoe drive fundraiser provides an easy way for students, their families, and other community members to support your school without directly giving money. To get started, find a partner that accepts gently worn, used, and new shoes and provides funding in exchange.

Then, encourage people to search their closets for shoes they can donate. Place collection boxes around your community, such as at your school or even in individual classrooms. When your fundraiser ends, gather all the shoes together and mail them to your partner organization via a pre-paid bag. Once the partner has processed your collected shoes, they'll issue you a check based on the number of shoes you gathered.

This fundraiser is great for schools because students are constantly outgrowing their shoes. Plus, this type of campaign helps educate students about environmental sustainability by saving the shoes from landfills!

Shoe Drive Fundraiser Partner: Funds2Orgs

When you partner with Funds2Orgs, you can host a shoe drive fundraiser that generates revenue for your school and supports micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries.

The process of fundraising with Funds2Orgs looks like this:

• Your school signs up to receive a starter fundraising kit.
• You'll encourage students and their families to collect gently worn, used, and new shoes.
• Funds2Orgs picks up the shoes you collected at the end of the fundraiser.
• You receive a check for the shoes you collected.

While there are physical elements of this school fundraising idea, your students and other community members can participate whenever it is most convenient, instead of attending a standalone event. All they need to do is check their closets for suitable shoes to contribute to your fundraiser!

7. Product Fundraisers

Product fundraisers can sometimes get a bad rap, but if your school is selling the right products, raising money online can be a breeze. After all, you’re not just asking community members to donate to your school but also providing them with tangible goods in exchange for their contributions.

When hosting a product fundraiser, consider your audience and what types of items they’d want to buy. Cookie dough, popcorn, and cookies are all classic fundraisers, but some product fundraising partners get creative by offering candles, flowers, and even socks.

Many school product fundraising partners provide apps and online storefronts. This means your school just needs to get the word out on social media, while your partner takes care of the logistics.

Product Fundraising Provider: ABC Fundraising

Not sure what to sell at your product fundraiser? Don’t worry, ABC Fundraising is a product fundraising partner that offers a wide range of items for sale, including:

• Popcorn
• Discount cards
• Cookie dough
• Flower bulbs
• Pizza cards
• Holiday decorations
• Savory snacks like nuts and pretzels
• Gummy bears
• Beef jerky
• Chocolate bars
• Cotton candy
• Lollipops
• Candles
• Coffee
• Travel mugs
• Custom apparel

ABC Fundraising helps create fundraising websites where buyers can order whatever products your school is selling. Then, when your fundraiser wraps up, they’ll ship all orders within three weeks with free delivery.

8. Online Shopping Fundraiser

Allow community members to support your school without changing their daily routines. How? Through online shopping fundraisers.

These fundraisers generate passive revenue for your school throughout the year. Essentially, your school partners with an online shopping fundraising program. Then, ask community members to download your shopping fundraising program’s app or browser extension and make purchases through it.

When a supporter buys something through your partner’s app or with their browser extension activated, your school will receive a percentage of the sale—at no extra cost to the buyer!

While this fundraiser raises money for your school in the background of other fundraisers, don’t treat it like a passive revenue stream. Instead, routinely market the program to encourage members of your community to join or continue shopping through your partner.

Online Shopping Fundraising Provider: ShopRaise

ShopRaise provides schools with a free mobile app and browser extension that supporters can use to earn money for your school. With ShopRaise, you’ll start earning revenue through:

• A branded app experience, so supporters know they’re supporting your school when they buy
• Emails, flyers, and social media posts branded to your school, created by ShopRaise
• Fundraising dashboard to see who your biggest fundraisers are, so you can thank them, while protecting their privacy by not revealing purchase history

ShopRaise has connections with over 2,000 popular retailers, meaning your community can support your school without changing their online shopping habits.

Online Fundraising for Schools: FAQs

Before jumping into the most popular online fundraising ideas for schools, we'll walk through some frequently asked questions to set your team up for maximum success:

What are the benefits of online fundraisers for schools?

What are the benefits of online fundraisers for schools?

Online school fundraising is a popular choice among institutions of all types and sizes due to its numerous benefits, including:

• Increased convenience. Rather than requiring parents and other community members to travel to a specific location to support your school, an online fundraiser allows them to participate from wherever they are and whichever device they prefer. This increases your chances of engaging busy donors who might otherwise not have the time to get involved.
• Expanded reach. Your students might have loved ones who don't live in your local area, but who are still interested in supporting your school. Online school fundraisers make it possible for people to participate no matter where they're located. This means your school can share its fundraiser with a larger network of supporters!
• Reduced costs. When planning an online school fundraiser, you won't have to worry about renting a venue, setting up decorations, using team time to manage the event, or purchasing other physical event supplies. Cutting down on these expenses lowers your overall fundraising costs.
• Fewer volunteers needed. An online school fundraiser requires fewer volunteers than in-person fundraisers since there isn't any physical set-up or clean-up involved. As a result, you can spend less time recruiting and coordinating volunteers during your campaign.
• Improved sustainability. Online fundraisers eliminate the need for transportation and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with it. You can also avoid the energy consumption that comes with in-person event lighting, air conditioning, and other utilities.

Plus, when all of your school fundraising takes place online, you can better measure your engagement and progress. With this information, you can pivot your strategies or make immediate adjustments as needed to reach your fundraising goal.

How do you prepare for online school fundraisers?

Whether your school is new to online fundraising or looking to improve its current efforts, follow these simple steps to lay a strong foundation for your next campaign:

Pick the right online school fundraiser.

To choose the best online fundraising idea that fits your school's specific needs and budget, start with your fundraising goal. Assemble your team and ask yourselves the following questions:

• How much are we hoping to raise, and how quickly do we need it?
• What resources do we have? For example, do we have a strong volunteer base to rely on?
• How much can we invest in online school fundraising?

Also, consider the impact you're hoping to achieve for your school and students. Use these details to help select your ideal online school fundraiser.

Prepare your faculty, staff, and volunteers.

Via email, text, and other communication channels, share duties and responsibilities with your fundraising team. To keep everyone on the same page, create a detailed guide to reference throughout your campaign. Some platforms, such as Read-A-Thon, come with an official admin guide that walks you through the process of organizing and executing your fundraiser successfully.

Promote your fundraiser to students and parents.

Ultimately, your school's students and parents will be doing most of the actual fundraising or donating. Therefore, it's essential to get the word out. For instance, you can:

• Use popular platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to promote your campaign and share donation pages.
• Send email announcements to your contact lists.
• Create physical flyers or posters with QR codes to drum up more support.

By using multiple channels to spread awareness of your upcoming online fundraiser, you can increase the chances that people hear about and decide to support your campaign! Read-A-Thon's platform makes multi-channel marketing for your school fundraiser easy by supporting text, email, and social sharing. Plus, we provide flyers you can send home to families and ad sponsorships for your school.

Plan a memorable campaign kick-off.

Start your online school fundraiser with a bang by preparing an engaging presentation. You might include an animated video, a slideshow, or even a guest speaker explaining your campaign. You can even assemble students in your auditorium for a pre-fundraising pep rally. However you convey your fundraising information, make it fun and easy to understand to maximize participation.

Monitor your online fundraising progress.

Throughout your online fundraiser, you should always have an idea of how it's performing. Track metrics such as your total donations raised and conversion rates for your online communications.

While your specific metrics will vary depending on the type of fundraiser you've selected and your goals, these fundamental data points will help you determine how well your campaign is doing and where you need to improve.

What are common online school fundraising mistakes?

Online school fundraising programs can be incredibly profitable with the right strategies. However, there are common pitfalls your school should be aware of. These include:

• Using the wrong software. While there are many great online fundraising tools, schools should do their research to ensure they pick a platform that fits their budget, provides the features they need, and is user-friendly. For instance, a small school might easily overspend and get bogged down with complicated features they don’t need if they pick a platform designed for large, tech-savvy organizations.
• Not connecting with donors. Online fundraisers do come with distance, which is why forming relationships with your community is extra important. When possible, get students involved so your school’s families immediately have an investment in your fundraiser’s success.
•  Not demonstrating impact. While your fundraising program operates online, ensure its outcomes feel real to donors. In your fundraising promotional materials, share detailed descriptions of how you plan to use the funding. Then, after your fundraiser wraps up, report back to donors to share photos, student testimonials, and other examples of their gifts’ impact.  

Once your school has chosen its next online fundraising idea, it's time to lay the groundwork for success. Regardless of the type of campaign you launch, follow these tips to make the most of your efforts:

• Promote on multiple platforms. Everyone in your school's community has differing communication preferences. Some enjoy scrolling through social media while others prefer a personalized email to catch their attention. Make sure as many people as possible are aware of your fundraiser by sharing campaign information through multiple channels.
• Incentivize participation. Incentives, such as fundraising prizes, can provide an added boost of inspiration that can result in more participation from your students. For example, Read-A-Thons encourage students to read books they're interested in and raise funds that they can later spend a portion of on prizes.
• Follow up with donors. Your donors support your school because they want to play a role in enhancing the educational experiences you provide to your students. Whether they're a parent, grandparent, or community member, be sure to follow up and explain how their generosity made a difference. For example, you might share that the funds raised during your Read-A-Thon allowed you to invest in more digital learning materials.

Remember that, at the end of the day, each online school fundraiser presents an opportunity to bring your school's community together and celebrate your shared commitment to student learning.

Wrapping Up: Making the Most of Your Online School Fundraiser

Many engaging online fundraisers, such as Read-A-Thons, can become repeat initiatives for your school. After your campaigns, take the time to evaluate your results. Consider the amount you've raised, the number of donors who contributed, your return on investment (ROI), and other relevant data points. Then, you can use these insights to identify ways to improve your approach the next time around, so each fundraiser is more successful than the last.

If you need a little more school fundraising inspiration, check out some of our top additional resources:

• The Best Preschool Fundraising Ideas. Explore creative school fundraising ideas that are perfect for engaging young preschoolers in this guide.
• 50+ Elementary School Fundraising Ideas to Be Inspired By. Discover 50+ fundraising ideas that you can get your elementary school students involved in.
• 10+ Incredible Middle School Fundraising Ideas. Choose the most exciting fundraising ideas that interest your middle schoolers by reading this guide.