Anne, Author at Groupfinity

In this episode, we discuss the white whale of the nonprofit world – grants. Everyone wants grant money, but no one knows how to find the applications. Grant Writer Mentor Teresa Huff talks to me about grant writing for nonprofits. We cover topics on where to find grants when to apply, and what to do to get ready.

Most importantly, be patient with the process. Begin by focusing on getting the nonprofit up and running before applying for grants. Grantmakers want to see a track record of fundraising and programs before giving money away. In the meantime, build relationships and research grant opportunities from small or community-minded organizations as those can be easier to obtain than larger grants.

Are you ready for grants?

All nonprofits want grant money but not every NPO is ready to apply. Take your time. Funders want to give money to established organizations. They will want to know the program for which the monies will be used and how the program will be sustained when the grant money runs out. That means you must find ways to raise money as you’re building your NPO.

Teresa Huff tells us that the most important is to obtain 501c3, the nonprofit tax status. Then serve clients for 2-3 years before applying for grants. You’ve got to show proof of concept.

Grantmakers want to see sustainable programming before they will fund your nonprofit.

How many people are you impacting currently?
How many will you be able to serve with the addition of the grant for which you’ve applied?
How will the program continue when the grant money is gone?
Is the Board of Directors diverse, established, and dedicated to the mission as well as their fiduciary responsibility to the organization?
How does the nonprofit benefit the community?

These are questions grantmakers often ask on applications. The stronger a case you can make for your organization, the better the odds of obtaining the grant money.

Build Relationships

In fundraising, one of the keys is to build relationships. We’re not talking to dollar signs; we’re talking to real people. They want to understand the organization and where their donation is going. You’re talking to people so start building relationships before even asking for money. This concept goes for grant makers as well. Get to know the funders and their organizations so that you can write a better grant application.

What are funders looking for?

Depends on the funder but most times, they want to supplement an existing nonprofit or support the expansion of a program. For example, if you have a food pantry, an additional program would be to send school kids with a backpack of food for weekends and school vacation time.
Have a plan in place for how you will use the funding and continue serving at the same level after the grant funds are gone.
Timing is everything. Grants can take weeks to a year to hear from after you apply. If you want to launch a program for the summer, think well ahead of the end of the school year to apply.
Grant writing can take hours to weeks depending on the grantmaker. Federal grants and those from larger organizations can take 100-200 hours to request letters of support, gather data, and write the grant. If you’re new to writing grants, start with smaller grants to learn the process and get a track record built before the bigger grants.
Read the guidelines to the letter. Don’t add documents or information that have not been requested. That’s a sure way to get your grant application declined.

If you’re a nonprofit looking for more tips about grant writing, we encourage you to connect with Teresa Huff via her website.

I know parents roll their eyes when it comes to the same old and tired fundraising ideas for the school PTO. We wonder how much more wrapping paper and candy bars we can sell…again this year.

I know how you feel.

While those can be effective fundraisers, let’s think out of the box for easy, quick, and/or fun. For example, use a fundraising app where parents can simply donate money instead of manning the brownie station at the annual bake sale.

Let’s start with who we have on our team and then think about fundraising ideas that are effective to meet the mission and goals of the school PTO.

Who is on your fundraising team?

You can’t organize and run a school PTO fundraiser without the support of the Board and volunteers. Begin by looking at who is on the board and who participated in the past. Let’s determine how they might support future events.

For example, if the basketball team is hosting a fundraising dinner to raise money for travel costs, who can support the team? Who will make the ask to others?

Do any parents own restaurants and can donate a buffet style dinner?
Are there small businesses that can contribute items and gift cards for a silent auction at the dinner?
Is there a DJ who will donate and/or discount their costs for the event?
Can the cheerleaders decorate the venue in exchange for volunteer or service credit?
Who will oversee the event?

Make the most of who you have in the school community to keep costs down.

Fundraising Ideas for School PTO

Once you’ve assembled your team, look at the school calendar and review past events. What were the lessons learned? What are outside the box fundraising ideas that the board may consider? In other words, stop sticking with the same ideas. Let’s get creative!

Write a Check. While we LOVE parent participation. Parents may not be able to participate for a variety of reasons. Ask those parents to write a check. The key is to identify who falls into this bucket and ASK! Don’t be afraid to ask.
Open an online donation platform. For parents who don’t want to participate in product fundraisers (candy, cookies, popcorns, etc.) open an online donation portal like GoFundMe where people in their network can donate. This is a great alternative when friends/family want to donate, but do not want the product. I recently ran a product fundraiser. We added this option because there was significant demand for it.
Organize a Walk-a-thon. Focus on one big event each semester like a walk-a-thon. Include student groups that school PTO volunteers can manage. Get high school students to work the event for community service credit. Make fundraising a competition and provide tools for success like an app or website, a thermometer of school fundraising totals, and give out prizes. Sell vendor spaces and have a concession stand that is student run. Make it a fun event for the community.
Choose Your Own Adventure. Every family’s network is different so give them options. Two months after running a product-based fundraiser, my groups were slated to run another, but the parents were mixed on selling more stuff so quickly. We pivoted to “Create Your Own Adventure”. We created 5 choices for families to choose from. We asked that they do 1 but could do more than 1 if they want.

Think outside the school PTO fundraising box.

You can also just kick the old ideas to the curb. Instead, or in addition to traditional ideas, the school PTO can generate recurring revenues with a membership driven model.

Capitalize on the talent and experience of the parents at your school. Your school parents have more talent and more to offer than you may think. Create a product, service, or content that is of interest to a particular audience and create a membership for access to the product and/or service. Then you can start to pare down on bake sales and start focusing on how to best utilize the funds.

Most importantly, as you’re thinking about fundraising ideas for school PTOs, remember the mission, including the community, and HAVE FUN!

If you have a school PTO fundraising idea you’d like to share, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us today!

We talked with Shane Sams about how nonprofits can generate recurring revenue streams by replacing the old fundraising events we dread so much with a membership-based business. I think we’ll all agree that no one will miss another chicken dinner at a gala.

Shane has appeared three times on Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income podcast. In fact, Pat says, Shane’s episode (#122) is one of his most downloaded. Shane and his wife Jocelyn have created recurring and passive income with their own membership-based businesses and now teach others how to do the same through their business Flipped Lifestyle. In this article, we explore how small nonprofits can do the same.

Shane’s Story: No more fundraising. Let’s generate recurring revenue with membership.

In 2012, Shane and Jocelyn had a young family – their 3-year-old son Isaac and 1 ½ year old daughter Anna Jo. They were both educators in southeastern Kentucky – Shane, taught history by day and coached football at night and Jocelyn was a school librarian. Their college degrees landed them good jobs with health insurance, but they were living paycheck to paycheck.

Then, a family emergency changed everything. One morning, Isaac wouldn’t go into daycare. Shane argued as you do with kids sometimes.

Then Isaac blurted it out, “[Daycare worker] scares me.”

“Later we found out that abuse was happening in the facility when Isaac had potty training accidents. They were locking him in a dark bathroom for hours at a time. It was horrible.”

Shane still had to get to work. His 130 students were counting on him to show up. Because it was an emergency, Anna Jo’s daycare (for younger kids) agreed to keep Isaac temporarily while Shane checked in at school so long as he promised to return ASAP.

Shane’s boss was not so sympathetic. She told him that Shane needed to come to work because his son wasn’t in immediate danger. When she said he could get fired, Shane realized he had traded his family’s freedom, and something needed to change.

Then, he heard about online businesses on Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income Podcast and that changed his life forever.

Ditch Fundraising and Develop Membership

Through prayer and faith, Shane’s first online business took off. Jocelyn’s superpower was she knew the challenges school librarians faced so they developed a membership with lesson plans for school librarians. They delivered content to solve a problem.

“We opened and in the first month, we got 50 people to pay $50 each and made $2,500. Then the business exploded. We had 5,000 by November and by July 2013, we earned $15,000! In August, we earned $36,000 which is equal to one year’s salary as a teacher. That’s when we decided to quit our jobs.”

The membership model works and can be used by small nonprofits to fund their programs. Start a membership-based business based on your superpower and replace those fundraisers you dread so much.

Everyone is TIRED of begging for membership dues/fees and selling tickets to galas. There is a way off this hamster wheel. You can curate information on something you are an expert at – like your hometown, to name one, but there are plenty of subjects. Then, create a membership to share and teach this curated information. The potential is unlimited.

Shane and Jocelyn began teaching friends and family how to do this. After seeing their successes, they launched Flipped Lifestyle to teach thousands of people how to earn money through memberships.

Over the years, Flipped Lifestyle has mentored for-profit and nonprofit businesses like school PTOs, sports organizations, alumni clubs, and more, on how to maximize fundraising by creating an online business.

Listen to the full podcast episode 34 with Shane Sams where he tells stories about others he has helped and offers tips for how you can change your reality and boost earnings for your organization.

To join the conversation, join our community! For the full episode, go to Podcast #34 with Shane Sams.

Another candy or bake sale? More cookies and wrapping paper? It does not have to be this way. Wouldn’t you love to ditch those same lame recycled fundraisers everyone else is doing? Grandma may not mind buying more popcorn, but do you really want to hit up your college roommate or co-worker again? This article is about turning school fundraising on its head. Create a fun online business your entire school community can participate in that has predictable revenue streams to fund your school PTO.

Fundraising for your school PTO is more than candy and bake sales. It’s about creating a supportive community of parents, teachers, and friends who believe in the collective vision of educating children.

In this article, we are sharing innovative ways to engage your organization to build relationships, increase income, and provide value and interest in the school’s needs.

School PTO Fundraising & the Board of Directors

The first step for fundraising and marketing a school PTO is to develop and engage a strong board of directors. These are your school/community leaders. They are the people that others look to for guidance and will want to follow. Ideally, they share and bring their talent, expertise, and money to support the organization.

If you don’t have the right people in place, the next steps can be challenging.

Who is currently on the Board? The goal is to have a board that works well together. While it is great to have a diversity of ideas, you don’t want people who will block progress. Being cognizant of who is on your team and how they work together is crucial.
How well does the Board know each other? Think of them as your department at work or your family at home. Each person has value and plays a role in making the larger organization operate. Plan team-building activities or social gatherings to get better acquainted with your teammates. Does Negative Nellie have valid/reasonable concerns? Or does she need to resign from the board?
What are the ground rules? There must be a consensus of the Board for how it is operated and a general way questions and concerns from parents, teachers, and administrators are managed. The Board is the face of the organization. New parents look to the board for how things work, so represent well.
How often are you meeting? Typically, school PTOs meet once a month. Assign each board member to a committee. Detail work is done in committees, not at board meetings. Boards act on committee recommendations. Boards should not get stuck on committee work.

Lastly, the Board’s role is to execute the organization’s mission. It’s easy to make a list of ideas. How, when, and if they’re executed is up to the Board.

When it comes to engaging the board on school PTO fundraising, Nonprofit Nerd Jarrett Ransom, the Founder of The Rayvan Group, recommends that you create a menu of fundraising activities and allow each member to select where they would like to get involved. This allows them to stick to their strengths, which ultimately benefits the school’s PTO.

School PTO Fundraising

As the host of the Groupfinity Podcast, I am always looking for out-of-the-box fundraising ideas for PTOs and other small volunteer organizations. We’ve talked about how to build and engage an effective board, but what do you do when it comes to fundraising? While some boards rely on one or two annual signature fundraisers, others hold several smaller events throughout the school year. It depends on the level of need and how much can be raised at each event.

What makes for successful school PTO fundraising?

Groupfinity Podcast guest Jenni Hargrove #38 speaks about the risk of having only one to two fundraisers per year. She tells her clients that if they’re thinking longer term, they need to have a couple of different streams of income. She thinks of it as a three-legged stool with each leg representing a different stream of income. In other words, monthly bake sales are only a short-term solution to a long-term fundraising dilemma.

Ask the Board what their goals are for the upcoming school year and beyond.
Review your committee members for their talent and expertise. For example, could the florist donate centerpieces to the gala that can be raffled off later? Could the restaurant owner donate the space for the event? You may be pleasantly surprised with what is already within your reach; you just need to ask.
Get buy-in from the board, parents, and school. With support, you can make great strides in fundraising efforts. Without support, you’re going nowhere.

If it sounds too good to be true – It may be. BEWARE!

Hosting events like charity poker events and casino nights sound like fun but can be a TON of work, with less-than-optimal results. Funds are raised from the buy-in silent auction, drinks, and selling donated or discounted food. That being said, I’ve heard many people frustrated with a lumpy year-to-year performance from events like this – me included!

Why not build something with stable and predictable income streams?

Build an Online Business

Shane Sams, Groupfinity Podcast Guest #34 and the Founder of Flipped Lifestyle teaches individuals and organizations how to create membership communities. PTOs can create membership communities around whatever expertise they have and can teach others. This allows your PTO to stop fretting over the hassles of traditional fundraising events. Many of us have sold wrapping paper, hosted bake sales, and managed craft fairs but what if we built an online business to create predictable and sustainable cash flow for our organization? It’s possible!

What are the skills and experiences of the parents at the school?
What are we already experts in?
What can we teach others?
Who is the target customer for the business?
How can you make these into a revenue-generating business?

By answering these questions, you can begin to see the possibilities of an out-of-the-box solution that provides long-term cash flow for your PTO.

Become an Amazon Influencer

Content creators are sharing products they love and getting paid by Amazon via the Amazon Influencer program. Your PTO can do the same! Build your storefront with products that you love – or that teachers need. Create content about these products, linking viewers to your personalized link. Earn money when items are purchased from your store.

You can also become an Amazon Affiliate. Simply register for the program, recommend products, and start earning money.

I hope that if anything, these ideas give you pause to think creatively about redesigning how to fund your PTO.

Marketing Your School PTO Fundraising

Marketing at its core is how we communicate the value of what we’re selling. When you think about marketing your fundraiser or online business, if you go that route, think about who your marketing team is – a combination of parents, caregivers, teachers, and administrators. Equip them to support the effort.

Clearly message via social media, parent forums, and flyers.
Be transparent on how much was raised and how funds will be used.
Thank donors.

If funds are raised to support the teachers – involve the teachers. Ask them what they need.

Share your student’s fundraising goal. My son/daughter would like to raise $250 for the school walk-a-thon to buy supplies for teachers!

Give parents simple and clear instructions on EXACTLY how they can share the events and support the fundraising effort. Don’t stop with social media post ideas, give them actual posts. Provide images they can share on social media. Provide letters they can share with friends and family. The more you can provide, the easier it is for them to engage in the process.

Getting the board, volunteers, parents, and staff involved is key for fundraising and marketing for the school PTO. While bake sales can be good for the short term, think long-term with an online business or Amazon store. If you’ve got other out-of-the-box ideas, we’d love to hear them! Message us!