Fundraising Resources & Tips

In addition to highly profitable fundraisers, Ecuador Volunteer also strives to provide you with easy fundraising tips so that you can relax and enjoy your fundraising experience.

Here are our top tips for successful fundraising preparations:

1. Organize your staff

Your fundraising staff consists of participants, parents, friends, collegues, and anyone else who will be helping with your campaign. Participants need to know well in advance that the fundraiser is coming, and when fundraising with children, parents will need to be kept in the loop as well, so be sure to send letters home with full details, and your contact information.

Volunteers are your support staff, so use them well! Divide up the responsibilities (responsibilities will depend on the type of campaign you’re running, so speak with the volunteer coordinator for this step), and delegate to the people you feel are best suited to each role. If everyone knows his or her role beforehand, fundraising will go smoothly!

2. Plan your budget

Articles on fundraising tips often miss this one, yet it’s such an important step! Many programs require products to be purchased in advance, but not all of them. Before you call your Fundraising Coordinator, sit down with your group or committee and decide on a budget. That way, your coordinator knows to guide you within that budget.

When planning your budget, it’s also important to determine your fundraising goal, and to have as much information on hand as possible when you call the Fundraising Coordinator.

3. Advertise your campaign

People need to know about your fundraising campaign to support it, so be sure to start advertising well in advance. If you’re planning an event that people will have to buy tickets for, start advertising about a month in advance. For fundraising sales, 2 weeks in advance should be enough.

Advertise with posters and flyers. Ask local business if you can put up posters in their windows and post flyers on community bulletin boards. Send emails and mailings to all your contacts, and tell everyone you know about your fundraiser. A great fundraising tip is to contact your local TV and radio stations, and your local newspaper. They will often include your fundraising information in their community news.

4. If you are coming with friends "Motivate your group".

Be sure to keep you group motivated and excited with great incentives like prizes, fun activities and other rewards. When you set goals and rewards, your group members will be more excited about participating, and work harder to ensure the goals are met.

A great tip is to create competition among your group with rewards for the highest or fastest sellers!

Fundraising doesn’t have to take away from that if you look at it as an opportunity to teach you important life skills. Through fundraising, you can learn different aspects of:

• Running a small business
• Budgeting and money management
• Organization
• Public speaking
• Entrepreneurialism Creative writing
• Graphic design
• Advertising and being an informed consumer
• Cooperation and teamwork
• And much, much more

Here are some fundraising projects you can do with your friends to bring fundraising into the sphere of learning:

Organize a Fundraising Shop

Discuss the different steps you need to take to set up the shop, such as choosing a date, and the ideal time to sell, choosing the best snacks to sell, ordering the snacks, choosing and reserving a location, advertising the shop, and managing sales.
Encourage students to share their ideas and contribute to the business plan.

Plan an Advertising Campaign

Discuss the different ways a fundraiser can be advertised. Things like posters and flyers are great advertising tools, and can also be used as learning tools when you have create them.

Set aside some time to discuss the necessary elements of a poster or flyer – the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How:

• Who is organizing the fundraiser?
• What kind of fundraiser is it?
• When is it?
• Where is it being held?
• Why are you raising funds?
• How can people support you or participate?