Fundraisers power your School and PTA, ensuring you can provide a positive educational experience for students in your community. However, thinking of fundraising ideas for the entire year can be a challenge. This is especially true for schools interested in exploring year-round fundraisers. 

One solution is to expand your annual fundraisers with virtual activities. Online-based fundraisers usually have no or lower start-up costs when compared to in-person activities and can be run with relatively little effort. 

While these ideas aren’t set-it-and-forget-it fundraisers, they are virtual fundraisers schools can easily host alongside their major fundraising campaigns. 

1. eCards

A greeting card can celebrate birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, and other special occasions. Your school can raise funds by introducing a modern twist on traditional mailed cards: eCards. 

eCards are digital greeting cards sent through email or text just by sharing a link. To turn eCards into a school fundraiser, partner with an eCard provider and have participants pay a small fee to send an eCard with a custom message. Buyers can easily celebrate occasions with family and friends and support your school at the same time.

Give participants multiple eCard designs to choose from. eCardWidget’s charity eCards guide walks through a few essential design elements: 

• Image. eCards are a visual experience that can even go above traditional cards with animations and interactive elements. Use eye-catching photos representing your school, and get creative with opportunities to incorporate more visual interest. 
• Branding. While the eCard designs should focus on the occasion they’re celebrating, you should also include brand elements from your school. For example, on Valentine’s Day, your eCards will likely have mostly red and pink colors, but you might add a few accents with your school’s color and place your logo in a corner. 
• Mobile-friendliness. eCards are often sent through text, and many recipients will likely open emailed eCards on their phones. Make sure all of your eCards are mobile-friendly, and if a specific template displays better on a desktop, note it in the template description so buyers can respond accordingly. 

Create a set of standard eCard templates that you can send throughout the year, as well as holiday and season-specific ones. Then, cycle your templates out based on the time of year and send a promotional message to your supporters to let them know whenever new eCards are available for them to buy and send to their loved ones. 

2. Shoe Drive Fundraisers

Kids grow out of their shoes quickly, meaning parents of elementary schools likely have multiple pairs of gently worn, used and new shoes just lying around. Your school can turn these shoes into fundraising dollars by running a shoe drive fundraiser.

While shoe drive fundraisers require participants to physically drop off their shoes, most of the work for your campaign happens online. Promote your shoe drive fundraiser to parents through your website, newsletter, and direct emails. Provide details about how the fundraiser works, the types of shoes you’re interested in collecting, and where they can drop off their shoes. 

Try hosting this fundraiser when parents are likely looking to buy new shoes anyway. For example, you might host one at the start of a new sports season or school year. Shoe drive fundraisers are also an effective holiday fundraising idea, encouraging supporters to give away their old shoes rather than just throwing them away with a replacement they received as a gift. 

3.  Online Shopping Fundraisers

The easiest fundraisers to run are ones that don’t even require supporters to donate. One way your community can contribute to your school without reaching into their wallets is through an online shopping fundraiser.

Online shopping fundraisers earn schools’ money whenever a supporter makes a purchase from a participating retailer through your online shopping platform. They pay the same amount they normally would for their purchase, and a portion of their sales total is donated to your school by the retailer. 

ShopRaise’s guide to online shopping fundraisers for schools walks through how to get started:

• Partner with a shopping fundraising program. Online shopping fundraising programs will provide you with a platform supporters can shop through to support your school. This will likely be a browser extension or mobile app. Your program partner will also negotiate all contribution rates with retailers for you, allowing your school to focus on marketing your program. 
• Market your program. Shopping fundraisers essentially run themselves, save for promotion. To keep supporters buying through your program and encourage new supporters to join, continuously promote your program. Feature regular reminders in your newsletter and add a page on your website explaining your shopping program that new supporters can easily find. 
• Thank participants. Reach out to supporters who participate to thank them for their contributions. Most shopping fundraising programs keep supporters’ exact purchases private, but they will show you who your top supporters are and how much they’ve raised. 

Like with shoe drive fundraisers and eCard fundraisers, shopping fundraisers can happen any time but do especially well during particular times of the year. For example, in the last weeks of summer, you might promote your shopping fundraiser more heavily to attract the attention of parents buying school supplies.

4. Read-a-Thon

Your school can raise funds and encourage good reading habits in students with one fundraiser: a read-a-thon. You can host read-a-thons during one big event or multiple days, but fundraising primarily happens online. 

Before the date of your read-a-thon, have students set up individual online read-a-thon tracking pages. They can use these pages to log their reading and collect donations. Have them share the link to their page with friends and family, who can then make a flat donation or pledge to give a certain amount based on how much the student reads. For example, an aunt from out of town might agree to give $5 for every 50 pages a student reads. Then, if the student finishes one 250-page book, the aunt would donate $25 after the read-a-thon. 

Taking your read-a-thon online can also help encourage parental involvement, which can be especially helpful if your read-a-thon spans several days. They can easily check in on how much their child has read and share the link with their own networks, such as coworkers and extended family, to help raise more funds. 

5. Matching Gifts

When a supporter donates to your school, they might be able to multiply their donation if they work for an employer with a matching gifts program. Essentially, when an employee who works for a business with a matching gift program donates, their employer will make an equal contribution. Some employers will even give more at 2:1 or 3:1 rates. 

Many of your supporters likely won’t be familiar with matching gifts, so make sure to provide directions in your promotional materials and on your website. For most of your supporters, the matching gift process works like this:

1. The supporter makes a donation. 
2. The supporter reports the donation to their employer by filling out a matching gift application. 
3. Their employer approves the application and donates, as well. 

Your school can make the process easier by helping supporters discover if they’re eligible for matching gifts. Use a matching gift database where they can search for their employer’s name or link them to other matching gift reference materials that list top employers’ programs. 

Then, when a supporter does complete a matching gift application, reach out to them with a thank-you letter. While matching gifts are easy to complete, showing appreciation for supporters who go the extra mile to submit an application form increases the chances they’ll do so again in the future, earning your school extra revenue. 

School fundraisers don’t need to be hectic. Between your major fundraisers, explore easy virtual fundraisers that community members can easily participate in. Promote your online fundraisers regularly to keep generating revenue, and your school will earn big over time. 

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