With schools returning for the new academic year, we have some great tips on why you should start planning early.
The summer holidays may quickly start to feel like a distant memory once everyone is back at school and back in the swing of things. However, it’s important to look ahead at your planned fundraising activities at the start of the new academic year as this offers several strategic advantages for schools, ensuring you maximise your success and meet financial goals.
Planning School’s Fundraising
Here are the key reasons why early planning is beneficial:
- Maximising Participation & Engagement
Early awareness: By planning at the beginning of the year, you can communicate fundraising goals to parents, students, and staff right away, building awareness, anticipation and excitement.
Improved involvement: When fundraising is introduced early, it allows time for everyone to get involved, including teachers, parents, and local businesses, ensuring broader participation.
- Aligning with School Academic Calendar
Scheduling flexibility: Schools can integrate fundraising events smoothly into the academic calendar, avoiding conflicts with exams, holidays, or other significant school events and equally plan for seasonal event opportunities such as Christmas, Easter and Summer.
Plan around major events: Early planning enables you to align fundraising with major school events, such as sports days, fairs, or parent’s evening, maximising opportunities for fundraising.
- Setting Clear Goals & Objectives
Get focused: Early planning allows your school to set clear, realistic fundraising goals for the year, identifying specific needs such as new equipment, facility improvements, new project launches or student programmes.
Strategic planning: You can develop a comprehensive fundraising strategy, deciding on the types of fundraisers to hold, timelines, and target audiences, which enhances overall effectiveness.
- Budget Management
Financial planning: Starting early helps integrate fundraising into your annual budget planning, ensuring that funds are allocated appropriately throughout the year and can be tracked to ensure you’re on target.
Avoid last-minute rushes: Early planning reduces the need for emergency fundraising later in the year, allowing for a more measured and thoughtful approach.
- Building Relationships & Partnerships
Community engagement: Early fundraising efforts provide an opportunity to build and strengthen relationships with the local community, businesses, and alumni, fostering long-term support.
Long-term partnerships: You can use the time to develop and maintain partnerships with sponsors or donors, ensuring sustained support over the academic year.
- Adapting to Changes
Contingency planning: If issues arise or if initial fundraising goals are not met, early planning provides the time needed to adjust strategies or launch additional campaigns later in the year.
Evaluation and improvement: Starting early allows you to evaluate the success of initial fundraisers and make improvements for future events within the same academic year.
- Boosting School Spirit
Creating a unified vision: Early fundraising planning can foster a sense of community and shared purpose among students, staff, and parents, contributing to a positive school culture.
Encouraging student leadership: Students can be involved in planning and executing fundraising activities, promoting leadership skills and a sense of responsibility.
By planning fundraising activities at the start of the new academic year, your school can optimise its efforts, engage with your community, and ensure you have the resources needed to support their educational and financial goals throughout the year.
As part of your fundraising initiative you could take part in our Kids Fill The Bag Challenge too!
We love to encourage kids to get on board with recycling and we know that this is the best way to recycle clothes and get paid for it. It’s easy, fun and gets a little healthy competition going between classes and even inter-county schools. All your school needs to do is collect a minimum of 40 bags of reusable textiles donations, give us a call and we will arrange a collection date. We then take all the bags away to be sorted and weighed and once this has been done, we will provide the school with a Certificate of Achievement and payment that reflects the amount of usable donations that have been collected at the going rate of £500 per tonne (50p per kilo).
If you’d like to start a Kids Fill The Bag challenge and begin to raise funds through textiles recycling, contact our team today on 020 3903 9933 or email us at enquiries@kidsjustrecycle.co.uk
Blog written by www.wendyjenningscreative.co.uk