Celebrate birthdays for students while raising money for causes that benefit them! A birthday board fundraiser is easy to create and can bring in lots of money for your school group. Here’s how FutureFund can help you run yours from start to finish.
November can be a tough month to fundraise in, with the busyness of Thanksgiving and the Winter Holidays coming up. But getting creative with your fundraising events keeps donors engaged and your school group moving steadily towards your financial goals.
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Our team at FutureFund has created a list of ideal fundraising ideas for November, plus some tips for making them more successful by using our free platform. The weather might be getting cooler, but your PTA’s treasury is about to heat up!
Run Your November Fundraiser with FutureFund
Our platform is full of tools your school group can use to fundraise more effectively. These include:
- Ready-to-go campaign templates so you can sell tickets or items for different events.
- A built-in messaging system you can use to announce your fundraisers and provide details.
- Powerful financial reporting tools to help you track your earnings, stay compliant, and plan future fundraisers more effectively.
Donation Campaigns
These campaigns encourage parents and volunteers to donate directly to your school group for a specific cause or event. FutureFund makes it easy to collect money online during the campaign, but you can also include an in-person event if you want to make your fundraiser more meaningful.
Learn how to run a donation campaign with FutureFund here.
Tip: Use FutureFund’s messaging system to announce the fundraiser and include a link to the online campaign so that people can still donate even if they can’t attend the event.
Lunch & Learn
Collect donations to bring in a subject matter expert for a special workshop or lecture during lunch hour. Conduct classroom polls beforehand or send out a call for suggestions so that you can bring in a speaker who will be popular with students.
Parents Night Out
Raise money to hold an event for your parent volunteers and give them a little time off after their hard work throughout the back-to-school season. This is a great way to keep your volunteers engaged and make them feel rewarded—which can increase their participation in future events your PTA holds.
A-Thons (Pledge Campaigns)
An “A-Thon” fundraiser is a special kind of pledge campaign you can run in FutureFund. Once you create the campaign for the event, students who sign up to participate each get a link they can use to collect donations from family and friends.
Find step-by-step instructions for successful pledge campaigns here.
Tip: The link you’ll share when you create the campaign is what you’ll use to sign up student participants. When they register for the event, they’ll each get their own unique link that they can use to raise money.
Turkey Trot
Put together a Turkey Trot as a Run-A-Thon: you can make it a 5k, a 10k, a half marathon, or even a full marathon if you want! Just keep in mind: the shorter the distance, the more participants you’ll have.
Students who register for your Turkey Trot through FutureFund will each get a unique link they can use to collect pledges from friends and family. You can hand out prizes for the winners, too—like school-branded t-shirts or water bottles!
Host A Read-A-Thon
Read-A-Thons are great events for when the weather turns cooler and students start to spend more time indoors. Have participants secure sponsors and pledges, then have them read their hearts out for a good cause.
Purchase Campaigns
Any kind of fundraiser where you sell physical items or event tickets is a Purchase campaign. Add each item type to your online store in FutureFund by creating a specific Purchase campaign for it.
Learn how to run a purchase campaign here.
Tip: Always run Purchase campaigns alongside physical events like bake sales, since this allows you to make sales 24/7 and lets people make purchases even if they can’t attend the event.
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Get StartedHoliday Cookbook Sales
Send out a call for holiday-themed recipe submissions, then have your parent volunteers create books of them and sell them to your school community! In addition to offering these books at events, be sure to add them to your school’s online store so that buyers can participate from anywhere, at any time.
Pumpkin Painting
Invite your students to purchase and paint pumpkins! Make sure to get pumpkins of all sizes, colors, and textures so that no matter what the students pick, they’ll have fun decorating it! Then sell the pumpkins in your online store. The price of each pumpkin can include access to painting materials and markers to map out their painting before they actually do it.
Fall Festival
Put together a fall festival for your community! Use FutureFund to sell tickets online before the event—you can either sell general admission or include different pricing levels for unique events like hayrides and games.
Chili Cookoff
The best way to organize this is to send out a call for submissions so that students and their families can sign up to cook their homemade chili recipes—then sell tickets online to attendees. One ticket equals one vote, and the team with the most tickets at the end of the event wins!
Pie/Bake Sale
Everyone loves a good holiday bake sale! Your PTA can make the baked goods yourself, get the home economics classes to do it, or seek out sponsorship from a local bakery. You should also add vouchers for different baked goods to your online store so that guests can buy ahead of time and skip the line.
Souper Saturday
Nothing says cozy like a bowl of soup on a cold day. After buying a ticket online or in person, each of your guests gets access to a few different soup options, either provided by your PTA or sourced from local restaurant sponsors.
Family Dinner & A Movie
Host a family-friendly movie night and provide dinner for your patrons. You can choose a theme for both the dinner and movie or you can pair a community favorite food choice with a popular movie. Sell tickets online ahead of time so you know who’s coming and can prepare appropriately.
Turkey Dinner
Sell tickets to a turkey dinner! Prepare a few holiday favorites and set places—you can have your community sit and enjoy their meal buffet style, or sell the plates as “to go” options so that guests who are short on time can pick them up and take them away.
Other Fundraising Ideas
Cookie Decorating
Invite your families to decorate some cookies for the holiday. For the price of admission, each person gets 3-5 blank cookies plus whatever types of icing they need to create their masterpieces. If you want to turn it into a competition, give your guests the right to vote and crown the winner at the end of the event.
Hot Yoga
There’s nothing like a nice stretch and workout in a hot room on a cold day. If your local studio is open to a good PR opportunity, they’ll share some of the proceeds from having your event there.
Raffle Fall Baskets
Put together some baskets with comfort food and other cool-weather items and raffle them off to contestants! Themes can include a “fall back in love” basket with dinner, movie, and dessert gift cards, a “bonfire night” basket that includes everything you need for s’mores, or a gourmet cheese and jam basket.
Put the “Fun” in Fundraising This November with FutureFund
Most of these fundraisers are easy to set up, but you can make them even more effective and save time by using FutureFund to promote and organize them. To learn more about using our platform to streamline your fundraisers, get started today with a brief discovery call or browse the FAQ below.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I use FutureFund’s messaging system to promote my fundraiser?
FutureFund’s messaging system lets you:
- Send messages to every parent in your school community or filter your audience to reach specific groups.
- Create unique sender profiles to make sure the message is always coming from the appropriate party.
- Use customizable message templates to save time when broadcasting updates or announcements.
What type of campaign should I choose for my November fundraiser?
Use Purchase campaigns to sell event tickets or physical items (like baked goods or pies). You can also create purchase campaigns for vouchers that are redeemable for specific items at in-person events.
Use Donation campaigns to collect money from community members in support of a specific goal or cause (like a cooking class or a lunch & learn event).
Use A-Thon campaigns to register participants in special events, who will collect pledges from their friends and family to support them. Traditional ideas include Read-A-Thons, Run-A-Thons, Math-A-Thons, and similar ideas—but it’s easy to turn just about any competition or game into an A-Thon if you use your imagination!
How do I sell sponsorships with FutureFund?
FutureFund displays sponsors on your school group’s online directory once they have agreed to make a contribution. You’ll be able to set the price for sponsorships on your own—but our team can provide guidance and support if you’re not sure what to charge.
How can I use FutureFund to track my fundraiser’s success?
FutureFund gives you the ability to generate financial reports for your fundraising campaigns in just a few clicks. To do this, navigate to Store and click the Reports tab near the top of your screen. Then choose Campaign Summary from the drop-down menu and click Generate Report.
