Guide: How to Run a School Calendar Fundraiser

School calendars are a great way to raise money while rallying your students and staff to get creative and have fun! Here’s FutureFund’s step-by-step guide on how to raise more money for your school group by designing, producing, and selling calendars.

Table of Contents

• What is a Calendar Fundraiser?
• Purchase Campaigns for Calendar Fundraisers
• How to Run a Calendar Fundraiser: Step-by-Step
• FAQ

What is a Calendar Fundraiser?

A school calendar fundraiser is a really fun way to raise money for your school! Students will be given the chance to design calendar templates. The best ones can then be listed online through FutureFund’s platform to be sold directly to families and community members. 

Not only will your students be excited to see themselves and their work in print, but they’ll love the chance to show off their work to the community.

Use the reference guide below to start pulling together the best calendar fundraiser your school has ever seen!

Purchase Campaigns for Calendar Fundraisers

With FutureFund, you’ll have the option to run different types of campaigns depending on the type of fundraiser you want to hold. For calendar fundraisers, the best type of campaign to use is a purchase campaign.

Any kind of fundraiser where you sell physical items or event tickets is a purchase campaign. Add each item type to your school’s online store in FutureFund by creating a specific purchase campaign for it. In the case of calendars, you can upload each design your parents or students create as a separate item in your school’s custom online store.

Learn how to run a purchase campaign here.

How to Run a Calendar Fundraiser: Step-by-Step

Step One: Pick/Design a Calendar Template

Sit down with the PTO/PTA/your club and design a calendar template for the upcoming year. Here are some tips for success:

• When designing your calendar, consider using student designs or pictures of student artwork.
• You can also use snap shots of the students engaging in sports, academic contests, or any other photos that shows how fun the school year has been so far.

You may even sell more by adding a few different calendar templates to your storefront. And knowing the kids created the designs makes it even more special.

Step Two: Scout a Printer

If you choose to design the calendar yourself, make sure to shop around for a printing company. Keep in mind that the more calendars you order, the more of a discount the printing company will usually give you.

For example, ordering 500+ customized calendars usually puts you in the range of $2.00-$2.50 per calendar. Keep an eye out for a good deal to maximize your profit and get your customers excited for your next calendar fundraiser.

This is essentially the scouting to do when it comes to figuring out how much to sell your calendars for and essentially what profit you will make on each sale. We’ve seen between $25-$50 per calendar work pretty well for school fundraisers!

Step Three: Advertise the Fundraiser!

Let your students and their families know that the school will be selling calendars over the course of whichever month works best for your school/club. You’ll want to pick a month near the end of the year when it makes the most sense for your families to be thinking about switching from the old calendars to new ones.

Make sure to talk up the pictures that will be included in the calendar and most importantly, emphasize to your students that participation in the fundraiser will allow them to take part in a raffle! And you can use FutureFund’s messaging built-in messaging system to relay information to PTO/PTA members and parents to enhance the sales and have them help you spread the word and link to the storefront.

Step Four: List Calendar Designs on Your FutureFund Store

With FutureFund, you’ll be able to sell your calendars through your custom online store. List each of your student and/or teacher designs online and start taking orders.

Once you end the sale, you’ll be able to take the right number to the print shop and not waste paper, money, or time by only getting what was sold printed.

Adding a calendar to the store can be done in just a few simple steps: 

• Navigate to the “Store” tab 
• Click “Campaigns”
• Name your campaign and choose “Purchase” for type
• Select the correct account for your funds
• Specify the amount of items wanted in the campaign in “Purchase Options”
• Click “Create Campaign”
• Navigate to “View” next to the campaign you created
• Click “Designs” 
• Add an image of the calendar
• Make it public by clicking “Sell in Online Store”

Step Five: Send Calendars Off to Be Printed

At the end of the sales period, check your storefronts online sales so you can let the printer know how many of each design needs to be printed.

FutureFund can automatically track calendars sold through the campaigns and provide you with a list of orders—making it faster and easier to print them for the parents or community members who ordered them.

Step Six: Deliver Calendars 

It’s a great idea to include thank you notes with the calendars when students deliver them to friends, families, and community members who helped make the fundraiser a success.

I’m sure they’ll love to know that their contribution was appreciated and put to good use!

Make Your Calendar Fundraiser Count with FutureFund

Get started with FutureFund today and create a school calendar fundraiser that would jumpstart funding for entire schools, groups, clubs, or teams within your community. 

It gives the opportunity to celebrate creativity, raise money for more great opportunities for the kids, as well as puts practical, usable items in the hands of your supportive patrons.

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.

Should my school run a purchase campaign through FutureFund for our calendar fundraiser?

Yes, using Purchase campaigns to sell event tickets or physical items (like calendars) is the best route to take when planning a calendar fundraiser with your school group or club.

Learn how to run a purchase campaign here.

How can I use FutureFund to track my fundraiser’s success?

FutureFund gives you the ability to generate financial reports for 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.