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Tools for Teachers
How to Turn Your Fundraiser into a Learning Experience for Students
With more and more schools experiencing the weight of under funding, fundraising has become even more critical to providing students with an enriching environment for learning, and more and more, the responsibility for raising funds is falling on teachers.
As teachers, your role is to guide students through life as leaders and mentors. Fundraising doesn’t have to take away from that if you look at it as an opportunity to teach students important life skills. Through fundraising, children 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 students to bring fundraising into the sphere of learning:
Organize a Fundraising Shop
This is a great activity to do with candy bar, lollipop and beef snack sales. Plan to run a snack shop fundraiser, and have your students take an active role in planning the business.
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 students 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?
Remind your students that these 6 factors must be clearly printed on their posters or flyers, and discuss the different things that will make their efforts more effective, like a catchy slogan that stands out, bright colors, and easy to read lettering. Then set them to work with their craft supplies, and creative minds!
Pitch Your Sale
A good sales pitch is important to fundraising, and can also be a wonderful lesson in public speaking. Talk to your class about what it takes to be a good public speaker, such as making eye contact, speaking in a clear voice and using hand gestures to emphasize a point.
Divide your class into small groups and have each group come up with their own sales pitch. Remind them to keep their public speaking lesson in mind when doing this activity. Go around to each group as they’re working and give them pointers to improve their pitch. Depending on the age group and the level of enthusiasm, you may want to give them the evening at home to practice.
Have each group stand up at the front of the class and recite their pitch. They can do it all together, one at a time, or even break the pitch into sections with each group member delivering one section.
Have the rest of the class act as judges, giving each group a score between 1 and 10. At the end of the class, declare the winning sales pitch!
Math, Math, Math!
What better opportunity for a real-life math lesson than a fundraiser!
Depending on the grade level of your students, you can use different elements of the fundraising process as your math lesson. For example, an older group of students can learn about percentages by calculating profits, while a younger group can learn about multiplication by calculating items sold by price.
A great idea is to make a "fundraising thermometer" to keep track of your progress. Take a large piece of paper or poster board and draw a thermometer to track dollar amounts with the bottom of the thermometer being $0, and the top being your fundraising goal. Have students help calculate weekly profits, and total amount raised, and then reward your top seller for that period by allowing him or her to color in the thermometer up to your new total.
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