Marching Band Fundraising Doesn’t Need to be a Nickel & Dime Effort

 

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I recently asked one of our FansRaise friends about different fundraisers that they have tried for their high school marching band program. There are certainly no shortage of band fundraising ideas, and band boosters and band directors I’ve sampled have tried everything:

  • Mattress sales
  • Ski sales
  • Fruit
  • Candy
  • Car Washes
  • ‘Chinese’ Auctions
  • ‘Thon’ Events (like a March-A-Thon)
  • Little cute, mini Christmas Trees
  • Pizza kits

You get the picture, and I’m sure your list is longer than this one…

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Some of these campaigns are lots of work, and the money raised doesn’t necessarily correlate to the energy and time spent organizing, bugging, managing, and then following up on the event. Car washes are just fun, and if zero dollars are raised, it’s just a fun excuse to get the kids together socially away from rehearsal! Some events are slightly larger in scope and hold more potential for larger returns, however they tend to be the type of events that require lots of planning, marketing and promotion, and man-hours.

FansRaise, and crowdfunding in general, ranks way up there as an easy and dependable fundraising option for a lot of reasons. We’re seeing some groups that are setting smaller goals and simply using it as a passive resource of funds – meaning that they are setting-it-and-forgetting-it for the most part while the automation does a lot of the work.

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Other groups, in contrast, or pushing all-in with really putting lots of self-promotion into a large goal and target (I don’t think you could expect $100K of band uniforms to just drop out of the sky).

Many of the directors and boosters we are talking to are TIRED of smaller band fundraisers that take a lot of time and draw on resources.

There isn’t a right or wrong way, but  we have discussed some best practices that seem to work across just about any scenario. When looking for unique and successful band fundraisers, band directors and band boosters can leverage FansRaise for larger projects. You can take a peek at how Genesis Drum and Bugle Corps tackled a food trailer upgrade in a few short weeks – click below:

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