School fundraising – where do I start?

Rachel Gordon heads up the School Funding Service, which helps schools across the UK win grants for a wide range of projects, from playgrounds and sports equipment, to after-school clubs and extended services. She writes bids for schools and advises them on how to maximise their funding potential.

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Your school has decided to turn its hand to fundraising, but you are unsure about where to start. Getting started is one of the most difficult aspects of fundraising and it challenges all of us – from fundraising beginners to seasoned experts embarking on a new venture.

These initial feelings of uncertainty are easily managed with a planned approach to fundraising. It begins by answering two simple questions: why are you fundraising and what do you want to achieve?

Ask yourself why

By asking yourself why you are fundraising, you should be able to communicate what fundraising means to you and your school. You may have identified an issue that you want to address, a gap in provision that you want to fulfil, or potential in an existing project that you want to develop. Some schools, for example, launch a fundraising campaign to provide new opportunities or experiences for their school community that they would otherwise not have access to, or to develop skills and raise pupil attainment through special projects. Knowing exactly why you are fundraising will help you to explain its importance to others and garner their support. This will give your campaign momentum.

Ask yourself what

It may sound obvious, but in order to have a successful fundraising campaign, you need to specify what you want to achieve. This way you can set yourself achievable goals, devise a timetable of activities, and monitor your progress.

One of the best ways to do this is to write a fundraising strategy. A fundraising strategy effectively translates your reasons for fundraising into a tangible framework for action. It states what you want to achieve and how you are going to go about it. This helps you to take a step away from the opportunistic fundraising approach often adopted by schools – “let’s ask for money and see what happens” – which has limited scope. In its place, you can apply a planned and professional fundraising approach that gets results.

Your fundraising strategy should:

Define your priorities for fundraising according to your school’s most urgent needs
Set your fundraising objectives. They should be specific, achievable within a specified timeframe, relevant to your school and its key strengths, measureable so that you can record your progress against them, and have clear benefits for your school community
Set out the roles and responsibilities of an appointed fundraising team. The more people you have pulling in the same direction, the more successful your overall efforts will be
Plan out a timetable of activities that will underpin your fundraising campaign

At this early stage, it should prompt you to consider other aspects of your fundraising campaign, such as who will be involved and what the timeframe for your activities will be.

As you undertake your fundraising activities, your strategy will develop and change according to your school’s current situation and specific needs. You should be prepared to review your progress, reflect on your successes, and make adjustments as necessary to your strategy, in order to keep your strategy fresh, your outlook positive, and maximise your fundraising efforts.

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