How to Make Money Guide: School Calendar Fundraising
Education Fundraising Calendars
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Download this How to Fundraise with Calendars sample/guide now.
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This economic recession has forced many educational institutions to drop programs, cancel clubs and cut back. If schools are willing to make the effort, they can develop extremely profitable fundraising programs for their students to help support these programs and give the students a great life learning experience. Many school organizations are using calendars for fundraising purposes. At Printing Center USA our purpose here is to show you how a fundraising calendar can be put  together with no upfront money and can help your school support their extracurricular activities and ensure that parents and community members know what is happening with their local schools. Many schools have had great success in obtaining sponsors to support the cost of printing their calendars before they go to press. Thus enabling the students to focus on the sales of the finished calendar and realize a larger profit without worrying about how it is going to be paid for.
The students are your most powerful selling tool.
They are what it is all about and proof that the money from the ad sales is going to a good cause. The students can sell the advertising to sponsors to prepay the calendars, thus ensuring a profit from the sale of the calendars. Don’t procrastinate, take time to teach your students how to sell an ad and make sure businesses know:
- What school they are supporting.
- What the money will be used for.
- When calendar distribution begins and ends.
- Size of ads and what they cost.
- Where the ad will be placed.
- Spread the enthusiasm to your students, parents, families, friends and sponsors!
Students can easily sell the finished calendars at school events, to parents, relatives, friends and supporters of the school. The school book store and business’ doing the advertising can also sell the finished calendars. The calendars can be pre-sold also. See our Print Marketing section on our website for ideas, samples, case studies, etc. for more ideas on what other schools have done.
Determine who is the target audience for your calendar
Local Businesses:Local hangouts, Credit Unions, Auto shops, insurance agencies, pet supply retailers, coffee shops, convenience stores, doctors, fitness centers, grocery stores, photography studios, realtors, restaurants, parents businesses, anywhere students and parents frequent and shop.
Large Corporations: Cell Phone companies such as Sprint, Verizon ,Fast Food franchises, McDonalds, Burger King, Soft Drink companies Coca Cola, Pepsi, Pet supply stores, national insurance companies such as State Farm Insurance, Banks, sporting good storesUse your imagination. What business’ would benefit from the exposure in your calendar
Ad Sales Tips:
- The key is to show that advertising in your calendar will benefit all parties involved.
- great way to advertise their business
- gain additional exposure to a large lucrative market (parents and students)
- the business gets relatively inexpensive advertisement space compared to advertising in a newspaper.
- it can also get some positive publicity by supporting your school and the community
- tax deductible donation
- We have included some sample telephone sales calls and direct mail samples
Nothing will beat taking time to personally call on your local business’. Combine the information from the telephone and direct mail samples for your personal sales calls.
Make sure the sponsor sees how they can benefit from the partnership and convince them that by buying advertising space in your calendar they’re making a smart marketing decision for their company.
Keep a record of past sponsors to contact for next years’ calendar.
- Advertising revenue ideas
Ask local businesses for help with funds in return for free product placement within the calendar.
- Sell dates within each month, for example a local ice cream shop could buy the date that it opens up for the summer season, ensuring customers know when they resume operation.
- Ads can be sold to sponsor an individual page at different price levels and number of pages. Platinum, Gold , Silver, Copper, etc. See calendar sample.
- Have smaller ads running down one side or on the bottom of the page sponsoring an individual month or several months or all months.
- Some schools sell the date of a persons’ anniversary or birthday.
- Advertisers could put coupons and/or specials for the students and parents on their ads to entice them to buy their products or services.
- Personal/Parent ads are a great way to gather support and enthusiasm from the community for your calendar or program. Ads of funny, baby and candid pictures of the student are purchased by the families and friends to show support, best wishes and poke fun at the student gather enthusiasm for your team.
How can I calculate the profit we can make for our school?
Download our sample calendar for ideas, costs and placement of advertising.
- Determine how many calendars you think you can sell.
- Most schools buy 500-1,000-2,000.
- Get a price.
- The sponsored advertising costs should easily cover the cost of printing and shipping the calendars.
- Let’s say your cost for 1000 is $2700.
- Go to our sample calendar, pick a format and price the ads to meet your budget for the printing and shipping costs.
- With enough planning in advance there will be very little money outlay and the selling of the calendars will produce a nice profit for your school.
- Calendars usually sell for $10, but some as high as $15.
- If you sell 500 and your advertising covers your costs, your net is $5000.
- Our csr’s and marketing dept are available to help and answer your questions.
Free Templates and Free Online Design coming soon! This will make putting your calendar together a lot cheaper and so easy you won’t believe it!
School year calendars are a great way to showcase, pictures, and a theme for your school.
The school sports programs and /or other school events, plays, band, cheerleader, DECA, whatever you feel is important for students, teachers, parents and the community during the school year.
Put a picture or pictures on the top of each month. Say September would say Welcome back to school and showcase the football team or a collage of pictures, pictures of students in campus settings, include whatever is happening in September.
In the lower calendar page with the days, show:
- sporting events, holidays, plays, other school activities, days off, school board meeting, teachers convention, parent-teacher conferences, daylight savings time begins and ends, 1st day of spring, summer, autumn, winter, graduation day, Super Bowl Sunday, so people can plan for them.
- You can sell: birthday and anniversary dates, Personal/Parent ads with pictures of students, daily specials from supporting business’
On the inside front cover or inside and back cover you can:
- Tell a story or promote what you are doing
- Pages for school philosophy
- Mission Statement
- Student Learning Expectations
- Achievement goals, example
- Notes page
- List of men and women student groups, activities and committees
- Facts and Figures
- How you can make a gift to (LAU case study)
We print one calendar every year where the theme of the calendar is the school mascot (see our Print Marketing Section). U of Florida
At Printingcenterusa.com we can provide you with all of the necessary ideas, case studies, templates, how to info that it takes to get you on your way.
We will be offering Design on Line in the near future to make it even faster, easier and cheaper for you.
The majority of the ideas and information for calendars can be applied to the sales of programs and other fundraising activities. GOOD LUCK!
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