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Planning and managing a fundraising event can make you want to pull your hair out or perhaps start banging your head on the table out of frustration. Here are seven helpful tips that will help make your fundraiser a smooth and profitable success.

1.) Plan for Success

Efficient planning is a major part of the success of not only your fundraising campaign but any project you have looming before you. Without a concise and well thought out plan of attack, chaos will reign and your project will be doomed to suffer. In fact, you should have a primary plan as well as a secondary plan in place.

2.) There can be Only One Person in Charge!

It might seem obvious, but, too many chiefs and not enough Indians is a recipe for failure. There really should be only one person is coordinates all the different parts of the planning process for things to gell correctly.

3.) Delegate, Delegate, Delegate

Give specific tasks to people that you have confidence and trust to get the job completed. When you do your planning create a list of tasks that have to be accomplished and choose the right personnel for each task. Ensure that each of your chosen staff understands that accountability for their assigned task and the buck stops with them.

4.) Promotion is Key

Get the word out about your fundraiser. Proper promotion of your event will ensure that you reach your goal. Send out press releases to local media outlets. Don’t forget your own school web page is a great way to post your fundraiser and get the word out about it. Depending on the type of fundraiser you are planning will dictate if creating flyers and asking local business to place them in store windows would be helpful. There are many ways to promote an event and you should take advantage of as many of them as possible.

5.) Pre-Sell for a Successful Fundraiser

This plan of action will work very well for any type of fundraiser. If your fundraising event is a dance, dinner, guest speaker, or other ticketed type of program that is a one night event, you can benifet greatly by pre-selling your tickets. Start selling tickets long before the actual fundraising night. When items such as cookie dough are your main product start mentioning it to friends, family, and neighbors before the fundraiser begins.

6.) Multiple Income Streams

Try not put all of your eggs in one basket. Multiple income streams have been a recipe for success in business for quite some time and you should be planning your fundraiser just like a business. If all of your efforts are concentrated in only one program, something like a huge storm or tragic event in your town can divert attention away from your fundraiser and ruin the results you were expecting. Try using multiple events to your advantage. Conducting more than one fundraiser is an excellent way to reach your goal as quickly as possible and spread out some of the risk.

7.) Post Fundraiser Analysis

While not part of the actual event planning phase this is something that you should not overlook. Analyze how each of your school fundraising efforts performed. Which ones did your customers like the best? Which the least? Which ones made you the most money? Which ones were the easiest to do? You can use your analysis of your current campaign to enhance future efforts. It is especially helpful to write these things down in a journal for the next board to view in case all the faces on the board change from year to year, they don’t have to re-invent the wheel like you did!