Tips for Running a Successful Read-a-thon at Your School
Tulie Finley-Moise
The key to successful school fundraising
Online platforms like BetterWorld are making hosting peer-to-peer fundraisers like read-a-thons even easier. With tools like personalized fundraising pages and accessible social media integrations, you’ll have your read-a-thon up and running in no time. Sign up for free at BetterWorld today
What Is a Read-a-Thon Fundraiser?
A read-a-thon fundraiser is a fun way to harness the power of reading to raise money for your school. Over the course of a set number of days or weeks, your students are challenged to read as many pages as possible in exchange for a donor sponsorship.
Most donors will sponsor a certain amount of money per page, whereas others may donate a specific amount, regardless of number of pages read. For example, one donor might pledge to donate $1 per page read. Another donor might pledge a flat $50 for the entire fundraiser.
There are some things you should know before launching your read-a-thon. Here are our best tips for a successful fundraiser.
1. Set Up Customized Fundraising Pages
People are more likely to donate to your fundraiser when you make it as easy as possible to do so. A beautifully-designed website makes it easy to share the information about your fundraiser, update your donors on your progress, and accept and process donations.
Platforms, like BetterWorld, often have templates you can use to make this process as easy as possible. The platform will allow your students to set up their own customized pages. They can add personal photos, information about your school, and a list of their favorite books. Adding personal touches such as these ones will encourage people to donate more. Once they’ve set up your page, they can share it with all of their friends and family.
2. Share Your Read-a-Thon on Social Media
A large majority of adults spend some portion of their day on social media. Take advantage of this by sharing your read-a-thon on your social media platforms. If your students are in preschool or elementary school
Make this easier on yourself by using an online fundraising platform integrated with all the biggest social media platforms. This will make it easier to share as quickly as possible. Just a few clicks and your read-a-thon will be out in the world and ready to accept donations from everyone from your grandma to your old coworker!
3. Offer Read-a-Thon Prizes to Participants
Encourage your students to participate by offering prizes! You can offer different prizes depending on how many pages they read, how much money they raise, or how many people donate to them. These prizes can be big or small – whatever fits your budget!
Also consider offering prizes for entire classes. For example, the class that reads the most gets a pizza party. Or the class that raises the most money gets a dress-down day. Whatever you decide to do, make it fun for your students to compete with each other to raise money for your reading for education fundraiser.
4. Offer Read-a-Thon Prizes to Donors
Another idea to entice people to donate is to offer prizes for donors. Some schools have tied a raffle into their read-a-thon fundraiser by entering the names of all donors into a pot for a chance to win a prize.
You can set this up two ways. The first way you can offer read-a-thon prizes to donors is to offer everyone the same prize. If you have a large prize, you would pick one winner. If you have multiple smaller prizes, pick multiple winners.
The second way that you could offer read-a-thon prizes to your donors is by rewarding various stages of donations. Everyone who donates between $1-25 is entered into one raffle for a small prize. Everyone who donates between $26-50 is entered into a raffle for a larger prize. Repeat this process as many times as you would like.
5. Establish Read-a-Thon Challenges
Almost everyone loves a competition! Boost your read-a-thon fundraiser’s participation by establishing read-a-thon challenges by class.
For example, challenge all of your sixth graders to read a particular book. Another example would be challenging your first grades to read four books about pumpkins. Whatever it is, make it fun so that it encourages participation.
The class with the most read-a-thon challenges completed at the end of your fundraiser will win a special class-wide prize!
6. Use an Online Fundraising Platform
Organizing a read-a-thon for an entire school can seem like a daunting task. Online fundraising platforms
With a well-rounded platform, you can set up a personalized fundraising page for each student, accept cash, check, and credit card donations, keep track of your students’ progress, and select the winners of your donor raffle.
This is much easier than attempting to keep track of everything on paper or through Excel spreadsheets.
7. Add a Real-Time Counter to Your Fundraising Page
Boost the excitement around your read-a-thon fundraiser by adding real-time counters to your school’s page. Use a fundraising thermometer to show the progress of your students’ reading and the amount of money that has been raised.
People will often donate if they see that you are super close to your goal. They also enjoy seeing how many pages your students have read throughout the fundraiser.
Set Up Your Read-a-Thon Fundraiser on BetterWorld
Now that your head is full of read-a-thon fundraiser ideas, let’s get to work!
Contact the BetterWorld team to set up your free account or schedule a demonstration of all of our tools. We promise to make your read-a-thon experience as easy, stress-free, and profitable as possible!
