Planning an elementary school fundraiser can be an overwhelming challenge, especially if you are a school administrator, teacher or parent volunteer with limited time to put something together. Keep these simple principles in mind when planning a spirit wear fundraiser.
Come Up with a Plan
Gather all of the people involved with this effort and sit them down in one place to establish the goals for this fundraiser. What is the objective for these funds? The more specific the better. A specific goal such as “purchase 5 Apple iPads for 1st grade classroom use,” is far better than a more general goal of “fund the PTO programs for the current school year.”
Once you have a goal in mind, it is pretty easy to determine how much money you need to reach these goals. Using our iPad example, if iPads cost $400 each ($2000), they will need a rugged protective case $50 ($250), and maybe a protection/tech support plan at $75 each ($375), so the total amount needed to reach the goal is $2625.
Determine Budget and Pricing
Now that you know how much you need to raise, it is a good time to start thinking about what type of spirit wear you’d like to sell. Will it be t shirts only? Or will you expand this out to other items such as sweatshirts, hats, tote bags? Keeping the income and demographics of your school district in mind, what price points do you think you need to make the spirit wear both affordable and still able to generate funds after you’ve paid the vendors? What does this look like design-wise? How many colors are you going to include in the design? Are you looking at including any unique printing types such as glow-in-the-dark, metallic or foil printing? A good online spirit wear store such as BYOG can help with this.
Generate Design Ideas
This is probably one of the most difficult aspects of a spirit wear fundraiser. How do you come up with great spirit wear designs, clever logos or slogans? This is where you get your staff and parents involved. Chances are there is someone on staff that has some artistic ability, maybe an art teacher, or a gifted parent or student who can put together a rough design for the spirit wear. Since you now have an understanding of how many colors used for the t shirt, you can factor this into your design.
Still stuck? Just enter “spirit wear design ideas” in your Google search box or, better yet, in Pinterest to come up with design ideas. If you are still stuck, contact your online spirit wear store for help. They have taken on hundreds of projects just like these and can guide you through the process.
Select a Vendor
This is one of the easiest parts of the process. Look around at local screen printing companies, or order from an online spirit wear store. Compare prices, look at minimum order requirements, etc. Verify that they have the equipment to bring your design to fruition. Look at their other work, check out their reviews online.
Tune in next week for 4 more principles for planning a successful spirit wear fundraiser.
Thinking About Starting a Spirit Wear Fundraiser?
BYOG (Build Your Own Garment) are spirit wear design specialists that can help in planning a spirit wear fundraiser and also create the perfect attire that will make your fundraiser for your elementary school, junior high or high school successful. Get the details via our online chat feature on our website, call us at (925) 829-3950 or toll-free at (855) 776-8465, or fill out our online form and we will contact you within 24-hours.
Keep Reading:
- What You Need to Know About Planning a Spirit Wear Fundraiser – Part 2
- 4 Reasons to Use Spirit Wear Fundraising for Your Elementary School
- 4 Tips for High School Spirit Wear Designs
- 4 Ideas to Help You Plan Your Spirit Wear Fundraiser
- 6 Benefits of Using a Graphic Designer to Design Your Spirit Wear