Justgiving interviews school members

In March we interviewed some of our school members to find out how they are using their Justgiving service. We gathered some excellent feedback from a mixed bag of schools –grammar schools, special needs schools, independent boarding schools and youth projects.

We discovered that they appreciate the value for money we offer, citing automatic Gift Aid reclaim as a real bonus. Direct payments into school bank accounts are also a hit as they cut down on the administration involved in fundraising events.

There’s a wide variety of fundraising capability and experience out there – we have schools where a teacher leads fundraising as an add-on activity and others that have a dedicated development department. But both have seen how successful online fundraising can be!

We discovered several areas where Justgiving can work harder to help schools maximise the effect of online fundraising and with that in mind we’re introducing some new resources specifically aimed at helping schools.

Uncovering potential
▪ Schools unaware of the potential  – e.g. how to use online donations as well as fundraising pages.
▪ Non event fundraising - there are dozens of creative ways to use fundraising page to raise money.
▪ Integrate online fundraising into lesson plans; e.g. ITC, Physical Education – particularly in developing
early relationships between pupils and charities.
▪ Schools can learn from each other and would welcome resources to help engage supporters and raise more

Promotion
▪ Schools aren't promoting their Justgiving service effectively. Promotion needs to take place across all media – website, school newsletters, and local press.
▪ Schools use Justgiving only around key events – Justgiving can be used all year round!
▪ Schools are struggling to engage supporters – staff, pupils, parents, PTA and local community.
▪ Schools assume traditional offline (e.g. alumni) donors cannot be converted to giving online. By converting them, schools will benefit from automatic Gift Aid reclaim and weekly donation payments
▪ Schools do not celebrate success. Promoting successful fundraising events among the school community encourages people to take part next time around

We hope that our Justgiving for schools newsletter will start to address some of the concerns above and would welcome your feedback.

If you have any questions or would like to share your experience of our service, please email me at james.casey@justgiving.com or call 020 7549 2224.