Passive Fundraising With Scrip: 5 ways to spread the word

Little boy with megaphoneOnce you’ve set goals for your scrip fundraising campaign and  have a clear understanding of where you’re headed, it’s important to think about how you’ll get there. There are many ways to promote your efforts, and with a long-term project like electronic scrip enrollment or scrip sales, it’s important to continually reach out to your supporters in new and unexpected ways.

5 ways to communicate your campaign:

1. Bide your time. Many boosters who sell scrip or participate in electronic scrip programs focus most of their efforts on working sales or program registration drives naturally into existing events and occasions. eScrip even provides participants with a chart listing annual events at which your club could promote registration, like Back to School nights and Halloween festivals. If you can demonstrate the relevance or benefit of participation — for example, registration tables at athletic events — you increase your chances of building loyal and long-term supporters. If you jump on potential supporters at every opportunity you run the risk making your cause white noise to donors. Choose your moments wisely to keep your message fresh and impactful.

2. Utilize social media. Placing prominent links to your scrip campaign updates on your club’s website is a bit of a no-brainer, but it’s possible to overlook the huge potential of resources like Facebook and Twitter. An initial post announcing the campaign can help spread the word, and easily allows supporters to share the news with their friends, a huge source of potential supporters who may not have been reached otherwise. Students may not think to share the news with their coworkers or neighbors in person, but could easily do so online. And both Facebook and Twitter provide an easy medium for quick, shareable updates on the campaign’s progress.

3. Throw a party. Initial announcements via mail or flyer have the potential to be misunderstood, forgotten, or ignored. Host a large, one-time event designed to establish a base of initial supporters who understand the program. Face-to-face contact isn’t practical for all campaign communication, but an emotional appeal or in-depth explanation can sway potential donors who are on the fence, or convert a casual supporter to a devoted friend of the cause.

4. Alert the media. This one may be another no-brainer, but keeping in touch with local media can be a great resource for making your campaign announcement, and for keeping supporters appraised of the program’s progress. Parents of students and others directly connected to the club’s efforts will be easy to keep in the loop, but local media outlets can be a huge help in keeping the community at large up to date and engaged.

5. Create shareable content. Odds are you personally won’t have the chance to fully explain scrip, your club, or your planned projects each time someone comes across news of your campaign. However, you can get the information out there in a way that can easily be shared. Spend some time developing concise, consistent, and convincing appeals to the community to support your cause, and record them in formats that can easily be disseminated across various mediums — a short video, a brief press release, an eye-catching flyer. These materials should be kept on-hand and be used throughout your campaign as a reference for potential supporters.


Whether your scrip campaign involves serious planning and nets hefty donations, or runs low-key and supports bigger projects, electronic scrip programs deliver on their promise — they make it easy to donate often. Take a look at your options for scrip fundraising, find the program that fits your club’s needs, then get your supporters shopping.

Read more about scrip fundraising:

Passive Fundraising With Scrip: Little effort, big donations

Passive Fundraising With Scrip: Getting the most from your campaign

Passive Fundraising With Scrip: 4 tips for setting campaign goals

 

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