Every year since they began using PledgeStar, students at Sunset View Elementary school in Point Loma, California, have seen their earnings increase.

The 2019 annual jog-a-thon at Sunset View raised more money than students, teachers, and parents volunteers expected thanks to PledgeStar and several dedicated volunteers. The event had historically brought in about $40,000 before PledgeStar was introduced as an online fundraising platform. In their first year, the amount doubled and its second year earnings totaled about $90,000.

"We didn't change much else," said parent volunteer Jill Wyatt. "PledgeStar really helped us reach a broader audience of parents, family, and friends."

Wyatt also attributed much of this success to the number of volunteers that the school had to make events happen. Several parents organized donations for student incentives. One family even owned a graphic design company and offered to design a t-shirt logo for event, which was "Live Aloha" theme. Volunteers passed out floral leis, sunglasses, and other Hawaiian theme prizes when students met their fundraising goals.

Organizing and executing the Sunset View jog-a-thon was no small feat. The event ran throughout the entire school day, and jogging around the track was just a small part of the affair. Parent volunteers coordinated a karate instructor, lacrosse games, a gymnastics coach, and other fun activities to get the kids excited to raise money for the school. "It was a fun one for the kids to get behind," said Wyatt. "It's hands down the most fun day of the year."

The volunteers at Sunset View didn't stop at creating fun events for the kids. Their non-profit foundation, KidsFirst at Sunset View, also pays for enrichment classes like art, music, and cultural experiences like Spanish lessons. Once a month, students rotate through the enrichment classes while teachers hold a meeting day to align their curriculum and work together. KidsFirst has also paid to hire an additional teacher when class sizes are too big, as well as for classroom supplies and campus beautification projects.

"Others want to know how we do it." Wyatt said when asked about the multiple programs the foundation funds at Sunset View. "PledgeStar is the first thing we mention." Wyatt also said that Sunset View definitely plans to use PledgeStar next year.

When Rachel Hatch joined Urban Discovery Academy in 2017, she had ambitious plans for the big city charter school that started as a small gathering of families and grew into a diverse institution in the heart of San Diego.

Hatch knew that charter schools only receive about 72 cents for every dollar a public school receives from the state, and fundraising at Urban Discovery Academy in its early years had been challenging. Its first jog-a-thon brought in about $4,000, which was hardly worth the effort it demanded, but Hatch recognized that the event had potential for becoming a major source of revenue for the school. She had seen PledgeStar used at her own child’s school, and knew that an online platform, with access to social media networking, was definitely the way to go.

It turned out that Hatch was right. After using PledgeStar for the first time, UDA increased its earnings by about five times, bringing in a whopping $20,000 in 2018 and again in 2019. What started as a fun event to bring in a little extra money for the school turned into one of the school’s major fundraising events for the entire year!

“It was incredibly simple,” Hatch said, “We went from expecting close to nothing to knocking the socks off the foundation. It really blew the doors off for this event and I see the possibility of potentially doubling this amount.”

After the 2019 jog-a-thon, Hatch saw one key aspect of the event that she believed could unlock the doors to success in the next few years. Only about 50% of the school population registered on PledgeStar in 2019 and Hatch knew that getting students to register on the platform was the first step to accessing donations from their friends and family. Next year, Hatch hopes to campaign to get at least 80% of the students using PledgeStar for the jog-a-thon. She is confident that encouraging community participation is the best way to get families involved in the fundraising process.

“We really want the parents to feel invested in their children instead of just asking them to throw money at the foundation,” Hatch said. “Getting grandma, grandpa, aunts, and uncles to donate small amounts feels different to the parents. They know that the money is going directly to their child rather than some other company thanks to PledgeStar’s unbelievably low fee. We want to work on creating those experiences for them, and PledgeStar is one way we can do that.”

Hatch and other school staff plan to rev up their jog-a-thon campaign for 2020. Their ideas range from inviting Storm Troopers to visit students at the jog-a-thon to having the students dress in costume on the day of the event to get them excited and motivated to support the school. With a goal of doubling their $20,000 average, programs like engineering, art, PE, theater, and their transitional kindergarten classes will continue to be funded with the community’s help. Using social media and online platforms like PledgeStar, Hatch said, “is able to make great things happen. We’re undertaking a big endeavor in downtown San Diego and PledgeStar is helping us every step of the way.”

In the winter of 2018, Hope Elementary School Principal Richard Tubbs had a radical idea: he would shave his head if students raised over $40,000 during their next annual Jog-A-Thon. Even one dollar more than $40,000 and the clippers would come out, he promised. When they exceeded their goal with over $57,000 in revenue this year, Principal Tubbs was true to his word.

“I like to do fun things for the kids,” Principal Tubbs said, “So I had all 650 kids outside to witness it at recess.” To top it off, he allowed the top five fundraisers to help with the shaving. “I took a razor blade afterwards to help with the stubble” he said. Parents and teachers took pictures and the whole crowd cheered him on.

The campaign to get rid of Tubbs’ hair started with the surprise increase in money that the school Jog-A-Thon raised in 2018. This was the first year the Hope Elementary had used PledgeStar as an online fundraising platform. Typically, the school raised about $15,000-$20,000 per year from the event. In fact, Tubbs has been the principal at Hope for over fifteen years and said that the amount had remained pretty stagnant during his entire tenure. Then, in 2018, when PledgeStar was first introduced to the school, their numbers doubled to almost $40,000.

Tubbs knew that the school could do better. He had also heard from the community that they loved the new online system. So, he decided to motivate the students to raise more money the next year by offering the ultimate no-cost prize: make your principal bald at recess. This year Hope Elementary School went above and beyond to triple their average earnings, raising nearly $60,000.

The head-shaving incentive wasn’t the first time Tubbs had used fun and creative ways to get his students excited. Hope Elementary School is known for being one of the founders of the Great Kindness Challenge, a now-international online crusade to promote exactly what its title implies: kindness. He inspires students to get involved, excited, and energized every week in his school’s TV show, HopeTV. Tubbs has been known to rap about Red Ribbon Week, make a music video about vegetables, and sing original songs about reading on the show.

Offering fun and creative ways for students to get involved at school isn’t the most unique thing about Principal Tubbs. Unlike many other school fundraisers that are organized by parent volunteers, Hope Elementary School’s annual Jog-A-Thon is organized and executed by their principal. Tubbs said that after fifteen years of fundraising and sending over 40% of the revenue back to cookie dough and gift wrap companies, he chose PledgeStar because it charges a minimal fee for its services. In fact, Tubbs decided that PledgeStar would be its only outside vendor used for fundraising in the future. “It allows us to keep almost all of that money,” he said, “Our goal is to provide the students with the best possible programs we can. Parents have thanked me tremendously for using PledgeStar in order to do that.”

Hope Elementary School uses the money raised on Pledgestar to fund their music, physical education, and technology programs. Tubbs reported that the Jog-A-Thon is now their biggest fundraising event, and that using Pledgestar to raise money has made it easy to keep track of donations. “It’s been wonderful for us,” he said, and having students help to fund the programs “really gives them ownership in that.”

The Friends of Third Booster Club in Los Angeles held its second annual walk-a-thon and, with PledgeStar’s help, far exceeded its ambitious goal of $50,000 by $18,000 for a total of $68,000! They accomplished this by using creative and fun incentives for both the students and teachers.

Booster club president, Patricia Alexander, thought that such high hopes for the walk-a-thon might be overzealous, but the event’s proceeds far surpassed her expectations. Before using PledgeStar for online fundraising, the annual walk-a-thon had raised about $30,000.

“Once we went to an online system our fundraising almost doubled,” Alexander said, “It just increased so dramatically!”

To encourage students to register on PledgeStar, Alexander knew to get the teachers involved, a step often overlooked during pledge drives. In order to encourage teachers to increase classroom participation, she offered a $100 prize to each teacher achieving 100% online participation. This caused the number of online participants to multiply daily.

Alexander and her volunteers visited classrooms with prizes for participating students during their fundraising campaign. “Sometimes the students were really surprised they were getting a T-shirt or a bag that they didn’t even know they won,” she said. Seeing their peers receive prizes inspired other students to step up their game as well. As a result, Alexander estimates that over 70% of the student body registered on PledgeStar, and many of the students exceeded their individual goals by several hundred dollars.

Parent volunteers focused on making the fundraising campaign a fun experience for students. A few weeks before the walk-a-thon, volunteers organized a dance party for all students who raised over $100. The exclusive party included silly string, glow sticks, and other exciting rewards that kept energy levels high and generated a buzz for the remainder of the campaign. Their strategy proved to be brilliantly effective.

When searching for online platforms for the Booster’s fundraiser, Alexander said the choice was easy. “The value of PledgeStar was really there in all aspects,” she remarked, “We were able to capture everything we needed through PledgeStar’s reporting system, making it incredibly easy and simple for our fundraising chair.

The Friends of Third Booster Club was thrilled with the results of their annual walk-a-thon. Every year, they aim to support programs that total over $250,000, including a technology lab, music enrichment, and physical education. “Exceeding our walk-a-thon goal means were are able to increase our budget and increase the programs we can offer,” said Alexander. She is happy to report that the Booster Club will fund all of these programs and more at Third Street Elementary School this year.

After five successful years of using PledgeStar for their jog-a-thon fundraising, PTA members at southern California elementary school Aviara Oaks wanted to bring in more money than ever before. Thanks to the advice and help of the seasoned PledgeStar team, they were able to achieve just that!

Since 2015, Aviara Oaks Elementary School has more than tripled its earnings of their annual jog-a-thon, raising the bar from about $20,000 per year to over $71,000 in 2019. PTA volunteer Krissy Otten says that they owe all their success to the PledgeStar online platform and helpful fundraising tips provided to every PledgeStar event.

For the first few years of their jog-a-thon, volunteers stuck to the tried and true offline donations and per lap pledges, but they knew more could be done. After careful research they decided to give PledgeStar’s online platform a try. To Otten’s delight, their first year of online fundraising doubled the school’s average earnings and inspired PTA board members to stick with PledgeStar as they moved forward.

After several years of successful events using the same techniques, however, Otten noticed that their jog-a-thon fundraising amount had plateaued, so she sought the advice of the PledgeStar fundraising team. “PledgeStar gave us two pieces of advice that really made all the difference,” Otten said, “switching from per lap pledges to flat donations and focusing on getting the kids to sign up on PledgeStar.” The changes were easy to implement and made running the event even easier. “We were able to stop screaming at the parents and instead focused on the kids,” said Otten. The volunteers encouraged competition between classrooms and did their best to make the event more enjoyable for the participants. Instead of running laps around the track for thirty minutes, they set up an obstacle course that the kids were far more excited about. Rather than hounding parents to collect donations, they focused on encouraging competition between classrooms (not individuals, as the PTA members knew that not everyone could participate) and offered prizes for the classes in the lead. One morning after seeing their updated donation numbers on PledgeStar’s leaderboard, a group of second graders saw that they were $8 behind the leading class. By that same evening, they had raised over $300 because they were so motivated to take the lead, Otten said.

“I cannot recommend Pledgestar more strongly to our fellow PTA/PTOs,” said Otten, “The ease of the website and PledgeStar’s guidance helped our fundraising numbers grow to heights that our principal and PTA volunteers could only imagine.”

Aviara Oaks must earn $150,000 per year to cover the costs of a PE, science, and music teachers, as well as two tutors for their campus. Their jog-a-thon covers about one third of their specialty teachers salary, and for this reason is especially important to the students, staff, and community members. Thanks to the help of PledgeStar they have been able to continue to grow and sustain their extra programs. “We really want to expose our kids to everything,” Otten said. “With our diverse program, they can try everything, do everything…and the PTA covers the cost.”

Otten says that she plans recommending PledgeStar for other sports teams and schools as her children get older. For now, she is very happy with the changes and success she helped bring to Aviara Elementary.

The 2018 annual fundraiser at Deer Run Elementary school raised more money than students, teachers, and parent volunteers ever expected thanks to PledgeStar and some calculated planning.

Parent volunteer Lauren Heft had her first experience with PledgeStar and organizing a fundraising event in 2017 for her school’s “Deer Run Run-A-Thon”. She was pleasantly surprised when the school raised $20,000, but learned a few lessons along the way. Applying these lessons her second time running the event as PTO president helped the school raise over $28,000 in 2018.

Heft knew that students who registered on PledgeStar were more likely to collect contributions from family and friends than students who didn’t use the system at all. She decided to offer small incentives to get students and parents to interact with the system and send out pledge requests to family and friends.

She also wanted to reduce administrative overhead for the event to help it run as smooth as possible. In 2017 she found that counting laps was tedious, time consuming, and had room for error, so she took a risk by only allowing students to collect flat pledge donations in 2018. “We were a little worried at first to eliminate per lap pledges,” she said. However, thanks to PledgeStar’s extensive reporting tools Heft knew that flat pledges had worked extremely well the year before before because “PledgeStar had generated so much data for us to analyze”.

Based on their experiences as Deer Run volunteers, Heft and other parents created incentives and prizes to encourage participation in the PledgeStar system. Each student who collected at least $5 on PledgeStar was offered a coupon for a free frosty from Wendy’s. The offer was enough to get students introduced to the system who may not have used it in the past. “We noticed last year that most of the money we earned was collected on PledgeStar, so this year we really pushed for students to just get online since it was so easy,” Heft said.

Along with individuals prizes, Heft offered spirit awards for the class with the most school spirit at the event, a pajama and movie day for the class with the highest percentage of participation, and a school-wide goal that she knew students couldn’t resist: the installation of a Gaga Ball Pit if the school raised over $25,000 collectively.

Two days before the event, Heft and other volunteers weren’t sure that they would reach their goal, but Heft had planned for a last minute push. She knew that momentum would build if students and parents felt the urgency to participate in the final fundraising days, so she displayed a large thermometer at the front of the school to announce the need for action and the time limit for collecting pledges. Parents and participants were spurred on by the display and were able to raise $10,000 in just 48 hours!

Heft, parents, and teachers were thrilled with the results. In the end, Heft says that over 90% of the $28,000 they brought in was collected via PledgeStar.

PTO member Kristen Van Hull had one goal in mind when volunteering to run Primrose Hill Elementary School's Jog-A-Thon for her fourth year, raise more than ever in order to fund a new playground. In the past, Van Hull worked exceptionally hard to organize an event that was both fun and raised money for the school, however the school's proceeds never exceeded $3,500. In order to reach her goal, she knew she had to do something different, so Van Hull took to the internet to research the best online fundraising platforms out there.

"I searched for hours," she said, "and I kept coming back to PledgeStar as the best system, cost and feature wise. It was user friendly and cheaper than any other option, so I went with it. We were able to reach so many people, and it did the work for you! We raised over $3,000 in just one day from our family and friends in a streamlined way. Our families found the website so simple to use, and extremely effective in raising money! The old door to door paper system was just so archaic compared to PledgeStar."

The Jog-A-Thon's results thrilled Van Hull. After using PledgeStar for the first time, students at Primrose raised over $13,500 -- four times the amount they had raised in previous years! For a small preschool through 3rd grade campus, the number was very impressive. Over 90% of all donors used PledgeStar to make their donations, increasing their revenue by almost 400%.

In order to focus on her goal, Van Hull kept the event simple and let PledgeStar do the heavy lifting. She was able to keep her expenses low because she didn't need a theme or expensive prizes to get the kids interested in such a fun event. She offered simple incentives to get the kids excited to raise money, such as an extra recess to the top earning classes in each grade and a movie day for the top earning class overall. "Free incentives were all we needed to please the kids and get them excited to raise money."

To celebrate, the town held a Playground Launch Party one month after the Jog-A-Thon. Parents lined the Main street of town celebrating their success. "Thanks to PledgeStar we reached Phase I of our playground project quicker than we ever expected," Van Hull said. In early November, an Oodle Swing and a shade structure were installed at Primrose Hill Elementary School.

"We will definitely be using PledgeStar next year for our Jog-A-Thon and for our upcoming Bowl-A-Thon too!" Congratulations, Primrose Hill students and families!

Making math fun for kids can be challenging, but Ventana Vista Elementary School recently figured out a way to get kids excited about learning AND raise money for their school at the same time.

Every year, the school holds a fun and educational Math-A-Thon during regular class hours. Students are given a packet geared toward their math level and challenged to solve as many equations as possible before their time is up. Packets are then graded and students collect money from family and friends according to the number of problems they answered correctly.

Parent volunteer Carmen Mazza explained how the school decided to hold such a unique fundraiser at their school: “There is a really big emphasis on reading and I think the parents wanted to see more emphasis on math. So we sent home a practice quiz packet and... it’s definitely something different. It’s largely conducted during the school day so there’s really no extra setup compared to a typical school day, other than collecting the pledges.”

Ventana Vista’s annual Math-A-Thon had been a regular event for several years. The kids got excited to take a special math quiz on the big day and parents got excited because kids were practicing math for weeks to prepare. It had always seemed like a win-win for everyone. One parent volunteer, though, knew that using an online platform to collect money could help the kids increase their earnings by connecting them with family and friends all over the country. After carefully researching and weighing all of the competitors, parent volunteer Carmen Mazza decided to use PledgeStar.

“Having the online platform was extremely helpful, all of my family is on the east coast,” said Mazza, “if there wasn’t an online portal, I’m simply not going to call… and an automatic PledgeStar email makes it even easier.”

Mazza and other volunteers were thrilled with the online system even before the event was held. In years past, they had to wait until after the Math-A-Thon was over and math packets were graded to figure out how much money was being raised. Once they set up PledgeStar, though, they got excited to see the money coming in right away. Family and friends were pledging flat donations online immediately and students and parents enjoyed watching their totals go up daily as the event drew near.

“Once PledgeStar opened to our donors we started earning money, long before any deadlines we established. You just don’t get that when doing a paper fundraiser. It was exciting to watch it grow. Our treasurer kept texting me saying, ‘Oh my gosh there’s so much money coming in!’”

The faculty, parents, and students were thrilled with their results. The school earned a record-setting $24,000, $10,000 more than previous years.

When parent volunteer Amy Crookston noticed a PledgeStar online fundraising sign hanging at a neighboring elementary school, she thought it might be something interesting to look into for her own kids’ school. She contacted PTO members for their experiences with the company. One year later, when when she added PledgeStar and their Walk-A-Thon doubled the amount of money it had raised in the past, she was glad she did.

Eagle Hills Elementary School in Idaho raised over $20,000 in their Walk-A-Thon with the help of the PledgeStar online fundraising system. They were able to allot twice as much money for their playground equipment.

“We are already having conversations about what we can do next year,” Crookston said, “The system was really well received and we wished we had used it earlier.”

Last year, before adding PledgeStar, only about one third of the six hundred students at Eagle Hills raised money during their annual Walk-A-Thon. And, while Crookston recognized that many families are unable to contribute, she boasted that over half of the student population contributed when they implemented the online system this year.

“Anybody that tries it loves it,” she said, “it is so easy to use.”

The Walk-A-Thon had a simple premise: walk as long as you can for as much money as you can. Children started their laps at 2:30 pm, one hour before school was dismissed, and many chose to stay through to the end of the event at 5:30 pm. Crookston’s own son walked a total of sixteen miles in three hours, raising over $500 for the cause. Other children raised over a thousand dollars doing the same, totaling over $20,000 when the event was over.

“PledgeStar’s staff is fantastic,” Crookston recounted, “administration is super simple and our parents loved how easy it was. It’s just a great addition to our Walk-A-Thon.”

After running Randolph Elementary’s annual walk-a-thon for the third year in a row, PTA President Kathy Hansen wanted to do something different to encourage her participants to raise more funds than ever before.

Months earlier, her children had participated in the school’s annual magazine sale fundraiser, but they complained that they didn’t win any prizes for their efforts. That gave her an idea. For the 2018 Walk-A-Thon, everyone would win a prize for participating. Not only did this tactic help Hansen and the other volunteers get more students to participate, but they raised almost $10,000 -  an impressive feat for a Title I school where an estimated 50-60% of the student population qualifies for a free or reduced-price lunch.

“We wanted to be able to reach each kid,” said Hansen. Every student who participated earned a gold medal and had a special visit from an Olympic gold medalist after the event. The students were thrilled to have both. “When I visited the classrooms in the days after the walk-a-thon, some of the kids were still wearing the medals,” Hansen said.

Hansen also credits PledgeStar for their success. Each of their top earners collected the majority of their pledges online rather than donation packets, she said. Hansen encouraged students to use the online donation system to connect to family and friends who weren’t local. She was also thrilled she could take advantage of PledgeStar’s ability to share her kid’s donation pages on Facebook since she doesn’t usually connect with many of her relatives via email.

Randolph Elementary’s new principal was the one to encourage Hansen and the PTA to adopt PledgeStar since she had such a great experience with it at her previous school. After seeing the incredibly low price and the amazing service offered, she was convinced. “I am not the one who has to create the spreadsheets, PledgeStar does it for us, and their staff is beyond helpful,” she said. For all of the services she was provided, Hansen said that her small, Title I school was amazed that they only had to pay $400 for PledgeStar costs. Since then, she’s recommended the amazing online system to others on a social media page for other school parent leaders.

Way to go, Randolph Elementary!