St. Hedwig School in Los Alamitos, California used PledgeStar to help raise more money during the school’s inaugural Jog-a-Thon fundraiser.

Co-Jog-a-Thon Chair and PA Board Member Erin de Lucia was first made aware of the PledgeStar online fundraising system after hearing rave reviews about the service from one of her friends at Lowell Elementary School in neighboring Long Beach, California.

“We were impressed with how much more money Lowell earned with PledgeStar than they had in previous years. My friend at Lowell totally sold me on PledgeStar, and I knew we had to give it a shot,” de Lucia explained.

St. Hedwig’s Jog-a-Thon was a huge success, bringing in over $51,000. De Lucia credited the success to Pledgestar’s email system which helped the school reach family and friends who would otherwise not have been asked to donate. “We loved how PledgeStar gave relatives an opportunity to contribute and be involved. Grandparents living in different states were able to directly impact their grandchild’s school in a positive way.”

St. Hedwig’s incentive program also helped the school exceed their fundraising goals. Students were given prizes based on how much money they brought in; the more they raised, the better prizes they received. At $100, students were given customized socks with the school’s Celtic logo printed on them. “It was crazy, the kids were really motivated to reach the $100 mark to get those socks!” recalled de Lucia.

In the past, the school put on several fundraising events throughout the year including wrapping paper and holiday wreath sales. After adding PledgeStar to the mix, St. Hedwig will now be able to do away with the other fundraisers.

Crocker Highlands Elementary in Oakland, California has used the PledgeStar system for the past two years. This year, they raised over $122,000; more than double the amount the school earned in the same event without PledgeStar.

PTA member Colleen Orfuss researched several online fundraising platforms before last year’s Walk-A-Thon. She wanted a system that was simple, easy to use, and affordable. After interviewing local PledgeStar schools in her area and discussing the site’s features with PledgeStar personnel, she made the decision to use the service at Crocker Highlands.

The school relies on the Walk-A-Thon as its main source of fundraising income. Devastating cuts in California, and in particular the Oakland area, have forced parents to maintain the educational budget themselves. “Without the Walk-A-Thon, our music and arts programs, field trips, P.E. classes, and more would be cut from the curriculum,” explains Orfuss. “The fundraising success we’ve had with PledgeStar these last two years has been absolutely huge for our school.”

Orfuss credited the school’s robust prize structure, as well as the PTA’s promotional efforts, as the keys to motivating the students to seek the most donations and raise as much money as possible. PledgeStar’s donation dashboard made it easy for her to keep track of what prizes were owed to what student. “Having all the donation and prize data in one place was amazing. Pledges, payments, prize reports, all in one place, all easy to understand. It was perfect for our needs.” Crocker Highlands parents and staff held a Kick-Off ceremony to get students excited about the event and sent out email blasts to remind parents to register on the school’s PledgeStar site. Additionally, Orfuss used PledgeStar to generate class participation reports, and sent them to parents to make sure they registered their family on the school’s PledgeStar site. At the end of the event, the class with the highest participation percentage was awarded a pizza party.

Crocker Highlands plans on using PledgeStar for all their future fundraising needs. “It’s perfect for our community. No one has time to go door to door collecting money. PledgeStar is just so easy. We raised $60,000 from this event three years ago. PledgeStar is responsible for helping our school double its fundraising earnings,” raved Orfuss.

By utilizing PledgeStar to reach out to more friends and family, the Sunset Youth Football and Baseball leagues of Portland, Oregon raised tens of thousands of dollars.

It all started when SYFL Coach Frank Krause was made aware of the PledgeStar system by a friend who had used it successfully at his school’s Jog-a-Thon. Krause decided to give PledgeStar a shot for his league’s annual fundraiser.

The fundraiser put on by Krause and the league allowed families and friends to donate a flat pledge or per yard amount. Ultimately, the event raised $15,000, more than triple the amount raised in years past.

“It’s a more logical way to reach out to people than sending out letters,” explained Krause.

Krause applauded PledgeStar’s customer service, explaining, “They did a lot of the work for us. It was really great.” In addition, he praised PledgeStar’s ease of use in setting up, carrying out, and analyzing the success of the event.

After the success of the fundraiser, Sunset Apollo Youth Baseball league treasurer Brooks Newsom took notice. He hired PledgeStar for the league’s Pitch & Hit fundraiser that aimed to reduce league registration fees. “Without our Pitch & Hit fundraiser, our registration fees would double,” recalled Newsom.

The Pitch & Hit event achieved the same success as the football league’s fundraiser, raising over $14,000. Newsom credited the success of the fundraiser to PledgeStar, citing the service’s reporting and tracking functions as timesaving, helpful features.

“PledgeStar is an outstanding fundraising tool. It just works,” concluded Newsom.

Two years ago, the PTA at Rogers Middle School in Long Beach, California hired an outside fundraising company to run their annual pledge drive. After the company took 50% of the school’s fundraising earnings, PTA member Leslie Anderson decided to run the event herself.

Anderson learned about the PledgeStar fundraising system from a friend, and immediately knew the service was right for Rogers. To get the student participants excited, Anderson and the other parents threw a kick-off assembly. Parents and faculty hyped up the student crowd by dancing to old hip hop songs before a video was shown informing the students of how the pledge drive would work. “We made a video and PowerPoint presentation to teach the students about PledgeStar, and showed them all the cool prizes they could earn!”

Along with PledgeStar’s automated pledge reminders, Anderson and the PTA sent out weekly email reminders to participants’ families, posted daily Facebook updates on the fundraiser’s progress, and shouted out students for reaching certain prize goal levels.

By keeping the student body engaged, Rogers raised over $44,000, money they put towards the purchasing of Chromebook laptops and water bottle filling stations for the school.

Anderson praised PledgeStar’s ease of use and affordability during the fundraiser. “Because we put the event on ourselves, we really needed a service that was easy to use and allowed us to keep the majority of our donations. After handing a big name fundraising company a check for 50% of our donations earned, we were pleasantly surprised to pay PledgeStar only $1,195.”

Additionally, the included offline pledge donation tracker and real time prize reporting tools meant less work for Anderson and the PTA at Rogers. With PledgeStar, they worked less, and raised more.

For the past three years, Rumsey Station Elementary in Papillion, Nebraska has used Boosterthon, a full service fundraising company, for its annual Rumsey Run Jog-a-Thon event. However, after parents began voicing concerns over Boosterthon’s high fees, PTA member Kristi Waszak knew it was time for a change. “Raising almost $33,000 and then writing a check to Boosterthon for almost $10,000 really left a bad taste in our mouths. Our parents felt like the money wasn’t going where it should be.” recalled Waszak.

Waszak first heard about PledgeStar from her relatives who had successfully used the service at a neighboring elementary school. PledgeStar’s fee cap and intuitive prize reporting tools persuaded the initially skeptical PTA to give the service a shot, and Waszak hit the ground running to launch the event.

Waszak and her volunteers set up the event and directed parents to use PledgeStar. Then, something interesting happened: “We actually had more parents willing to donate because of PledgeStar’s low-cost pricing structure. Once parents realized the money was actually going to the school, donations, as well as parent involvement in the event, increased dramatically.”

This year’s Rumsey Run was a complete success, bringing in even more than last year’s Boosterthon event. Best of all, thanks to PledgeStar’s fee cap, the school retained over 95% of their fundraising earnings!

Director of Advancement at Redwood Christian Schools, Mike Kady, has been running his school’s Jog-a-Thon for the last 21 years. This year, after researching online pledge drive systems, and being made aware of PledgeStar by his district’s superintendent, Kady decided to give the service a shot.

For over 40 years, Redwood Christian has relied on their annual Jog-a-Thon as one of their top fundraising sources. Without the Jog-a-Thon to supplement the school’s budget, Redwood could not offer the same level of quality programs that it currently does. “Funds raised through our Jog-a-Thon are used for program enhancements, and help fund tuition grants for families who otherwise could not afford a quality private education,” explained Kady.

Until last year, the school used traditional paper pledge sheets. By adding PledgeStar to the mix, Kady saw numbers unlike any he’d witnessed in his previous 21 years. “Our prior record for the event was about $73,000. When we added PledgeStar to the equation, we raised over $102,000.”

Kady credited PledgeStar’s donor email request system for the new fundraising record. “PledgeStar makes it a lot easier to cast a broader net, and invite more people to participate in the event.”

PledgeStar’s donation tracking system also garnered praise from Kady. “PledgeStar’s dashboard makes it easy to track the fundraiser’s real time progress, and it’s fun to see an increase every time I refresh it! PledgeStar definitely makes peer to peer fundraising easy and fun.”

Several Corona Del Mar High School sports teams raised hundreds of thousands of dollars using the PledgeStar fundraising system.

It all started in 2015, when Assistant Football Coach Kevin Hettig utilized PledgeStar for his team’s Lift-A-Thon. In the past, team members sent handwritten letters to family and friends asking for donations to pay for everything from equipment to transportation. Hettig noted that this process was slow and did not yield a great return.

When Hettig heard about PledgeStar and how it automatically sends pledge requests by email, he decided to try it. The football players were able to lift their earnings high above their goal.

“We were very impressed with the overall efficiency of the system,” said Hettig regarding PledgeStar. “The ease of use was the most impressive part. We didn’t have to sit there and watch kids lick stamps and seal envelopes. Overall, it was just awesome.”

Over time, word spread about the football team’s fundraising success with PledgeStar. The Girls and Boys Water Polo teams both used PledgeStar, bringing in $36,000 each. Dave Strauss, a water polo booster, remarked, “We raised more money than we ever raised with a single fundraiser! The families loved the fact that it only took about 15 minutes to complete the entire set up and email process.”

Since 2015, several other sports organizations at Corona Del Mar have enlisted PledgeStar’s help for their fundraising. Boys Basketball, Girls Volleyball, Girls Soccer, and the Boys Lacrosse team all used PledgeStar to help lessen the burden of the high athletic costs facing students and their parents.

In the two years that PledgeStar has been used at the school, CDM athletics has raised almost $300,000. They continue to serve as a case study in how high school sports fundraising should be. With PledgeStar, they’ve worked less, and raised more.

When Stephany Dawson took over as co-chair of Cypress Elementary School’s annual Eaglethon fun run, she had one goal in mind: bring recess back to the school. The school’s playground facilities were virtually nonexistent, and students weren’t afforded the luxury of unstructured play. This led Dawson and other parent volunteers to take up the cause themselves.

Dawson was introduced to the PledgeStar online fundraising system by her co-chair on the Eaglethon board. After extensively comparing PledgeStar’s pricing and features to other fundraising companies, the Cypress Elementary parents knew it offered the most bang for their buck. “The fact that PledgeStar costs a maximum of $1,195 made the decision easy,” reveals Dawson.

In preparation for Eaglethon, Dawson and her staff set up a unique prize system designed to maximize student donation requests. “We gave prizes to the kids, but what really helped us was awarding prizes to the teachers who motivated their students to seek the most donations.” Massages, facials, and other rewards were raffled off to the Cypress Woods faculty members whose classes sent the most donation requests.

This year’s Eaglethon was a massive success, earning the school over $45,000, more than doubling the previous year’s profits. The fundraiser’s success initiated a multi-year project to completely revamp the school’s recreation area. Shaded spaces, basketball courts, athletic fields, and playground areas will soon be enjoyed by the student body of Cypress Woods; a massive victory for Dawson and the parent volunteers that worked tirelessly to make the 2017 Eaglethon fundraiser the best one yet.

Tom Renger became familiar with the PledgeStar fundraising system during his time as Kettering Elementary School's PTA Treasurer. Their Fit Fest Fundraiser was a massive success, prompting Renger to apply PledgeStar’s services to his Cub Scout Pack’s annual Poinsettia Fundraiser.

In years past, Cub Scout Pack members would go door to door in their community, seeking donations for their pack and selling poinsettias to give to a local church, as well as a veteran’s hospital, to spread some holiday cheer.

This year, with the help of PledgeStar's online fundraising, Renger and his scouts were able to reach out to family members and friends from across the country making this fundraiser their best one yet.

By the end of the fundraiser, Renger was pleasantly surprised his pack had raised over $12,000, a figure that doubled proceeds from years past. With the extra money the scouts earned, they were able to purchase a new Pinewood Derby track and other campout necessities.

“By using PledgeStar we doubled our profits with half the effort,” recalled Renger, praising PledgeStar’s convenience and ease of use. Renger was also impressed with PledgeStar’s guidance and customer service throughout the event. “My emails were answered immediately, and help was just a phone call away. PledgeStar truly is a game-changer.”

For their fall fundraiser, Groveland Elementary volunteers wanted to do something unique and unprecedented in their school’s history. Not only did they want to raise money for their academic programs, but they also wanted to incorporate a learning initiative in the fundraising process. The result was a highly successful month-long Read A Thon, a fun and educational way to get students involved in meeting the school’s financial needs.

Parent volunteers created a Read A Thon theme using the popular book “Where the Wild Things Are” to creatively market the event at school. Even the informational video shown at the kick-off assembly was created to match the “Wild Things” theme, along with promotional T-shirts and fun prizes for participants.

“The kids celebrated the start of the the Read A Thon with a ‘Dress Up as Your Favorite Book Character Day,’” said parent volunteer Celeste Hill, “It increased awareness of the new Read A Thon event and also served to get the kids excited about it.”

Hill had been researching innovative ways to raise money on the popular social networking site, Pinterest. As she searched for Read A Thon ideas, she came across a pin for PledgeStar, an online platform for fundraising that could simplify the process and generate income from donors outside the Groveland Elementary student population.

“As committee chair, I was tasked with vetting PledgeStar,” said Hill, “That involved researching their company online, as well as calling and interviewing a few schools which had already used their services.”

Hill and other Groveland collaborators were very pleased with the results of their decision. At $72,000, not only did they almost double the amount of money they raised previously, but they were able to reward students with exciting prizes for their efforts, too.

Hill recounted, “We had a raffle drawing three times per week, individual prizes and class prizes. The class which earned the most received a tour of the school roof. Also, the top fifty fundraisers and top ten readers received a thirty minute visit to a video game truck that came to the school. This was a highly popular incentive.”

“We received excellent feedback on how simple PledgeStar was for everyone, even those who were not technologically inclined,” said Hill. “The support from PledgeStar is phenomenal. They are extremely responsive and work very proactively. They gave us good advice and information on what has worked best for other schools. We are already planning for next fall’s Read A Thon with PledgeStar.”