Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) are membership organizations that raise funds for educational tools and experiences. Parents join these groups to play a more significant role in their children’s education. PTAs and PTOs have been around for generations, but getting donations can be challenging. This is where a compelling fundraising letter comes into play. This article…
Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) are membership organizations that raise funds for educational tools and experiences. Parents join these groups to play a more significant role in their children’s education. PTAs and PTOs have been around for generations, but getting donations can be challenging. This is where a compelling fundraising letter comes into play.
This article will explain what PTAs need to include in a PTA fundraising letter, tips to grab parents’ attention, and a sample fundraising letter to help you get started.
PTA fundraising letters are similar to any other organizational fundraising appeal, with a few caveats. Before you start to research, find stories, and write letters that may convince parents to donate, ensure you have enough details about proposed projects and programs you hope to fund.
Here are the 6 essential things you must include in your PTA fundraising letter.
Your PTA should have a mission and vision that guide much of your group’s fundraising efforts. Each year, members and leadership will decide on programs and projects to support children’s education and encourage more parents’ participation.
Once you determine these goals, you must finalize the total amount needed to start these programs.
However, your fundraising goal will include more than a fundraising amount. You may also want to sign up more members or partner with corporate sponsors and community partners. Before writing your fundraising letter, you must decide what success looks like to you.
Once you understand your goals, you’re ready to write a fundraising letter. Your fundraising letters must start with an engaging story to catch readers’ attention immediately.
PTAs provide funding for children’s educational activities and supplies, so you’ll want to share specific examples of how past fundraising made a real difference in kids’ lives.
Include a few suggested donation amounts in your letter. These amounts can be personalized for the type of donor you’re sending the letter to. You can achieve this if you’re storing all your supporters’ information in a donor management system.
Donorbox Donor Management securely stores your supporters’ details in the system. You can update any details, add communication notes, and segment these records. You can segment your donors as per donation amounts and frequency (and more!) so that you know their preferred giving amounts and intervals. Accordingly, you can include suggested donation amounts in the letters.
This gives each level of donor a sense of comfort. They’d feel more connected with your PTA.
As you redirect parents to your fundraising page from the letter, ensure that your donation form has the same suggested donation amounts to help make the process as easy as possible. Check out this example of a PTA fundraising page here for a better understanding. They have added suggested amounts as well as a concise explanation of how each donation will help.
Start Fundraising for Your PTA
Show parents the different ways they can donate. There may be people who’d prefer to donate with their credit cards. While others would love the option to use a digital wallet and make a quicker donation.
You should definitely provide them with many options including card payments, direct debit payment options, and digital wallets like Venmo, Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, etc.
Donorbox offers your donors all these options and a superfast donation experience. Just include the link to your Donorbox donation form in the letters and donors can use that form to give the way they want to.
If someone you know prefers giving via cash or check, include those options as well and let them know how and where they can make the donation.
Younger parents would also love the ease of giving via text. Text-to-Give is simple and convenient. On Donorbox, as soon as you enable Text-to-Give, you get a unique campaign ID for each online campaign you create. You also get a texting number (a shorter number if you’re going for the shortcode plan). You just need to share these 2 things with parents. They can text the ID to the number to receive the link to a donation page where they can make a donation.
Your PTA fundraising letters may be for immediate fundraising needs or an online campaign you’re running, but memberships are still important. If you’re sending these letters to all parents including those who aren’t members yet, let them know how to become one. Share the link to your membership page.
Remember to make it simple for new people to become members. Explain your membership tiers and benefits well. Give them authority over their membership accounts. Also, ensure that you can manage these members and their payments from the backend with the most effectiveness.
Donorbox Memberships lets you achieve all that with complete ease. Our membership forms and pages are simple and easy to customize. You can add unlimited tiers to your membership form and then embed the form on your website. Alternatively, you can simply use the Donorbox-hosted membership campaign page to run your membership program online. We also let your members log in and manage their membership plans.
Just share the link to your membership page or form on the letter and make sure it grabs the eyes of your potential members.
Finally, you must thank parents for their time. Everyone’s lives are busy, and you want to show your appreciation for reading the fundraising letter.
If possible, the PTA President must also sign and add a personal note on each fundraising letter. This additional personalization will help donors feel like more than an ATM and encourage more parents to give.
Here’s a sample PTA fundraising letter that you can download and use as a reference to write your own letter to request donations from parents. If you choose to use this template in your next campaign, remember to update it to fit your campaign goals and audience.
Click here to download it for free!
PTA fundraising letters are a vital tool when fundraising, and there are a few tips we’d like to share to help you grab parents’ attention and encourage more participation.
Your PTA fundraising letter can’t be boring if you want to raise money for your group’s projects. Writing as you speak is the best way to ensure this doesn’t happen.
That means your letter must sound like a letter you’d send to a friend or relative. Make your fundraising appeal as personal as possible. Use interesting stories that tell a tale, provide enough details, and convince people to take action.
The basic question a parent would have is how kids are benefiting from your PTA and its programs. Give them a few examples of how your PTA has supported many students in the past and what your programs aim to achieve this year.
If your PTA fundraiser involves student participation, you can use this as another reason parents should support your group and campaign.
You can also add possible impact to each suggested donation amount in the letter to give them a solid reason to support your PTA.
Another way to keep your fundraising letter from being boring is to get creative in what you ask for and how you ask.
Parents will fall into a few different categories: those excited to participate and fundraise, those willing to pay their fees, join a few activities, and want updates, and the rest who’d rather pay a few and be left alone.
Your fundraising letter should get creative and let parents know however they choose to participate, it’s appreciated (Check our free sample for inspiration!).
PTAs are in a tighter spot than most other nonprofit organizations. They only have one school year to raise enough money to fund programs and projects fully. Donors also have shorter attention spans, so your fundraising letter must emphasize urgency when appealing for funds.
Your PTA can do this with action words like Today, Now, Immediate, and Deadline on your fundraising letter, online fundraising page, or website donation page.
You can also excite donors about your fundraiser if there is an obvious goal and time limit. If you can’t find one in the program, you can find a sponsor or major donor willing to match all donations and use that to entice more gifts.
Your fundraising letter will most likely be an email that is convenient for you as well as the parent receiving it. An email is an excellent opportunity to add catchy CTAs and encourage people to take an action immediately.
Add CTA buttons to your email message and link them to your fundraising page or website donation page where you have a recurring donation form awaiting their action.
Use an online donation form that doesn’t include a lot of steps and lets people use digital wallets.
Donorbox UltraSwift™ Pay makes it super fast to make a donation. Donors don’t have to input their personal information and can choose an online payment method (including digital wallets like Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay) to make a donation quickly. This reduces donor drop-off rates and improves the donation experience.
PTAs are developed to organize and fundraise for schools. Compelling fundraising letters can make or break a campaign. We hope the tips and the sample in this guide will help you write the perfect PTA fundraising letter to parents.
If you want to read other insightful articles on PTA fundraising, setting up a PTA or PTO, membership program, school fundraising, etc., check out the Donorbox Nonprofit Blog. Our monthly newsletter sends you a curated list of all our helpful blogs and other resources for the month. Do subscribe to stay updated on the latest fundraising and donor management trends & tips!
Hundreds of PTAs and PTOs are using Donorbox to raise money, run their membership programs, sell tickets online, and manage their donors effectively. Check out our simple-to-use features comprising Crowdfunding, Peer-to-Peer, Text-to-Give, Events, Memberships, QuickDonate, Donor Management, and more. If your organization is all set to take its fundraising to the next level, try Donorbox Premium – Get expert industry knowledge and guidance right at your fingertips!
Kristine Ensor is a freelance writer with over a decade of experience working with local and international nonprofits. As a nonprofit professional she has specialized in fundraising, marketing, event planning, volunteer management, and board development.
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Kristine Ensor