Serve-a-thon Fundraisers for Schools and Groups
A serve-a-thon fundraiser is a unique and meaningful fundraiser used by many schools and social enterprises. It is a peer-to-peer fundraising event that provides needed funds while positively impacting the community. In a student serve-a-thon, students and classrooms raise funds by committing to completing a service project at the school or in the community and gaining support from donors to accomplish their goals. Students learn to become servant leaders while helping their school meet its financial needs. Businesses also host serve-a-thons, where employees take a day off work and make a positive impact on the community through coordinated volunteer projects.
We’ve helped many schools perform amazing community work while raising money through serve-a-thons. Why not be the change you want to see, all while raising more money than you ever thought possible? Let us help your school or organization succeed!
Our Peer-to-Peer Software Makes Serve-a-thon Fundraisers Successful
Features of our Powerful Serve-a-thon Websites
Serve-a-thons work very similarly to walk-a-thons, in terms of fundraising management. Students and classrooms raise money via a crowdfunding website by contacting family members and friends and asking for pledges and donations to support the school. Supporters go online to a student or classroom fundraising page. On these campaign pages, participants can upload photos and videos, explain the mission of the service fundraiser, and expand on the type of service they will provide.
- Participants have their own fundraising page, which is easily shared via email and social media
- Departments or classrooms have fundraising pages that include all participants’ combined fundraising progress
- Fundraising thermometers, Leaderboards, and top fundraisers are tracked and displayed on your website (if desired) to promote competition between participants and help schools raise more
- Privacy features can be enabled so that last names do not show on your website and student pages are not indexed in Google
- Off-line donations and checks are easily tracked and entered from a pledge form to the software at no additional cost
- Administrators can import students or enable easy, free registration
- Per unit of effort pledges can be tracked with the Athon platform, to base donations on the amount of time served or another effort
- Free text to donate for US campaigns
- Mobile giving features, like support for Apple Pay and Google Pay
Your fundraising website should provide detailed information about where the money raised will go so donors know exactly what they are contributing to. For example, you could state that the funding will go towards new books, building new library facilities, or helping to save JV sports teams from being discontinued due to budget cuts.
Types of Projects that Work for Serve-a-thons
Typically, the school selects a specific day for the serve-a-thon. This can be a Saturday or during a regular school day – kids enjoy that. On this day, the students volunteer their time serving various organizations in the community. Try to find a project or task that can be completed on the day of the serve-a-thon so that kids can see the fruit of their labors.
Performing service projects educates students about areas of need in the local community. It also shows them why serving others is important and how they can make a difference.
Service projects can be customized to serve the relevant needs in your area. Common serve-a-thon projects include:
- helping out at homeless and crisis shelters
- assisting the elderly with work around the house
- caring for less fortunate children
- writing letters to inmates or home-bound persons
- participating in environmental clean-up and conservation programs
- appreciating active duty military
- painting and minor construction repair projects
- community reading events
One of the biggest benefits of a school fundraising program like this is that students learn to become servant leaders while helping their school meet its financial need. For this reason, many Christian schools favor serve-a-thons for their annual fundraisers.
More Peer-to-Peer Resources
Check out our free crowdfunding software to manage your serve-a-thon fundraiser, or visit our Walk-a-thon Resource Center for additional information and sample documents for peer-to-peer events, including walk-a-thon flyers, pledge forms, and more.
