Did you know that it is possible for FundScrip campaigns with supporters who order online to continue earning money even when the group is “on a break”?

For most, the summer months signal the end of school and the start of vacations away from the hustle and bustle of the city.  For FundScrip, this period means groups will be wrapping-up or pausing their fundraising campaigns for the summer and that our group administrators are about to take a well-deserved rest.

But what if your campaign could still earn money even while you were away — without any extra work? It can now!

When FundScrip added the Direct Shipping  delivery method in early 2012, it also eliminated the need to “pause” a campaign and best of all, made it possible for online supporters of a goal to continue ordering gift cards. Because gift cards can be delivered directly to any address in Canada indicated by the supporter, there is no distribution issue for the group administrator. — Now if you run a Paper Order fundraiser through FundScrip, this type of delivery option doesn’t apply but we think it’s still a good thing to know – especially if you are considering switching.

Just imagine! What a great surprise it would be for a group administrator to log onto their group account and to see that their earnings increased and that this occurred without any additional effort on their part.

More advantages

In the past, part of the struggle in the process of re-starting a FundScrip campaign following a paused campaign has always been that it’s difficult for supporters to get back into the beat of ordering on a regular basis.

If a group administrator opts to leave the campaign open for orders all year round, supporters who continue to order gift cards are unlikely to experience the re-initiation phase because they will have never got out of their ordering pattern.

As well, this leaves the group administrator more time to focus on growing their supporter-base for the new goal ahead.

After all everyone deserves a vacation, especially our hard-working group administrators! FundScrip believes it’s possible to enjoy that time off worry-free and still set fundraising as a priority.

If you are running a FundScrip fundraiser and want more information about the Direct Shipping delivery option for your supporters, contact our AdminCare department here.

I found this clever info-graphic called 15 Grammar Goofs That Make You Look Silly from the Copyblogger website which should amuse and perhaps teach us a little something about:

• the difference between “your and you’re”
• the difference between “its and it’s”
• the proper use of an apostrophe
• when to use “affect and effect”
• the difference between “then and than”
• when to use “complement and compliment”
• and how to avoid the dreaded “dangling participle”

and many more!

Hope it helps.

These days, most of us utilise electronic means to get our message out; and for the most part, that means email. While most of us aren’t email marketers by trade, we can all use some of their advanced techniques in order to deliver the most effective campaigns we are able to.

So, where to start? What elements comprise a good fundraising email? Well, let’s start at the beginning: your recipients.

If you are sending the same email to a large number of supporters, you may be inclined to simply CC or BCC everyone on your original. This is a mistake. Unfortunately, the spammers of the world have made life more difficult for everyone; and one of the primary factors spam filters take into account is the number of recipients for a particular message. It doesn’t matter how much time you spend crafting your email if it isn’t being seen by your intended audience as a result of interception by a spam filter.

Not only is this a problem for the particular email in question, but should you send a lot of these, you risk being blacklisted by organizations such as Spamhaus which ISPs utilize in order to maintain their own lists of spam producers. Should you fall afoul of one of the many blacklist providers, you may discover all of your outgoing correspondence being dumped in the spam bin – and it’s often quite difficult to have your email reputation restored to good standing.

The best way to avoid the above would be to utilize an email service provider such as Constant Contact. While helping ensure deliverabilty, these service bureaus provide additional advantages by enabling you to measure the effectiveness of your campaign, as well as providing handy templates which allow you to present your content in a manner consistent with best practices.

Grab Their Attention

So, assuming your email is delivered, what’s next? The single most important factor in your message is your subject line. Designing a compelling reason for people to even open your email is key to your campaign’s success. Here are some good tips for designing effective subject lines:

• If possible, use the recipient’s name within the first few words – people are many times more likely to read content that speaks to them directly. This is problematic manually; however, with an automated system, fairly easy.
• Inspire curiosity in your subject line. Asking a question related to your cause is often a good way to get your supporters to open your message.
• Be clear. Cryptic email subjects may work the first couple of times but rapidly lose their appeal.
• Be concise. People generally only glance at subject lines in advance of a decision on whether to hit the delete button or open your email. Additionally, some email clients automatically shorten subjects; so if you must have a longer one, ensure the important content appears at the beginning.

Timing

Ok, now that we have that covered it’s finally time to move on to the body right? Nope. One final thing you need to understand about email campaigns is that timing plays a critical role in their effectiveness. You don’t, for example, want your message arriving in your recipient’s inbox first thing Monday morning. People are busy with their work-related duties, and don’t want to be interrupted by your pleas for support. There are few things more detrimental to a fundraiser’s success than irritating your membership; and inappropriately timed emails can do just that.

If you are going to send your correspondence during the work week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday have been proven most effective. By that time, folks have dealt with the backlog generated by the weekend and Friday’s inattention, and will be more receptive to your interruption.

If your list is large, you may not be able to guarantee the time of delivery; however, it’s often best to shoot for between 10:00 -10:30 in the morning and 1:00-1:30 in the afternoon. By 10am people have generally attended to the most critical matters presented by their inbox and are about to go grab that second cup of coffee. Similarly, at 1pm folks are just easing back into their work day after a meal, and often spend time on non-work-related tasks including personal email, social networking and so on.

Of course, this timing may not work for you. One trick is to segment your email list, send to different segments at different times, monitor open rates, and adjust based on your findings. There is no substitute for good data on your campaign – something a service bureau can definitely help with.

Your Message

Finally we’re on to the body of your email! There are quite a few things to keep in mind when crafting your message; here’s the top 10:

1. Your first sentence is of paramount importance. If you’ve managed to bypass the spam filters, transcend your recipient’s resistance to opening by timing your email properly and including a compelling subject line, you can still lose them right here. Be clear and concise – using punchy copy that simply describes the reason behind your message and impels them to read further.
2. Avoid flowery language and complex sentence structure. Communicate your message as plainly as possible. You’re not writing the next great novel; you’re conveying an idea and a call to action as quickly as you are able.
3. Ensure all your important content is near the top of the email. People will often only afford you a few seconds of their day – get them to act early. Many won’t bother to scroll down to click on a link at the bottom of your message. While you certainly can (and it’s a good practice) duplicate links at the end of the email, if folks don’t scroll there, you’re not going to get the kind of response you’re looking for.
4. Avoid ‘Click Here’ types of links. Make your link text reflect what you wish your recipient to do upon arrival at your landing page. This forms a mental connection between the physical action of clicking and your desired outcome – improving its likelihood of occurring.
5. Don’t rely on imagery to convey your message. Many people have their email clients set to only enable image display upon request. While having good alt text helps here, ensure your textual message is at the fore, and don’t expect people to try to understand what you’re talking about by reading image descriptions.
6. Make certain your email is as lightweight as possible from a kilobyte perspective. Understand that many of your recipients are going to be viewing your content on mobile devices; and if your message is too bandwidth intensive, will be asked whether or not they wish to download more than the excerpt presented. Many won’t.
7. Stay focused. You should try to ensure your messaging is in support of a single, easily understood objective. Providing content which distracts from your primary goal is counterproductive.
8. Be personal. Don’t try to come off sounding business-like; make a personal appeal to your supporters in the same manner you would ask a friend. If in reading your email aloud, it doesn’t sound like something you’d say in friendly conversation, it’s time for an edit.
9. Be positive! The old adage “Laugh and the world laughs with you; cry and you cry alone” certainly applies here. People like to feel they’re part of a fundraising effort that is on the path to success, not one desperately seeking support. Keep your goal highly visible, yet present your progress towards it in glass half-full rather than half-empty terms.
10. Test! If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Send out two different versions of the same email to different segments of your supporter base and compare your open rates, click through performance, conversion rates, and unsubscribes. Keep track of your results over time and adjust your message to reflect your findings.

While there are definitely a number of additional factors which may help improve the overall effectiveness of your campaign, applying the above should start you off on the right foot.

As Seth points out people don’t just click and read everything they are sent via email or social media without instinctively judging whether this is a message they would like to read. This is a hurdle that communicator must cross before the recipient even gets to the real message.

Yes, but what if  you are sending something really important – what then? How do you break through the multitude of attention-grabbing messages and have people take notice of your cause. How can you reach them?

According to Seth, there are specific questions people pose themselves when receiving an email / social media message before they decide to do one of two things to: 1) click ahead with interest; or, 2) ignore and/or delete it.

• Do I know this person?
• Did someone I trust send them over?
• Are there typos and is the design sloppy?
• Are they pestering me?
• Do I already follow this person online?
• Does music play when I visit the website?
• Will my boss be pleased when I bring this project up?
• Who else is pointing to/referencing/working with this person?
• Is it too good to be true?

When you prepare your initial fundraising ask message, it’s a good idea to keep these questions in mind if you want your message to pass the “triage” process.

Afterall,

“In a noisy world filled with choices, you can’t blame your prospects for ignoring you. I know that you’re talented and have a lot to offer, but do they?”

As all of you who are engaged in fundraising through the FundScrip gift card program know, regularly keeping in touch with your supporters is a key component in your campaign’s overall success. However, we only have so many hours in the day and often don’t think we have the time to devote to this critical element. So how do we maximize the effectiveness of our efforts while minimizing the time required to accomplish our goals?

Almost everyone has a Facebook page these days, but for the most part, people aren’t interested in having someone bother them with pleas for support while they’re busy looking at photos of cute cats or playing Farmville. In addition, the majority of people aren’t going to visit your group’s Facebook page (you do have one right? If not, check this out) on a regular basis unless they are keen about what you have to offer there – and they know about it.

So what should you do to ensure your contributions in this area are actually worth the effort? First of all, encourage your supporters to ‘Like’ your page. Once they do this, your content will automatically appear in their timeline. In addition, if you get 25, you are allowed a custom URL which may help search engines find your page – potentially attracting more supporters to your group. Put a ‘Like’ button on your website and in all of your email communications – it’s easy to do, and Facebook provides all the code for you.

Next, generate compelling content of value to your audience. No, you don’t have to write this century’s War and Peace; just create material that compels people to do something. Great examples of this are photos, videos, and polls. These are especially powerful if your fundraiser involves children, as parents are always interested in seeing their child’s images and responding to questions regarding their activities. To this end, ensure you take a a camera (preferably one that shoots video too) with you to every group-related event, and ask your supporters to do the same. Encourage them to contribute to your Facebook page, and upload your own content in small doses to maximize its effect over time. Provide links to these images in your email communications as well and do what you can to reinforce the value of their participation in also contributing content. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and on Facebook this is definitely the case. So save your time and concentrate on building an audience for your page the easy way.

So how does this help with fundraising? First of all, it keeps your group’s activities in the foreground; and the more people enjoy their association with it, the more likely they are to contribute in efforts to sustain its success. Additionally, if appropriate, you should mention the role your fundraising played in the event within the comments for the images – reinforcing the connection between participation in the FundScrip program and your group’s value to them.

In terms of textual contributions to your page, you should certainly mention FundScrip; however, do this in a context which provides value to your audience. As mentioned in Beyond Gas & Groceries, a great way to promote the program is to stay on top of monthly promotions and tie these in with upcoming events. If the retailer carries goods associated with your group’s activities, all the better.

To save time, you can link your Facebook page with your Twitter account, so that sending out a tweet will automatically update your page with that content. In order to maximize the effectiveness of this strategy, don’t use the default Twitter/Facebook integration, but check out the Selective Tweets app which will allow you to choose which of your tweets should be included on your page by simply appending the #fb hashtag to your message. After all, if your Facebook page is just a collection of your Twitter messages, why would people bother to subscribe to both? The trick is to have a certain amount of shared content, but enough unique material on each platform to add value for your supporters and provide a reason for multiple subscriptions.

Finally, ensure you have passive branding for the fundraiser on your page. An easy way to do this might be to include a call to action in your profile photo. You could create a small banner overlay which would include the FundScrip logo to remind folks of your participation. Additionally, when mentioning the FundScrip program, be sure to link to the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/fundscrip), the website (http://www.fundscrip.com/ ), or the blog (http://fundrazr.ca/ ) – whichever is more appropriate to your message. This will enable you to automatically display the program logo or icon for the visual tie-in, which helps in mentally anchoring your message with your supporters.

So, if you commit to engaging your group members with compelling content, and not constantly harassing them with requests for support, you’ll find this strategy will automatically assist in driving your fundraising efforts – while avoiding supporter annoyance.

One of the primary principles salespeople are taught is that people don’t buy what they need, they buy what they want… and it’s their job to instill that desire. That’s not to say that folks don’t go through the motions and purchase the things they require to live, but the level of brand engagement and consumer enthusiasm one feels while pumping gas is likely similar to that experienced while eating a piece of toast in the morning.

So, how do you get your supporters excited about the program beyond the essentials? You have to whet their consumer appetites and get them interested in brands that offer more in terms of purchase experience than mere day-to-day survival.

Fortunately, FundScrip has a ton of excellent retailers you may promote to your membership which do exactly that. Here are some helpful tips:

• Maintain regular and concise communication with your group – this is absolutely key. Don’t deluge them with material, but keep in touch on a regular basis with short, well designed emails, newsletters, and the like.
• Stay on top of the monthly promotions and keep your supporters informed about them. Folks often get excited about a deal… and if that ties in with something new and shiny, all the better!
• Make the mental connection for your members between upcoming events and particular brands. Valentine’s Day is coming up – la Vie en Rose?
• In keeping with the last point, help them connect brands with events that you aren’t aware of by mentioning upcoming birthdays, anniversaries and such. You don’t know that uncle Jim’s 60^th is coming up… but they do, and will make the connection.
• Events don’t have to be restricted to those detailed in your calendar. Just had a snowstorm? Why not send out an email mentioning the sale Canadian Tire is having on snowblowers? Hey, they might not need a snowblower, but when they start thinking about Canadian Tire, they might remember they do need jumper cables, a new battery, tires, washer fluid etc. Just because they don’t need the sexy new snowblower (yes, I said sexy), doesn’t mean they’ll stop thinking about Canadian Tire, and what they can purchase there.
• Emphasize the reward in using the gift card to purchase these brands. Using FundScrip to go shopping can be mentally translated to mean there is a sale on every item in the store. After all, shopping with gift cards is putting money towards your favourite cause; and hey, it ultimately all comes out of the same pocket.

By employing these strategies, you can not only improve your group’s fundraising results, but create more engagement and interest in the program – potentially attracting more supporters. So why not start 2012 off on the right foot with a new campaign to help your group get the most out their fundraising efforts!

We, however, do not live in a perfect world, especially if we consider a recent Economic Club of Canada survey where Canadians express their pessimism about the state of the Canadian economy for 2012.

“A mere 25 per cent of poll respondents said they feel optimistic about the economy’s potential in 2012. That’s down from 36 per cent who were optimistic a year earlier, and a steep drop from the 54 per cent who were optimistic about the economy in 2009.”

You can read the complete post here

In fundraising terms, this pessimism means that the scores of groups with specific financial goals will be vying for the attention of a smaller audience. Standing out from the crowd and converting this donor fatigued audience into regular supporters will likely be the biggest challenge for groups and causes looking to fundraise in 2012.

Our advice: Re-energize the fundamentals and refocus your current game plan! Here are a few suggestions:

Realign your goal and make it relevant for your supporters

The chance that your supporters are budget-conscious is higher than ever before so you will need to answer the “What’s in it for me?” question.  Be prepared with a pertinent answer to that question and you’ll have a better chance of recruiting keen supporters.

Branch out and explore new fundraising methods

Being open to new ideas will become more important this year. That means diversifying your fundraising strategy with multiple types of fundraisers at different and appropriate periods of the year.

Make communication your #1 priority

Building meaningful connections with your supporter-base will be extremely important in 2012. If you want to keep your supporters enthusiastic and connected to your cause, you’ll have to speak, email and keep them involved on a regular basis. Make sure they know you and your team!

Amp up your fundraiser through a web page refresh and/or an online promotion strategy

If you don’t have a website, it’s now officially the time to get started on creating one! If you have a website, blog or Facebook page, you’ve got the right idea. Perhaps all you need is an information refresh. There are many ways to achieve this, you can:

• Add new graphics;
• Add a new attention-grabbing message;
• Add more ways to contact your team;
• Add sign up information;
• Add goal updates; and,
• Add anything else necessary for your supporters to get started or get the additional information they require to continue supporting your group or cause.

Host a “Kick-Off / Relaunch” event

This is a terrific way to meet potential supporters and/or reconnect with your current members. It can take many forms, a cocktail, a tabletop at parent-teacher meeting, or even an online web conference like a Google+ Hang-Out.

Create a launch kit and top it up with the particulars surrounding your fundraising goal, such as, dates, schedules, purpose, etc. and of course, explain why this fundraiser is critical to your group.

Whatever your fundraising goals are for 2012, your organizing team should plan for a very busy year.

Happy Fundraising!

Just over half of all Canadian web surfers bought something online in 2010, according to Statistics Canada. But even more – nearly three-quarters – browsed the web for information on products and services.Canadians spent $15.3 billion online, or about $1,362 per person, mainly on hotels, airline tickets, concerts and theatrical events, and other merchandise.

Eight in 10 shopped on Canadian sites and nine out of 10 paid with credit cards, StatsCan also said.

The most popular to purchase online are tablets, smart TVs, eReaders, small appliances, headphones and video games.

Happy to report that according to theses Comscore statistics, the top online shopping sites in Canada include a few of FundScrip’s participating retailers:

Indigo Chapters >> 30 per cent

BestBuy / Future Shop >> 22 per cent

Canadian Tire >> 15 per cent

Sears >> 13 per cent

*figures above represent percentage of Internet users that visited those sites in November, 2011*

Since many of FundScrip’s participating retailers also include gift cards as a method of payment online, we expect that a good number of those online orders were paid with gift cards purchased through FundScrip ;)

How about you? Are you purchasing more online? If yes, what are you buying? Comments welcome!

Source: Comscore

Some folks on our lists are simply difficult to buy for; after all, we’re fortunate enough to live in a society where our needs are in large accommodated, and wants are often beyond the financial scope of an average Christmas present. To that latter point, the holiday season is also a source of stress for many in terms of their overall expenditure, with the ramifications of overspending lasting well into the new year.

Shopping for teens can be even more frustrating. Do you know what’s “cool” right now? I don’t. What about all those people in your life with whom you are only casually acquainted? Your hairdresser, babysitter, paper boy, child’s hockey coach – do you have any real idea what they’d like for Christmas that would be also be appropriate given your relationship? It’s tough.

Fortunately, there’s a solution to all of these problems that’s quick, easy, and even supports your favourite cause: of course, you know we’re talking about FundScrip gift cards!

Gift cards:

• Allow your recipient to select something they’d actually really enjoy
• Permit you to create a holiday budget, and stick within it
• Give you the opportunity to automatically raise funds for whatever cause you are supporting
• Allow you to do all your Christmas shopping from the comfort of your own home
• Are easy to wrap and ship
• Unlike cash, ensure your gift is used for an actual present, instead of just being added to general funds and spent on whatever their next expenditure happens to be.

Now is a great time to check out all the available holiday offers from retailers that you mightn’t regularly purchase gift cards from – after all, gas and groceries aren’t particularly exciting presents. There are tons of interesting shops to choose from; and you’re certain to find something that suits everyone on your list.

So why not let others fight the crowds while you enjoy a happy, festive, and stress-free holiday season.

FundScrip:

Carey: Ok, so we do it for the music department, both at the intermediate and high school level, including students from grade 7 through 12. We’ve taken it on so that our students can pay for their music trip at the end of the year. So basically, what we’ve done is to set up a student account for every music student – mostly those involved in the ensembles – but any student in the program can fundraise; and they can use it to pay for things within the department or if they want, can put it towards larger items like their trip this year to New York. So it’s a fundraising initiative for those students to raise as much money as possible to go towards the trips; and again, not everybody has to participate immediately, they can come in at any time. Some students focus on particular months; for example, I’m expecting more for December than the last two months. However, we have others that do it every month (which really adds up), and they put that towards their end of the year trip deposit.

FundScrip: I see, so how much does each student have to raise to offset the cost of their trip?

Carey: It’s up to them in terms of how much they want to do. So, that’s one of the fundraisers that we offer which is every month, and I really like how it runs because once we have it set up, it pretty much runs itself. We also do Citrus Fruits; we’re selling coffee this year too; and we do a couple of just department based fundraisers, so that we can also try to raise money as a department and bring the cost of it down for everybody. We’ll have people raising $150 to $200 or more towards their trip and it really depends on where we’re going as to how much that’s going to offset their costs.

We’re a new program as well… we’re in our third year. But the former school I was at we would have people that could raise enough money to pay for their whole trip. Now we weren’t doing FundScrip with that school – we were doing Loblaws – and our intention here was to get that set up again; but we heard about FundScrip through other colleagues and thought well maybe we should focus on that. We found that it attracted a lot more people because it wasn’t just [providing gift cards] for just one place. We find that a lot of people buy gas cards, grocery cards, and even restaurants. Certain parents also do focus on the specials offered each month where they’re going to get the largest percentage of profit back.

FundScrip: So you say your school has only been in existence for a few years; how long has it been since you started with FundScrip?

Carey: The school opened September 2009, and our first order went out for December.

FundScrip: Oh! So you started right away…

Carey: Yes. We were trying to get started in September, but there was so much going on at the beginning. So it took us a couple of months to get going. The last two years we have started right at the beginning of school, and I think this year was our best start-up yet. The same students keep participating in it, and in terms of numbers, it’s about 20 students that do it on a regular basis; and then we have those students that jump in at Christmas. We’re hoping as we keep growing that our numbers will jump. It’s mainly the grade 8 and high school band students that do it, and my band has gone from 22 kids in the first year to 88 this year. So again, we’re trying to get the tradition going so the kids know that that fundraising option is there… and I think it’s going to keep growing every year.

FundScrip: Ok, well that’s great! Now you mentioned that you do a lot of different fundraising programs; so, based on your past experiences with other programs, and the ones that you’re currently doing, how does FundScrip measure up?

Carey: I’m really impressed with it. I was a little bit nervous at the beginning – especially when I had to get the all the cheques which totalled over thirty thousand dollars, It was our very first one, and I thought “Oh my gosh, this is a lot of money!”; but, I have to be honest that it’s very straight forward to do. The Loblaws one was much more labour-intensive because that involved tracking all the profits, and bundling the packages together and everything. We find that this is great for us and doesn’t take as much time because once it’s all entered, the profit is accounted for – I can go back in and look at last year’s results if I need to – and it’s very easy to track. The only thing that took a bit of getting used to was the ordering process in terms of dates because in the first year, I wasn’t really sure of how the dates lined up, but now I have a much better understanding. So I ask for orders in on the Friday, we input them, and I send it off on the following Wednesday, and the order is process that Thursday. Knock on wood, there have been no problems. A couple of cards that we did have which weren’t working, we put a call in and things were cleared up. In the last 2 ½ years, there have been only two issues with cards and they were solved right away. So, I’m very happy with the program, and again feedback from parents has been very positive.

FundScrip: Excellent. Now it seems from what you’re saying that you do the ordering yourself and submit a single cheque. So I suppose nobody is using the EFT option or ordering themselves online?

Carey: No. The reason is the first couple of years we were running it, we thought it would be easier to do the paper orders, though I guess that’s something we could possibly turn to in the future. I find that it’s working really well the way we’re doing it …

FundScrip: So if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?

Carey: Exactly! It might be something for us to look into, especially as we get bigger, but right now I am entering everything myself. We have a parents council at the high school level who are interested in taking on a little more; so starting in December, I am going to have another parent enter them all – which will help out a lot.

FundScrip: So you’ve mentioned that the program is not mandatory; so I’m curious as to what strategies you employ to gain supporters.

Carey: Some parents are really looking for fundraising opportunities, while others just find it easier to write a cheque for the full amount. However, we encourage our students to take part in these fundraisers because we offer them for their benefit. I tell them that this fundraiser is a no-brainer, because if you are going to be purchasing at these stores anyway, instead of using Visa or your debit card, you might as well use FundScrip and get some money in return. We also talk about it at our different events, so that the parents are aware of it. I think part of it is getting that message out to people as well. I have all the parents on my email list as well and send them updates every month and reminders that the orders are due. Additionally, we put all the information on our website, so that parents can go on and see what it’s all about.

FundScrip: That sounds great. So do you have any plans on how to improve supporter engagement and raise more funds to offset a larger portion of their trip cost by way of FundScrip?

Carey: I need to get them more aware of the special monthly initiatives. That’s one thing that I should be doing in my emails. I also think it might be an option to offer the program in the summer. We haven’t done that in the past just because of logistics, but if people are interested in it, it’s something we could offer. We can also talk about it at concerts and give examples of people who have raised the most profits to just show the parents that this is something that can be very helpful to raise funds towards trips. I think we have a few parents who aren’t quite sure of how it works or how much it adds up.

FundScrip: So if you were talking to somebody else – maybe at another school or what have you – that was considering FundScrip as a potential fundraiser for them, what would advice would you give?

Carey: I would tell them that it is really a great opportunity for your students to raise money; and once you kind of get a handle on it after doing it a couple of times, it’s very very straight-forward to run. Again, it almost runs itself. It’s something that can be open to everybody because it’s not just one store, it’s tons of places that people might have been going to anyway. So it’s a very open-ended fundraiser. I’ve been really impressed with the program and appreciate how well it’s run in terms of you guys tracking the profits – it helps us out a lot. The tools that you make available online to track everything are set up very well!

FundScrip: Well that’s great! We don’t want to take all your time today in the middle of your work day, so I’ll thank you for participating.