What it’s really like to run easyfundraising for a PTA

Fundraising PTAs

14 March 2023

Taran Knight

Meet Fiona from Friends of Reed’s School who have just celebrated their latest easyfundraising milestone — £10,000 raised for free!

easyfundraising is one of our long-standing partners, helping 8,600 PTAs raise over £6.7M in free donations just from committee members, parents, and school communities shopping online. We often say easyfundraising is a low-maintenance and easy-to-use fundraising method for our PTAs, but as a busy, time-stricken PTA, what is it really like to run easyfundraising? Fiona shares all.

“Per month, I don’t spend a great deal of time on easyfundraising. I do a report and a couple of social media posts. At the beginning of the term, there might be a bit more work when I present at PTA meetings, but I use the presentation from last year, so it’s easy.”

Within her committee, Fiona owns easyfundraising, but she has asked other committee members to act as champions, who will fly the easyfundraising flag at events, parents’ evenings, and at the school gates. She continues, “At a Christmas fair, we had about three or four PTA members with t‑shirts saying ‘ask me about easyfundraising,’ and they walked around with iPads recruiting people. To actually sit with someone and say ‘shall we sign you up now?’ is really powerful.“

The power of online shopping

With 38% of the UK shopping online at least once a week, introducing easyfundraising into your mix of fundraising activities is a step closer to achieving everything your PTA has set out this year. It’s about getting in front of people “who were already buying online anyway. Anyone doing their online shopping can make a difference.” And what a difference it can make. In easyfundraising’s last Donation Day pay out, Friends of Reed’s School received £1,021 in free donations!

Spreading the word

Without Fiona and her committee’s methods of recruiting and motivating parents to use easyfundraising, the £1,021 wouldn’t have been possible. “I think face-to-face is the most important thing. I present at the PTA meeting and talk them through how they sign up, and then people who are advocates will start recruiting each other. Then I will use the classic newsletters, weekly updates, and social media – those tend to act as reminders. Once you start raising money, people get quite excited about it, and it gathers momentum.”

easyfundraising work with over 7,500 well-known brands, such as Asda, eBay, John Lewis, Etsy, Argos, Just Eat, Moonpig, and Baker Ross; so no matter what people buy online, there’s a donation available to your PTA.

These are Fiona’s top three tips:

Use face-to-face communication – talk to people and talk them through the process of signing up. Even if you can’t demo on a screen, show them pictures of what they’re going to see.
Reassure people — tell them that there’s no catch and that their data won’t be shared. I did an FAQ to take all of those barriers out.
Be a cheerleader — keep awareness high and don’t let people forget about it. Also, remember to celebrate people – really celebrate them by naming them.

If your PTA isn’t registered with easyfundraising, sign up now. You can also book a call with one of their fundraising specialists to get tailored support for your PTA.