Woodstock Academy Music Dept Sings Fundraising Success
One of our favorite things at Fun Pasta Fundraising is helping groups to achieve their fundraising goals. We’ve learned with every group, there is a story behind the fundraiser. It’s the story and the people that we love. It keeps us using our noodles to continuously raise the Fundraising bar to improve our fundraising products and the process. This month our featured fundraising group is Woodstock Academy Music. Here is our inspiring interview with group leader, Amy Ranta.
Tell us about your group? How many members? How long have you been together?
We have about 240 students in the Music Program. We had about 50 students participate. It was a smaller group this year than past times we’ve fundraised because not as many students are going on this trip. We are an Independent High School. There are only three like us in the United States. Basically we are a tuition based public High School comprised of grades 9-12.
How long have you worked with Fun Pasta Fundraising?
This was our second year to work with Fun Pasta Fundraising. Our sales for our first fundraiser were just over $8000. We sold around $4400 this time which I think was a great result given the number of students who participated.
What were you raising funds for? What was your fundraising goal?
We were raising money for the trip to Washington, DC this Spring in April. The band and chorus are competing. Each student fundraises their own account individually. Whatever profits made from their individual sales goes directly into their own account. I think this helps as if they work hard and sell a lot, they benefit vs spreading that benefit out across the whole group.
How did you advertise and market your fundraiser?
We used Facebook, email and included information about the fundraiser on the flyers that we send home with students. Our parents group has a core group of about 8 members on the board and then there are 30-40 volunteers beyond that.
We talked about this fundraiser in class with the students and also at our kickoff meeting.
What do you attribute to the success of your fundraisers?
I think it is a great product and is unique. It sells itself. This is a great fundraiser get involved in if people are looking for fundraiser to do. It was easy.
One of the things I loved the most is the way the pasta was packed. It made it very easy for us to distribute and fulfill the orders. We had about 10 people putting together orders. It took us about an hour to distribute the fundraising product.
Our order arrived to us perfectly. Not one missing product or order. That includes human error on our part too J
What was the greatest challenge you faced as a leader? How did you overcome it?
No challenges. We’ve used Fun Pasta Fundraising before. People know that it is a great product. Because only 70 students signed up for the trip this year, that in turn affected the number of participants in this fundraiser.
Tell us why you are such a passionate supporter of Woodstock Academy Music Department and of this fundraiser?
Over a 3rd of the school is involved in the Music Department. I think we have really great faculty and offer a wide variety of courses.
If you could tell another leader to do one thing to help their fundraising efforts, what would it be?
One thing that we did this year was opening up the online sales to kids a few weeks before we began the fundraiser so we had online sales right off the bat. I think that really helped. We will do that again. We love Fun Pasta Fundraising and plan on using it again and again.
I would also tell leaders to show off the fundraising product and have your parent volunteers sample it. It sells itself.
Special thanks to Amy Ranta and to Woodstock Academy Music for sharing their story with us. If your group is interested in finding out more about our fundraising program, click here. We’d be happy to help!
