by Lara Neel, Trade Marketing Manager
Lerner Publishing Group is excited to be part of the PledgeCents marketplace, which makes it easy for educators to raise money for school and library purchases through PTAs or community fundraisers!
With PledgeCents, you can quickly set up your own free fundraising page, then send it out to your local community—students, parents, local businesses, and community supporters. You can send messages via email and social media, making it easy to spread the word. PledgeCents charges zero platform fees, and schools receive all funds raised. There’s no minimum to meet; if you don’t meet your goal, you still get the dollars you raised. If you go over your goal, you may either keep those funds to purchase additional products from Lerner, or you can choose to return the excess money to your supporters after the campaign.
Lerner makes your money go further. When you spend $500 or more, you can earn incentives. To get started with your fundraiser, visit lernerbooks.com/go/pledgecents.
Make A Plan
Talk with your leadership and colleagues and figure out a good time to launch your fundraiser. Check out what other fundraisers are going on in your area at the same time so you can avoid the competition—or collaborate and run concurrently with theirs if it’s a good pairing. Decide how long you want your campaign to run and be sure the dates are known to everyone.
Set Your Dollar Goal And Be Clear About Your Purpose
Let supporters know exactly how you intend to use the money for products from Lerner—whether it’s to upgrade your nonfiction collection, purchase new STEM or makerspace resources, supply your school with fresh picture books or novels, add to your graphic novels, or increase your eBook or digital collection. Build your case by describing what benefits these new books would have for your school or library.
Get Your Kids Involved
Tell your students about your fund-raising goals and get them excited. Show them what you’re hoping to purchase from Lerner. Have students write messages describing why these new books or products would be beneficial to them. Use these messages on your PledgeCents fund-raising page or in your announcements.
Make Your Pledgecents Landing Page Visually Interesting
Include a picture of your school and library or classroom. If you have a wish list of Lerner titles, download some cover images from the lernerbooks.com website to paste into an image for your PledgeCents page. (Please do not crop or alter our cover images; include the credit ©Lerner Publishing Group near the images.) Create an image you can share on social media along with your message.
Give Supporters A Sense Of How Far A Specific Donation Would Go
If your goal is to purchase a $500 collection of makerspace titles, you can suggest that a great donation would be $20 to cover the purchase of one library-bound title (which has a binding that’s guaranteed to stand up to high usage).
Seek Help In Spreading The Word About Your Fundraiser
Send your story to your PTA, school paper, local media, local businesses, sports teams, faith-based organizations, and other groups. Ask people to share your message with their networks. Use emails and social media to make it easy for supporters to forward or share your messages.
Communicate!
Create multiple messages—send a few messages before your campaign starts to prime your audience and explain your goals; make a big kickoff announcement when the campaign goes live, and send out reminders before the end date. Keep the link to your fund-raising page visible—put it in your email signature line and give frequent updates on social media as to how the campaign is doing. Send thank-you messages to people who share your message as well as those who donate.
After Your Fundraiser, Celebrate!
Throw a party with students when the books or digital products arrived. Then make note on what worked well and what didn’t, and be sure to save your list of contacts and donors. These will all come in handy when planning your next campaign!
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