Accountability Logs Can Increase Fundraiser Participation by As Much As 50%

Less work and more participation is guaranteed for your next fundraiser with this one little strategy.

One of the questions I get asked year after year when presenting to PTO’s is “How can we get more people to participate? Well, there are many answers to this problem, but I want to focus on the most effective solution I have found in the past 8 years and if you try it, you’ll never have another fundraiser without it.

This mythical and elusive creature is known as an Accountability Log and nothing could be easier. An Accountability Log is by its simplest definition is a sign out sheet that is used by the Coordinator as well as the sub-coordinators to track the participants.

Let’s define some roles and how the Accountability logs actually work. I will ask you to refer to the example below:

A PTO that represents 600 students will play our role of Coordinator because it is their event. If the average class size is 30 students this means 20 teachers will make up our sub-coordinators. Each of these teachers will report to the PTO. Here is where the magic comes in and why you will work less and increase participation. The PTO will have an Accountability log that will list all 20 teachers’ names, start and end date of the fundraising event and two boxes for them to initial that they have received the fundraising materials as well as the Awareness bands and Accountability Logs for their respective class. What are Awareness bands? That’s a great question and they are in fact, the 2nd best kept secret in increasing participation and I will discuss them in my next article!

Now, each Teacher will go back to their class, which is actually a mini-fundraising event now that they have become Accountable to do their part! It wasn’t an option, it was direction and they know what the PTO expects of them. The teachers Accountability Log will list all of the students names, start and end date of the event and check boxes for them to initial that they received their fundraising materials, Awareness bands, items sold and finally money raised and the date they turned everything back in. Now each student knows exactly what is expected of them because they got direction.

The teachers are then required to make copies of their Accountability Logs within 48 hours and turn them into the PTO. The reason the Teachers must do this is so that they can be held accountable to the PTO to do their part and these logs are proof they did. If for some reason they did not distribute materials to all their students the PTO will know right away and can address the issues right then. No more finding out that no one did anything until it’s too late! If the Fundraising Consultant is worth their salt they will require the PTO make a copy of their log as well as the teacher’s logs and provide it to them so that the PTO is now Accountable to the Fundraising Consultant for the same reasons as described above.

In closing, Accountability Logs provide some self-policing because no one can hide behind the premise of “someone else will do it”. If anyone is not doing their part, someone will know right away and that can be dealt with in real time! Good luck and Happy Fundraising!