When you hear the word “homeless” the first image that comes to mind probably isn’t a child, is it? And yet there are more than 2,300 students in the Austin Independent School District that experience homelessness each year. The effects of that are something that no child should experience, especially during the holiday season.
That’s why the Austin Ed Fund launched a campaign to raise funds for Project HELP, a program in the Austin ISD that supports students experiencing homelessness by providing material support like gift cards for food and clothing, bus passes and connections to other community resources.
After launching the campaign, the Austin Ed Fund sent out emails that resulted in over $10,000 in donations, but how?
The Austin ISD is in its third year of using Livingtree Give, a platform that allows members of every school in the district to launch online fundraising campaigns, while allowing the district to oversee the process, ensure that all campaigns are in compliance with district, state and federal policies, and report on all of their fundraising activities.
Unlike other mainstream education crowdfunding sites who maintain and own the donor’s information for future advertising purposes, Livingtree Give enables the Austin ISD to store and build their own database of donors. With this database, the Austin ISD can easily provide information to previous donors about other campaigns within their district, and that’s exactly what they did for the Project HELP campaign.
Using Livingtree Give’s built-in email communication functionality, the Austin Ed Fund sent emails about the Project HELP campaign to their database of donors. In just a week’s time, their community came together to support the campaign and raise over $10,000.00. With such a generous response to the campaign, they’ve now doubled the goal from $10,000 to $20,000 in hopes of truly meeting the needs of every family and student experiencing homelessness this holiday season.
To see the progress or make a contribution, you can visit the Project HELP campaign page here.
For more information on how Livingtree Give can help your school district, visit https://learn.livingtree.com/products/give
Who own’s your donor’s information isn’t the only thing you should worry about. Download our Crowdfunding Considerations guide to learn about the 7 areas that administrators should consider when evaluating crowdfunding sites & policies for the district.
