A friend who made mention on Facebook of her fundraiser for the cheer leading team got me to thinking about how social media – specifically Facebook, which she is familiar with – could be used to make fund raising more effective for the team. If you were a coach or close supporter of a cheerleading or similar school club here’s how I’d recommend you approach it.

Create a Facebook Page for your team with the “Brand, product, or organization:” set up. Pick the “Non-Profit” option from the drop down list. Non profits raise funds all the time so this should easily accelerate your team’s fund raising efforts. Invite your student’s parents, fans and community supporters to “Like” the page. Even though it’s generally assumed that kids participating in school system sponsored activities will be videoed and photographed you may still want to check with your school system and parents to obtain permission to use the kids’ images for photos and videos on the FB Page. You know your school system so I leave that part to your sense of judgment.

You will also need to determine how your local school system wants you to disposition any funds you collect. Will you need to turn the money in to a book keeper, accountant or CFO in your school or at the school board? If this is the case then you will need to work closely with that financial person to make sure  online transactions are routed properly through your site and properly accounted for by your board of education. That’s the last step though so more on that later.

There are three components of your FB Page plan that will make your efforts effective. These are the pieces of your virtual club marketing/public relations system that you will need to explain clearly to the financial person.

First and simplest is to activate the “Events” tab on the Page. This is where you can add the games where the team will be cheering, the camps and competitions they’ll be attending and any public appearances they make. This tab and the “Wall” are fundamental to the basic public relations for the group.

Next you’ll want to create an Eventbrite account. Eventbrite is an online ticketing website that allows you to sell tickets to your events. When you create the event and people buy from your link they can print tickets and their money is deposited into your account. It’s simple online purchasing with a credit or debit card like people do every day only now it benefits your cheering squad.

Finally, should you decide to get fancy, consider adding a PayPal donation button to the site. It should go perfectly on a custom designed landing page for your Fan Page. People love helping kids and a well designed graphic with the school name and school system with mascots, logos, maybe a good action photo or two, would surely encourage people to give in general during the times when you’re not selling anything in particular.

As far as accounting for online fund raising this is where the financial people do their part. The accountant/book keeper etc.  will enter the school or school system’s bank account info into the PayPal and Eventbrite accounts so that purchases and donations are routed properly. That’s as easy as sitting down next to them in their office logging into the team’s Eventbrite and PayPal sites and turning your head while they enter the confidential bank account and routing information. At that point your Facebook Page is fully functional as a fund raising tool and it’s a matter of drawing people to click the “Like” button to use it.

Most people love online ticket buying so it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince your target audience to use the Page to buy a car wash or competition or bake sale or whatever type of ticket once you make them aware of it as a purchasing option. The only difficulty I can anticipate is convincing your local educational powers-that-be to jump into the social media sphere, especially if they are skeptical of the online world. Know the important contact people, schmooze and prepare well in order to broach this subject to any hesitant parties in order to launch your plan successfully.

If you need an example take a look at this cheerleading team’s Page and see how it could be improved with the income generating tweaks mentioned here. If you have a cheerleading team or any other school organization whose supporters you are trying to groom into financial supporters then consider using these basic social media tools that more people are using every day.