Why WeShare is Perfect for your School

With Catholic Schools Week right around the corner (January 28 – February 3), your faith community will have the opportunity to celebrate what makes your parochial school so great. Your parish school provides an excellent, well-rounded education with Jesus Christ at the center of it all. That’s something to celebrate!

Unfortunately, you will no doubt find yourself looking for innovative ways to celebrate, as adhering to social distancing requirements have driven event and extracurricular activities virtual, or forced extremely low attendance. What used to be ways to celebrate “unity in the community” will now have to take place virtually. So, an online giving platform like WeShare is a MUST if you want to accept payments for events, family craft nights, fundraisers and auctions.

While the coronavirus may have stopped a lot from happening in your school community this year, the need is still there. Eventually, you’ll need to replace sports equipment for athletic teams, and you’ll need to restock for extracurricular activities such as after school arts and crafts, student governments, culture groups, debate teams, and student newspapers. And don’t forget, a large portion of your annual school fundraisers go towards academic or need-based scholarship funds.

If you can no longer be together in the same room in order to raise money, you’ll need to offer people another way to give — specifically through online giving. When it comes to fundraising, moving things online to your parish WeShare account is a no-brainer.

WeShare is for more than building maintenance and second collections! You can set up fundraisers and link them to unique bank accounts if necessary. A specific school administrator could be granted access to the WeShare page to monitor funds in real time.

For example, if your school typically holds an annual fundraiser for an end-of-school field day, consider making it family-friendly scavenger hunt. Each family purchases a packet that includes a map, a notebook and pen to record clues, and items you’ll need for the day such as hand sanitizer, bottled water, individually wrapped granola bars and a compass. Each clue leads to the next, until you reach your destination! To allow people a truly contactless experience, a WeShare campaign can easily be established.

Promoting your fundraiser is likely already happening online, but is your school only one click away from receiving funds? WeShare generates a unique URL for each fundraising opportunity, making it easy to share the school-specific or event-specific page via email and social media platforms.

And don’t forget, a WeCreate account (FREE for all bulletin customers!) includes ready-to-customize templates for nearly every event imaginable! Simply fill in the blanks and print!

When you set up a unique collection, you can add additional personalized form items. Add one of these to your fundraiser to further earmark funds. If students are fundraising individually — say for new sports gear or a multi-day field trip — add a text entry box and title it “Student Recipient.”

Or maybe you’re updating your school computer lab, and homerooms are competing for a prize to raise the most money. Title the text box “Designated Homeroom.” These additional categories will show up when you run the report, making it easier to see which funds belong to where.

Raising money online has never been easier. Numerous online crowdfunding platforms make it easy to set up fundraisers and promote them online. However, these platforms come with their own backend management, with no integration with your other parish tools. Keep things simpler for your bookkeeper and track donations all in one place!

This Catholic Schools Week, how do you maximize online giving to raise funds for your parish school?