November's Power Hour was all about making online donations simple and effective. The MySchoolBucks team, along with a special guest from Follett, covered everything from new integrations to practical tips for creating and promoting your fundraising campaigns. We've gathered the key takeaways below, and you can watch the full replay at the end.
A New Partnership: Destiny Fundraising Manager (02:47)
We were thrilled to announce an upcoming integration with Follett's Destiny Fundraising Manager. This new partnership will bring a powerful, no-cost fundraising solution to existing Destiny customers, seamlessly integrated with MySchoolBucks for easy payment processing.
Here's what you can look forward to:
- Effortless Campaign Creation: Quickly create custom fundraising pages directly within the Destiny environment.
- Flexible Funding: Unlike other platforms, there are no goals to hit or credits to earn. You receive cash to use for whatever your school, club, or team needs.
- Dedicated Support: A fundraising manager specialist will be available to help you every step of the way, from brainstorming ideas to creating your fundraising pages.
- Compliance and Security: An easy-to-use approval system and district-wide reporting ensure that all fundraising activities are in line with your district's guidelines.
Creating and Managing Donations in MySchoolBucks (08:12)
MySchoolBucks offers a variety of tools to help you manage your online donations effectively. Here's a breakdown of how to get started:
- Donation Products: When creating a new product, you can designate it as a "Donation." This will add it to a special carousel at the checkout screen, prompting parents to add a donation to their order. For fundraisers specific to a particular school or group, it's best to use the "Standard" product type to avoid it appearing in the general donation carousel.
- Flexible Pricing: You can set a fixed price for your donation item or allow parents to enter a custom amount. This flexibility can lead to larger donations.
- Web Forms: Need to collect extra information, like who a donation is in honor of? You can attach a custom web form to your donation product.
- Guest Checkout: Allow community members without a MySchoolBucks account to donate by enabling guest checkout for your donation products.
Related Knowledge Articles:
- MySchoolBucks - Donations
- MySchoolBucks - Add Product
- MySchoolBucks - Creating Web Forms - Form Designer
- MySchoolBucks - Set up Product to Allow Guest Checkout
Promoting Your Fundraisers (09:35)
Once you've created your donation items, it's time to spread the word. MySchoolBucks provides several tools to help you promote your campaigns:
- Portal Cards: These are customizable, clickable cards that appear on the parent portal when they log in. You can use them to advertise your holiday fundraiser or any other donation drive.
- Featured Items: Make your donation the first thing parents see by setting it as a "Featured Item" in your school store. This is a great way to highlight your most important fundraisers.
- PayExpress Links: Want to add a donation button to your district's website? PayExpress generates a simple button that you can embed on any webpage, directing users to a MySchoolBucks checkout page.
Related Knowledge Articles:
Exciting New Features
The Power Hour also highlighted a couple of new features designed to make your life easier:
- Admin User Invitations (17:07): District Admins can now invite new admin users to MySchoolBucks via email. This streamlines the process of getting new team members set up and ready to go.
- Invoice Import from Excel (42:01): Currently in beta, this new feature will allow you to import invoices with variable amounts directly from an Excel file. If you're interested in becoming an early adopter, reach out to your account manager.
Related Knowledge Articles:
Wrap-Up
To wrap things up, the team shared information about upcoming training opportunities, including Connect Local events and the Annual Connect Conference in Dallas, March 18-19.
Watch the full webinar below to see these features in action and learn how to take your online fundraising to the next level.
