Success Stories

Gilchrist Elementary, a Tallahassee, Florida, school with almost 1,000 students, switched to PledgeStar this year to manage their Great Grizzly Run. “Boosterthon kept almost 50%, so we wanted to try and do it ourselves so we could keep more of what we raised,” says Belinda Wise, Gilchrist PTO event chair. “Another school in our district, DeSoto Trail Elementary, recommended PledgeStar and even helped us with the event. Our goal was to raise $85,000, and we ended up with about $95,000.”

In addition to its minimal learning curve, Ms. Wise says she appreciated the straightforward nature of PledgeStar’s website. “We really liked that staff and parents could see the leaderboard, how much we were raising and keeping, why we were fundraising, and what prizes the kids could win,” she says. “It was easy for our school’s families to set up their own accounts, and we loved having everyone on the same page.”

Making changes can be challenging, but any concerns from Gilchrist administration about switching platforms were alleviated once the PTO thoroughly explained the benefits of partnering with PledgeStar. “After our initial presentation, the PTO and teachers were on board with switching to PledgeStar, but the principal was worried because this is our biggest fundraiser of the year and we really count on the money raised,” Ms. Wise shares. “Once we concluded the fundraiser with 20 percent more than we’d raised in previous years, those fears were cast aside and the board voted unanimously to continue using PledgeStar next year.”

In addition to its financial windfall, the Great Grizzly Run was an emotional success for Gilchrist students. After two weeks of fundraising via emails and texts sent through the PledgeStar website, the school concluded the program with the run itself–along with some very special guests. “Florida State University cheerleaders and softball players came to cheer on the kids while they ran, which they loved,” says Ms. Wise.

Students are typically motivated by rewards, but Gilchrist decided to prioritize putting money back into the school over purchasing expensive prizes. “The kids got to wear Crocs and socks to school when they hit a certain goal, and a PE coach shaved a paw print into his hair when they reached another,” says Ms. Wise. “But by far the highlight for the students was when our principal got slimed at the end of the fundraiser.”

The additional money raised by partnering with PledgeStar allowed Gilchrist Elementary to fund the majority of the school’s needs, rather than having to pick and choose. “We took 20 percent of what we raised and gave every teacher money for their classrooms,” says Ms. Wise. “We also used some of it for campus improvements on outdoor spaces that the staff requested such as fans for the carpool pickup area and picnic tables and benches throughout campus.”

In addition to the financial rewards of the partnership, what really set PledgeStar apart from other platforms for Gilchrist was the customer service. “Several times, my questions were answered immediately,” says Ms. Wise. “PledgeStar even reached out to one of our teachers directly to answer a question that I couldn’t.”

Gilchrist Elementary School is already sharing its positive experience with PledgeStar throughout the community. “We’ve recommended PledgeStar to another school in the area that was seeking a new fundraising platform,” Ms. Wise says. “It truly met all of our needs.”

After seven years using the same fundraising platform, the San Mateo-Foster City School District Education Foundation made the switch to PledgeStar. "We needed a platform with more reporting features for our annual Read-a-Thon,” says Elizabeth Colglazier, one of the foundation’s directors. “With other fundraisers it was difficult to report each school site’s progress. We wanted to be able to view each school’s reading minutes and money raised during and after the event, and that’s exactly what we got with PledgeStar."

Ms. Colglazier discovered PledgeStar by researching what other education foundations in the Bay Area were using for their read-a-thons and asking for feedback from various directors. One of those groups shared their success with PledgeStar and switching platforms made sense. “It was a great experience using PledgeStar for our annual fundraiser,” she says. “Our matching donations went up dramatically from previous years because PledgeStar makes it so easy, and we even had more people opting to cover the credit card fees than when we used a competing fundraising company.”

The San Mateo-Foster City School District serves 10,000 students–three middle schools and 18 elementary schools—so organized reporting is vital to a successful event. “The reports available on PledgeStar were very user-friendly and very easy to organize by classroom, teacher, and school site,” Ms. Colglazier says. “We didn’t have that capability on the platform we’d used in the past. PledgeStar made it much easier for us to expand our rewards system so that we could reward the top classroom at each school site and top schools, which we’d never been able to do before. This capability helped make it a friendly competition between the schools.”

Each year, local libraries host kickoff events to get SMFC students excited about the Read-a-Thon and promote the event. “Students spend the next two weeks sending out donor requests and tracking reading minutes,” Ms. Colglazier explains. “Each school site’s principal and parent representative advertise the event as well. We discovered that schools that do more promotion are generally more successful with the fundraiser, which included the reminder emails from PledgeStar.”

For the duration of the Read-a-Thon, Ms. Colglazier sent out daily reports of the top three classrooms at each school, as well as the school site with the highest average reading minutes and percent participation. “The ability to easily run and provide reports to each of our school sites was vital to keeping the momentum of the fundraiser,” Ms. Colglazier says. “There is not a fee with 99Pledges, but we had to create these reports by hand in years past, which could take 30-40 hours per week. This feature is exactly why we switched to PledgeStar.”

The school with the highest average reading minutes had an assembly with a local author who read to the younger students and discussed the publishing process with the older students. After all was said and done, the students read for a collective 1.9 million minutes over the course of the fundraiser.

Ms. Colglazier says she would recommend PledgeStar to any school putting on any type of “thon” event. “It was really easy for students and families to send out donor requests through email, text, and social media,” she says. “Some even opted to print fliers, which was a great option for those who were not comfortable with using electronic communication.”

In addition to the vital reporting features, PledgeStar’s customer service team was a huge asset to Ms. Colglazier. “They were great to work with,” she says. “They were really responsive and even made some changes to the platform to accommodate our large district, which I really appreciated.”

Once the foundation receives all of its matching dollars, they’ll have raised nearly $120,000. “We were pleased with that number, as many of our families have been hit with job layoffs in the tech industry,” says Ms. Colglazier, whose foundation is based in the San Francisco Bay Area. “The funds we raised will go to important programs like music and STEAM education, as well as staff and student support. We couldn’t have done it without the support of our amazing community and the help of PledgeStar.”

Walk-a-Thon Chair Adrienne Virgilio knew that St. Francis de Sales School in Lake Zurick, Illinois, was in desperate need of an outstanding fundraiser. She never imagined that partnering with PledgeStar would see a profit of more than 10 times her original goal.