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Our podcast, The Multipurpose Room, aims to provide you with valuable insights you can implement immediately. This year is a difficult fundraising year, so much of our focus has been on ways to fundraise virtually creatively. On a recent episode, we covered running a virtual trivia night. As a follow-up to our last post on how to run a trivia night, here is how your PTO or PTA can maximize fundraising at its next trivia night.
If a PTA is to maximize its trivia night fundraising, then it is important for the organization to branch out to all possible sources of funds.
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Here’s what they should cover:
1. Tickets
The trivia night tickets are the most obvious – and arguably the easiest – source of fundraising. Parent-teacher associations can either charge for individual members or charge a collective amount for a team. Either way, these tickets will act as one of the greatest sources of funds for your total amount, mostly because they will operate under a blanket policy, meaning everyone attending will contribute. Typically, individual tickets start as low as $5 a head, with team tickets being more in the $500 range.
2. Sponsors
While event tickets may be the easiest way to fundraise, sponsors make up the biggest amount raised. The most common type of sponsors that PTA, PTO, or school trivia nights attract is presenting sponsors. So, every round of the trivia night will be sponsored by a separate company or organization. In return for the monetary donation, the sponsor will have their logo displayed on the projected screens, the answer sheets, and any banners that are put up.
Sponsors can also have their ads played in the middle of events or have a slot where they speak a bit about themselves. In essence, the trivia night platform's visibility to sponsors is unmatched. And the best part is that these sponsors are often willing to donate large amounts.
3. Games
One unique way to add to your fundraising bank is to hold special supplemental games in addition to the regular trivia night activities.
For instance, PTAs can auction off a local celebrity – be it the principal, a popular teacher, or a famous alumnus – and attendees can have the option to have them on their team for a round of trivia, with the highest bid winning. The excitement of having a coveted person on your team, combined with them knowing the trivia answers, makes this a desirable bidding point, and loads of people end up joining in.
Another popular supplemental game is the number game. This is where there are a series of questions, all of which have answers in the form of numbers. So, you could have questions about the height of a Barbie doll or how many sections there are on a Wheel of Fortune. Answers are collected from the entire attendee list, and participants for this game judge whether the answers are too high or too low. This goes on until a single person is left, who then wins the game.
Usually, PTAs sell separate tickets for this game at anywhere between $5 to $30 a head, with hints also being sold for $35 to $50. All in all, it amounts to quite a sum when put together.
So, there you have it; some sure-fire ways to maximize fundraising at your next trivia night!