Better Fundraising Ideas for Colleges That Reduce Burnout
You’ve got big ambitions for your school—but between daily administrative fires and the pressure to hit your next fundraising target, it can feel like you’re spinning plates.
I’ve seen too many one-off fundraising events burn out nonprofit college and university staff.
And when every dollar matters, and donor fatigue is real, it’s really tough to know where to focus your energy.
But you shouldn’t have to choose between everyday operational duties and visionary fundraising. Even if your team is small and your time is limited.
Instead of another roundup of fundraising tactics consisting of phone-athons spent dialing alumni for hours, selling branded t-shirts or mugs, and penny wars between residence halls, this guide is different.
Essentially, I’ll show you a better way: Ensure every in-person event or one-off campaign feeds into a recurring monthly giving program—so you’re not just raising one-off dollars, you’re building a dependable revenue stream.
It is possible to build a sustainable monthly giving program that lightens your load and powers growth for your school for years to come.
(It really is. I’m not just hyping you up here. I’ll give you the research behind this.)
Important note:I’m going to tackle fundraising ideas specifically for smaller colleges and private universities, not individual college clubs or athletic teams. However, if you’ve landed here and you’re fundraising for an elementary school, private high school, or specific club, you’ll still get smart takeaways.
Better fundraising ideas for private colleges
If you already know all the classic fundraising plays already — partnering with local restaurants, peer-to-peer fundraising, t-shirt and raffle ticket sales, event sponsor partnerships, etc. — you’re in luck.
I’m going to dig into some more creative one-off fundraising ideas (and idea combos) here, including ideas that:
Branch off-campus
Involve family members of students and alumni
Multiply your work efforts
But if you’re over the one-off, labor-intensive cycle of events and quarterly campaigns, go ahead and tap here to skip ahead to challenges of (and solutions to) this approach.
Fundraising ideas that raise more (while you stress less)
Before we get into fresh and creative fundraising event ideas, let’s talk about some major nonprofit fundraising strategies that can help you make more of the work you put in:
If you keep hearing about how recurring giving is the future of fundraising for nonprofit organizations, there’s a reason.
Here’s the reality:
Grant funding can be unpredictable when political and economic conditions shift, but your school’s needs—and the support you provide—are constant.
One-time donations have declined across the nonprofit world, even as monthly, recurring gifts continue to rise.
Monthly giving is the future of our sector. Now is the ideal moment to launch a program if you haven’t yet—though it can be tough to convince boards and stakeholders it’s worth the investment, especially with limited resources.
Plus, industry research shows recurring donors bring in 2.4x more revenue than a single gift donor.
Here at 4aGoodCause (4aGC), we’ve seen that the 4aGC average monthly donor gives $756 per year.
And while the 2024 M+R Benchmarks study notes monthly givers donate an average of $24 per month, our 4aGC monthly gift average is $63!
A program like this sounds like a lot of extra work, but it doesn’t have to be. (I’ll walk you through more about this below.)
But if you have a monthly giving program or plan on starting one, there are ways to connect it to every touchpoint of other fundraising events and initiatives, multiplying your efforts to turn one-time givers into ongoing sustainers.
A matching gift campaign doubles the impact of every contribution, creating a powerful incentive for alumni, families, and community partners to give—and see their support go twice as far.
For colleges with tight budgets and big goals, matching gifts amplify your fundraising ROI while deepening donor engagement and trust.
📚Learn more about running donor matching campaigns:
Hosting an annual giving day outside of the busy end-of-year giving holiday season can be a smart move.
Pair it with a matching gift (if you can secure one) and encourage givers to join your monthly giving program as a sustainer, and you’re in good shape.
In fact, Culver-Stockton College, a 4aGoodCause client, has a similar approach to their big annual Giving Day campaign.
The school raised $187K in one campaign, exceeding their original fundraising goal by 50%.
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The school raised $187K in one campaign, exceeding their original fundraising goal by 50%.
Their team uses a combination of:
Offering a default recurring giving option to every donor
Pairing their campaign with a matching gift
Investing in personal donor outreach before the event
Recruiting Giving Day ambassadors to help promote the event organically
Susie Biggerstaff, the school’s Director of Advancement Services and Stewardship, also plans on multiplying their efforts further by adding peer to peer fundraising to this campaign in the future.
📚Learn more about giving day and peer to peer campaigns:
4aGoodCause offers everything we need in an online fundraising tool plus more! It is intuitive, easy to customize, and efficient. It has allowed us to customize our online giving campaigns with creativity while streamlining reporting. It revolutionized our annual Day of Giving campaign, allowing us to focus on fundraising throughout the day rather than counting donations and manually reporting results. The speed of customer service response is the fastest I have ever encountered.
Karen Cooper
Rivier University
College fundraising ideas that branch off-campus
While classic student-centric fundraising events can be fun — things like scavenger hunts, trivia nights, and video game competitions — stepping beyond your campus gates can unlock an entirely new pool of supporters.
Your school’s neighbors, local businesses, and local groups may not regularly set foot on your quad, but they care deeply about your college’s role in the community.
Consider unique fundraising ideas that involve these potential donors, like:
⭐️ You don’t need to work harder to raise more.The average monthly donor gives $756 per year with the 4aGoodCause platform. Learn how 4aGoodCause helps you build a loyal base of recurring donors who are passionate about your cause.
Seek out a downtown plaza or a side street in your community near the campus: Invite local food vendors, artisans, and local shops to showcase their products in exchange for a vendor fee, then sell t-shirts or raffle tickets to attendees for prizes.
2. Food truck nights
Host off-campus food truck vendors in open areas of campus, promoting the event throughout the neighborhood and broader community.
Include “text to donate” and signage with QR codes to encourage digital donations for the needs you’re fundraising for.
3. Community art installations
Involve the creativity within your community and host an art event with vendor booth fees.
Or plan a student-created neighborhood mural, inviting donor supporters to vote on the final chosen design.
4. Educational classes and workshops led by current students
Enlist your student body athletic teams, dance troops, musicians, and STEM studiers to host local educational workshops for a small fee or optional gift that supports an initiative at your college. (Pay your student teachers for their time, of course!)
5. Host fan conventions or pop-culture conventions (like a mini-comic con)
Host one-day fan or pop-culture conventions on specific themes, inviting guest lecturers from the university, student body, and surrounding community.
Charge an entrance fee for the event, or a “donate what you can,” (Think Star Wars Day, Pokemon Go workshops, Disney Fandom lectures, etc.)
Hosting fundraising events like these spread awareness of your institution — and the ways your broader community can help support it.
But — don’t miss this, this is important — it also gives your development team the chance to collect contact information for future appeals (including monthly giving program invitations) in a low-pressure, festive setting.
⭐️Ready to make fundraising easier?Imagine stress-free fundraising with reliable monthly gifts. 4aGoodCause makes it simple to get started with our Monthly Giving Toolkit.
Private university fundraising ideas that involve family or alumni
You already know that tapping into the families of your current students as well as alumni is a smart move.
But here are a few more fresh ideas that you may have not explored:
1. Host a brunch or cookout around fine arts or sporting events
Invite parents and alumni back to campus before a sporting event or open house.
Sell entry-fee tickets that include a catered meal, host a brief program spotlighting student success stories, and weave in a gentle ask for recurring gifts: “Join our monthly Giving Circle to fuel tomorrow’s leaders.”
These gatherings build nostalgia-driven goodwill and can turn warm attendees into committed recurring supporters.
2. Offer alumni virtual career panels and networking nights
Host networking and career-building groups, whether virtual or in person, requesting a suggested donation for the entrance fee.
If you have a monthly donor program, offer exclusive alumni workshops for monthly donors.
💡Did you know?You can get consistent donations without the hassle. We help you build a loyal base of recurring donors who are passionate about your cause. Learn more about 4aGoodCause.
3. Coordinate alumni travel adventures
Curate small-group trips (e.g., cultural tours); include a built-in entry fee that supports scholarships or a particular cause on your campus.
And these adventures don’t have to be long-distance trips!
These events can be a great way for retired alumni to reconnect and support the school, and even become champions of your recurring giving program.
4. Consider digital giving days aimed squarely at families and alumni
Host a 24-hour giving day and add an element of friendly competition.
Have alumni vs. current students compete with peer-to-peer fundraising or have a “battle” between families and parents of current seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen to see which group can raise the most to support specific high-impact needs, like scholarships.
5. Start an honorary engraved brick walkway on or near campus
Create a place for students, alumni, and their families to honor special moments connected to the school by “buying” an engraved brick.
Whether that’s a traditional engraved brick walkway for donors, a special mural, or an art installation honoring names of donors. And if you’re starting a monthly giving program, this is a great way to honor its founding members.
The challenge with classic fundraising strategies for small colleges and private universities
Too often, development teams lean on a steady stream of bake sales, car washes, silent auctions, gala dinners, and 2-3 ask campaigns a year—hoping that quantity will equal revenue.
Instead, these one-off fundraisers can actually erode your base: Donors grow weary of repeated appeals, and your staff spends more time coordinating logistics than cultivating meaningful relationships.
(And although it’s a meaningful part of your vocation, I’ll bet that coordinating logistics and admin tasks isn’t why you got into this mission-focused work in the first place.)
Behind the scenes, every new one-off campaign or event requires:
Fresh, creative marketing
New volunteer training
Countless administrative touchpoints
Negotiating vendor contracts
Securing permits, and
Troubleshooting technology hiccups
All the while, this work is piled on top of top of your day-to-day stewardship and reporting responsibilities… only to often see diminishing returns throughout the year as people mentally opt out after the third “big ask” of the year or fourth “movie night.”
When team members are stretched thin, burnout becomes inevitable and creative energy is siphoned by operational busywork.
The result?
A cycle of donor, event, volunteer, and staff fatigue that leaves your team stuck in neutral—while you’re still scrambling to meet fundraising goals and your long-term growth stalls.
⭐️ Ready for consistent donations with less planning hassle? Monthly givers have a 83.6% average retention rate. Discover how 4aGoodCause helps you build a loyal base of recurring donors who are passionate about your cause.
The solution: increase revenue with a monthly giving program
Sounds impossible, but it’s true: You can reduce your workload (or, at least, streamline it) while multiplying your fundraising efforts.
One-off events are a lot of work, but they also facilitate meaningful connection and lasting relationships.
Pair your routine donor interactions and fundraising events with a monthly giving program, and you can increase sustainable stewardship and retention long term.
This isn’t just hype. Here’s the proof:
A typical monthly donor’s lifetime value (LTV) is around $2,400 on average.
The average monthly donor gives $756 per year with the 4aGoodCause platform.
We’ve found that the 4aGoodCause’s monthly giving average is $63 per month. (The 2024 M+R Benchmarks Study mentions the average recurring monthly donation for nonprofits is $24.)
Recurring givers have retention rates up to 90%. This is huge.
And if you don’t have a monthly giving program yet?
To multiply the impact of your fundraising efforts, promote your monthly giving program at each event.
And here’s where all those email addresses you smartly collected at your fundraising events come in.
In post-event emails, gently remind attendees:
They can have an impact all year long.
Every gift, no matter how small, makes a difference.
What needs your school seeks to meet through fundraising.
The impact of your monthly giving program.
You can also automate your donation acknowledgment emails with impact stories. For example:
Because of your generous gift, we’ve been able to fund 10 new scholarships this semester. And currently, our sustaining monthly givers are funding a full-ride scholarship for 3 students this year.
By exchanging endless operational tasks for targeted, automated outreach, you’ll see gift size and donor lifetime value climb—without adding extra work to your team’s plate.
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Working with 4aGC has been great! I would highly recommend. Our online monthly donations have gone up 300% since we started working with them.
David Andrews
KJOL
Start a monthly giving program this year with 4aGoodCause
With 4aGoodCause (4aGC), your school gains a powerful, intuitive fundraising CRM designed to help you set clear, actionable goals and grow your base of recurring monthly donors.
Don’t wait another fundraising cycle to build reliable support for your institution. You can launch a monthly giving program in minutes with 4aGC—no tech headaches, no heavy lifting.
Simply set up your custom giving page, promote it at your next event, and watch one-time donors convert into committed sustainers.
Ready to see how easy it is?
Schedule a demo today, and we’ll walk you through our Monthly Giving Toolkit, automated donor acknowledgments, and built-in analytics.
Let 4aGoodCause power your recurring revenue so your team can focus on the mission—not logistics.
Ronald Pruitt
Ronald is the President and Founder of 4aGoodCause, the fundraising CRM that makes recurring, monthly giving a breeze for small nonprofits.
For over 25 years, Ronald has had the joy of doing what he loves, building online solutions that make a difference in the world. He’s helped raise millions of dollars online for small nonprofits across the country. Connect with Ronald on LinkedIn.
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