The band, the class or the club runs its group fundraiser, and every student's share comes down. What is left of each share still lands on one family. A private request lets that family ask the people who already ask how their child is doing, and lets a town's festival committee ask its neighbors for the stage and the permits.
Maya's marching band is performing in a parade three states away in March. The boosters ran the fruit sale and the mattress sale, and every student's share came down to $1,200. The deposit is due in December and the balance in February.
Maya's family has the dates, the payment schedule and a daughter who has practiced the parade route in the driveway since September. What they need is $1,200 by February.
The boosters' fundraisers did their job: they brought every share down at once. The share that is left belongs to each family, and the people who would help with it are that family's own — grandparents, an aunt who drove to every early rehearsal, the neighbor who hears the trumpet through the wall.
That share is what this page is for. If you are the one running the group's fundraiser, the guide for your group is the better fit: Fundraising for Schools for a class trip, Fundraising for Sports Teams for a team's tournament travel, Mission Trip Fundraising for a mission trip, and Arts, Culture and Heritage Fundraising for a choir's trip to a festival.
| What you keep | 100% of every contribution. |
| When it arrives | Once your bank is connected, each contribution reaches it in 2-3 business days. |
| How you send it | By text or email, to the people you choose, with photos and a video if you want them to see the situation rather than just read about it. You decide who to send it to. It's never listed on A Better Gift, and it stays out of search results unless you choose to share it publicly. |
$1,200 is twelve contributions of a hundred dollars.
Twelve people. Four grandparents, two godparents, the aunt and uncle, the family friend who has been to every halftime show, and three more who already ask how the season is going. Most families have twelve.
Twelve people, and Maya marches in March.
Nothing to create a request. Nothing to send it. You receive the entire amount of every contribution.
The summer festival lost its main sponsor this year, and the committee still wants to hold it. The stage rental, the permits and the event insurance come to $4,500, due to the town by June 1st.
The people who would cover it are the ones who come every year: the families who set up chairs on the lawn at noon, the businesses on Main Street that stay open late that night, the volunteers who park cars. A request goes to them directly, in the committee's name if the committee has its own EIN and bank account, with the vendor quote and the permit notice attached.
$4,500 is forty-five neighbors, which is fewer than the people who line the street for the parade.
One share or one event, with a number and a date on it. What that looks like:
Band and choir trips. The share of the spring trip that is left after the boosters' fundraisers, raised by the family from its own people.
Senior trips and the eighth-grade trip. One student's share of the class trip, raised by a parent while the class runs its own fundraisers.
Conferences and competitions. The national conference a student qualified for: registration, the flight and the hotel, with the acceptance letter attached.
Festivals and community events. The stage, the permits, the insurance, the portable toilets, the sound system.
Parades and performances. The road-closure permit, the fireworks the town stopped funding, the band for the evening concert.
Tournaments. A team's travel belongs on Fundraising for Sports Teams, which also covers one athlete's showcase or camp.
The scale this is built for: a grandparent covering a night of the hotel, two neighbors splitting a permit.
Keep running them. The group's fundraisers bring every share down at once, and an event's booths and sponsors bring the town in.
A request is for the part that still lands on one family, or the bill the sponsors didn't cover, with a date attached.
