When you hear the word “homeless,” the first image that comes to mind probably isn’t a child. Yet, more than 2,300 students in the Austin Independent School District (Austin ISD) experience homelessness each year. The effects of homelessness are something no child should face, especially during the holiday season.

To address this, the Austin Ed Fund launched a campaign to raise funds for Project HELP, a program in Austin ISD that supports students experiencing homelessness by providing material support such as gift cards for food and clothing, bus passes, and connections to other community resources.

After launching the campaign, the Austin Ed Fund sent out emails that resulted in over $10,000 in donations. How did they achieve this success?

Austin ISD is in its third year of using Follett Destiny® Fundraising Manager, a platform that allows members of every school in the district to launch online fundraising campaigns. This platform enables the district to oversee the process, ensure compliance with district, state, and federal policies, and report on all fundraising activities.

Unlike other mainstream education crowdfunding sites that maintain and own donor information for future advertising purposes, Destiny Fundraising Manager enables Austin ISD to store and build their own database of donors. With this database, Austin ISD can easily inform previous donors about other campaigns within the district. That’s exactly what they did for the Project HELP campaign.

Using Destiny Fundraising Manager’s built-in email communication functionality, the Austin Ed Fund sent emails about the Project HELP campaign to their database of donors. In just a week, the community came together to support the campaign, raising over $10,000. With such a generous response, they’ve now doubled the goal from $10,000 to $20,000 in hopes of truly meeting the needs of every family and student experiencing homelessness this holiday season.

For more information on how Destiny Fundraising Manager can help your school district, visit the  Destiny Fundraising Manager page.

Who owns your donor information isn’t the only thing you should consider. Download our Crowdfunding Considerations guide to learn about the seven areas administrators should evaluate when assessing crowdfunding sites and policies for their district.