Fundraising – A Fresh Approach

CHA families get excited about our fundraising model because it’s an outside-the-box type of solution that benefits more from a family’s participation rather than their actual giving.  While fundraising is certainly a critical component of our annual budget, we also realize that most families are already doing all they can to pay tuition.  That’s why we had to go outside-the-box of typical candy bars, cookies, wrapping paper, and popcorn style fundraising models.  Here’s the three pillars of our fundraising model:

1.  Fundraising Fills The Gap

Our expenses are higher than our tuition revenue and therefore we have an annual gap that needs to be filled.  Raising tuition would eliminate that gap but it would also put CHA out of reach for many families.  Each year, we plan to raise approximately $100,000 to supplement our budget and keep our tuition down and still cover our expense.  Therefore, fundraising is not an optional activity for our community of faculty, staff, families, and students.

2.  Participation Is ‘THE’ Top Priority

The fundraising model we’ve designed is built to function on the participation of families in our CHA community rather than their specific giving.  In other words, it’s more important for a family to participate than it is for them to give.  Programs like Box Tops for Education and Kroger’s Community Rewards allow us to receive cash donations from items families have already purchased for their kitchen and pantry. With programs like this, families can generate cash for CHA without ever donating a dime!

3.   New Donors Are The Key

The two pillar approaches of our fundraising program are the Heritage Project in the fall, and the Heritage Classic 5k in the spring. These approaches are hands down the most effective way to generate new donors to support CHA every year and create a sustainable fundraising program.  Through this model, we’ve been able to build a donor base of more than 1,000 supporters!

Every year, families reach out to friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues through seven letters, to request sponsorships of their Heritage Project volunteer hours and Heritage Classic 5K Race participation.  Without these donation letters our fundraising model simply would not work.

We’ve worked hard to design an effective fundraising program that helps to balance our budget and encourages participation from every member of our school community without becoming burdensome.  We are grateful for how the Lord has delivered His provisions through this program for so many years and look forward to everyone’s participation for many more years to come!

2016-2017 Annual Fundraising Goal

$105,000