In 2015, SUMAC Elementary School raised close to $40,000 at their annual Jog-A-Thon fundraiser. Unfortunately, the school ended up keeping only half of those funds. The full-service fundraising company they hired to run their Jog-A-Thon charged fifty percent of all earnings - in this case, around $20,000!

The next year, parent volunteer Megan Glynn said enough parents had voiced concern about where their donations were going for her to know that changes needed to be made.

In the spring of 2016, the school’s leadership made a small decision that created big waves: they would plan and execute the Jog-A-Thon without the help of a full-service fundraising company in order to maximize the donors' contribution to the school. And maximize they did!

The Parent Faculty Association set a goal of $20,000, the amount they kept the previous year. With PledgeStar’s unique fundraising system, they ended up raising - and keeping - almost twice as much! With almost no changes in strategy, marketing, incentives and effort from previous years, the school was able to raise nearly $40,000 and pay only $695 (compared to nearly $20,000) when they used PledgeStar.

“PledgeStar just blew our goal out of the water,” said Glynn, “I know that it was the reason we were so successful.”

Glynn said she was also impressed with the help and tips she received from PledgeStar support. They gave her advice like keeping their fundraising site open even after their event had finished and other great suggestions to make the fundraiser more successful.

“I knew that for us to be successful doing this in-house, PledgeStar was the only way to go.”