Fundraising committee goes to the cloud with Podio

Like many primary schools, Carlton North Primary School have been running an annual fete for over 20 years. It is a major fundraiser that requires a huge contribution of time from the enthusiastic parent community. In the past, communication for this 50+ strong committee was done via email and a series of long committee meetings. Every year, an enormous amount of knowledge was lost as the parent community transitioned through the school.

Podio was the solution.

“Podio became the online manual for how to run the school fete. It holds timelines, history and notes in one place, making volunteer transition so much easier from one year to the next. Committee engagement was much higher as the tool allowed for collaboration and communication in an easy-to-use app from your phone. It was a massive time saver for everyone involved and gave the school full transparency of the efforts across the community and accountability for funds raised and expenditure.” Angela Harbinson, parent and member of the Community & Fundraising Committee + Podio Consultant

In 2017, the committee piloted the use of Podio to solve their communication woes, aiming to streamline the efforts and capture an online manual for running this major fundraising event. We set up an online workspace to capture:

– Meetings
Minutes and actions
– Stalls
How to run them, the number of volunteers needed, suppliers
– Timeline
Actions, when they were due and who was responsible
– Donations
A database of all donations, the amount donated and contact details for social media mentions, photos and thank you certificates
– Suppliers
The payment management process for suppliers that needed to be paid for their goods and services
– Volunteers
An online portal for capturing and roster parent volunteers for the day
– Newsletter
An online area for drafting weekly communications about stall activities and donation requests

Podio is an incredibly flexible, cost-effective tool for database management, communication and collaboration. Starting from just $9 per month per user, the large parent-run committee is now able to access a cloud-based, real-time feed of activity across the fete’s planning from their mobile phone or desktop computer. Members can see all activity, similar to a Facebook feed, showing them what is happening and allowing for ideas sharing and collaboration at a time that suits them.

Now in its 3rd year of Podio use, the fete committee has been able to get rid of the overarching Fete Coordinator role, a volunteer position that demanded hundreds of hours of commitment each year.

“Having Podio has been a life-saver. We are able to share all our timelines, store all our documents and automate notifications across the committee and staff. It puts everyone in the committee in control and gives the school full transparency of progress towards the fundraising target, with dashboards and reports on money raised, volunteer numbers and costs “. Kathryn Andrews, Fete Coordinator for 16 years.

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Fundraising committee goes to the cloud with Podio

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