Hey guys. I am back with another exciting article on “Read for My School”. You must have heard about it or may be, not. It is a program which was launched in October 2012, initiated by Pearson Foundation and Booktrust. It helps in raising funds in an interesting way. This article will not only help you to clarify your doubts regarding this program but also, it will help you to get a deeper knowledge of its applications. This article is in question and answer format so that it becomes easy for you to read and understand. Now let’s begin point by point.
1) What is “Read for My School” ?
Till September 2012, a large number of students felt embarrassed if someone sees them reading. This was actually a worry because reading improves your verbal skills. A month later, “Read for My School” program was launched which totally changed the picture.
- Read for My School is a complete digital fundraising program.
- It empowers communities everywhere to create and promote high impact, high value read-a-thons that deliver results.
- It is free to setup, and easy, simple to manage and use.
- Read for My School provides an innovative fundraising approach that is fun and engaging for students.
- It requires less volunteer resources to support this program.
2) How does Read for My School raise funds?
- Read for My School provides an innovative fundraising approach that is fun and engaging.
- They raise funds in form of a reading competition.
- Read for My School gets support from Pearson Foundation and Booktrust. They also get help from the Department for Education.
Reading Competition :
- It is a National reading competition named “Read for My School”.
- It is open to primary pupils in Years 3-6 and secondary pupils in Years 7-8, across England.
- Read for My School is completely free to register in and take part.
- Time period of this competition is 2 months from 21st January to 22nd March.
- Read for My School throws a challenge in which you have to read as many books as you can in the given time period of 2 months.
- The overall target set by Pearson and Booktrust, is of one million books.
- This challenge makes the whole school excited and the children become keener towards reading.
- The children get to read books from the free online library which provides over 150 titles by many renowned authors.
- Read for My School aims to promote reading for pleasure to children and to help their reading skills and confidence to grow.
- Many schools register in this competition. On winning, they receive a donation of fantastic books taken out from the store of a 100,000 books provided by Pearson.
- Children log, what they read on the website, and then they receive virtual rewards. They also get weekly prize draws.
- Read for My School is a competition, which motivates children of all abilities. It gives them the opportunity to read their way towards many rewards for themselves and their schools.
3) Overview of the 2014 Read for My School challenge
- The year 2014, became the milestone for “Read for My School” program.
- This year, more than 3,600 schools took part in Read for My School challenge.
- Across England, around 212,000 children in primary and secondary schools took part in this challenge.
- Children had to read as many books as they can in two months. The children chose from hundreds of print and online books.
- The children read about a total of 876,000 books, that year.
- The most popular texts chosen were contemporary novels, non-fiction, and some old favorites.
- Most featured books were: “Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland” (fantasy), “Black Beauty” (classic), books on moral values, “Cinderella” (classic fairy tale) and “The Fantastic Mr. Fox”.
- These books transport children into different worlds with their bold adventures and big themes.
- Many classics also introduce children to new words. They enrich their language and help them to progress in school.
- Daisy Casemore, aged 11 and a Year 6 pupil loved the humour category. It made her laugh a lot. Daisy loved to be a part of “Read for My School” competition.
- Teachers Viewpoint : The competition transformed students into eager book worms. They wanted to read more books than their classmates and win prizes for their school.
- Children who read on regular basis, improved in math, vocabulary and spelling.
- Children who rarely read, started reading and improving as compared to past years.
Now let’s get started with the main and detailed Q & A, based on this program “Read for My School” which will completely clear all your doubts regarding this program.
4) Why Read for My School?
- Read for My School is entirely a “peer to peer” digital fundraising program.
- It supports every community to create and promote impactful and highly valuable reading competitions that deliver results.
- Read for My School is doing two things at one time, i.e., promoting reading and with that raising funds too in a more friendly manner.
- As discussed in above points, children develop their skills while taking part in a fun competition which helps them to develop and grow in different aspects.
- According to studies, many children have overcome their reading fear while taking part in Read for My School challenge.
- Children get to read from over thousands of books written by famous authors.
- Children of your school may even get weekly prizes, based on the number of books they read.
- You can go, and visit the official website of Read for My School, and can get your school registered for this fantastic and fun program.
- You can either become a fundraiser or support any other fundraiser.
- It is free to setup, easy to manage and very simple to use.
- Fewer volunteer resources are required for this program to work.
5) What is Peer to Peer fundraising in Read for My School?
- Peer to Peer fundraising is also known as p2p fundraising.
- It is a method of fundraising that authorizes your supporters to fundraise on your behalf. It is the type of social fundraising, personal or team fundraising.
- P2P is a great way to reach donors who care about you and your work.
- You can reach new networks of people.
- P2P has now slowly succeeded, traditional methods of fundraising in today’s technological world.
- It is powerful and increasing because the fundraisers come in the limelight which promotes fundraising more and more.
- P2P has few types. Read for My School implies “Personal Event/ Challenge” type of P2P. Fundraisers center around the milestone, mainly the challenge which is going on.
- In case of Read for My School, it is Education based fundraising.
6) Why do Read for My School focus on Education based fundraising?
- Read for My School believes in building a fundraising solution which focuses on, what students get to learn in their class.
- RFMS believes that education based fundraising is much more important than “selling cookie dough to friends and family.”
- They have their focus on an innovative approach to school fundraising.
- According to them, two things come out of this method:
- Reading becomes fun and engaging.
- Lives of children get improved, as they get to develop in various aspects.
7) What are the services provided by Read for My School?
- Read for My School provides a safe and secure digital marketplace.
- They use your donated capital for a genuine cause, which leads to the development of rich quality education.
- RFMS delivers the results, requiring lesser school or community resources to support your reading and fundraising goals.
8) Will you have to pay to set up a Read for My School fundraiser?
- No, you don’t have to pay, even a single penny, to set up a fundraiser.
- It’s totally free to start.
- Once done with setting dates, then you will have full access to Read for My School platform features. It will continue, throughout your read-a-thon.
9) How does money get raised in Read for My School program?
- The money gets raised by peer to peer fundraising. I have already explained about peer to peer fundraising in the 5th point above.
- You raise money by digital marketing. You share your read-a-thon with those donors who care about your cause.
- This can be done via various social media platforms like email, Facebook, Twitter, Messenger or even by regular SMS.
- RFMS provides you the social fundraising tools so that you, being a teacher, parent or student can quickly reach out to your friends and family for donation support.
- Your friends or family understand your cause and thus donate as much as they want for your cause.
10) How much can you raise with Read for My School?
- That is entirely up to you as you are the one to create and promote your own read-a-thon through Read for My School.
- Following is a simple example of how you can calculate an estimate of per student donation goal:
- Figure out the targeted goal for your read-a-thon (example: 8,000 USD)
- Find out no. of students who will be a part of this read-a-thon (ex.: 400 students). Now, forecast participation rate, let’s say (40% students) who will surely participate to reach the read-a-thon goal. It comes out to be (400×40% = 160 students).
- Finally calculate, how much an individual student has to raise based on your forecasted participation number.
8,000$ goal/ 160 students = 50$ per student (according to donation goal).
11) What kind of fundraisers can you create with Read for My School?
- Read for my school offers an easy solution to meet yours and your community needs.
- According to Read for My School, It’s “as simple as 1, 2, 3.”
- Kind of fundraisers which you can create:
- Large school fundraisers.
- Small grade-level or classroom fundraisers.
- After-school program fundraisers.
- Corporate employee engagement fundraisers.
12) Is there a limit of the supporters, who join in your Read for My School fundraising?
No, there is no such maximum limit. Read for My School have designed such an online software which can meet up to the most massive fundraising range. So, it’s up to you that, to how many people you spread this cause.
13) Is Read for My School fully cooperative with COPPA?
- Yes, Read for My School is 100% COPPA cooperative.
- COPPA: The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. It is a law created to protect the privacy of children under 13. The U.S. Congress passed this act in 1998, and it took effect in April 2000. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) manage COPPA.
- Read for My School only shows username and sign you in with an account which you opt for and does not ask for any real name or surname. It is up to you that with which account you want to sign in.
- RFMS also confirms that the user is at the age of 13 or above.
- Read for My School say that: “they prefer you not to use your real name, and if you want to keep your name then, you can use the first letter of your surname after your name.”
14) Will Read for My School provide you with fundraising resources?
- Yes, Read for My School will provide you with fundraising resources.
- You can download resources in your toolkit that will guide you and provide you with a “to do” list based on what you are looking for.
- Guides are there to show you the path. You can access these guides in your Read for My School kit under the downloads tab.
- Two types of guides are there:
- Quick Start Guide- for Event administrator/ Team leaders
- Quick Start Guide- for Parent/ Reader
15) What are the Achievements given by Read for My School to you?
- The readers, who participate in your read-a-thon get fundraising badges, which they can unlock according to the target set for those badges.
- These badges maintain a fun rhythm in the competition.
- The children enjoy earning these badges, and they keep on reading and sharing their badges.
- There are six achievement badges which the readers can unlock:
- Big Piggy! : On getting 1st Donation
- Eager Reader! : On 1st Recorded reading
- Social Rockstar! : On 1st Social share
- Ultimate Bookworm! : On achieving 100% individual book goal
- Reading Superstar! : On achieving 100% individual reading minutes goal
- Giving Tree! : On achieving 100% individual fundraising goal
16) Steps to get started to create a fundraiser with Read for My School
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- On the main page of the Read for My School app, click on “Create A Fundraiser.”
- Sign in with a preferable account. You get to choose from various social media apps like Facebook, twitter, etc.
- After you have signed in, now you have to set up the time period on the calendar option in which you choose the starting date of your read-a-thon and the ending date. It is up to you what time period you want to prefer as the max. is two months.
- Now, click on the “Get Started” button and you are all set to go.
- Now you just have to fill in the options asked to you like no. of participants, their names, etc. You can also personalize your account so that only you can access it.
- You can set up a custom “Leaderboard” to track the progress of your readers.
- Now, whenever your readers earn any batch, it will create an alert, and now you or your reader can share that in the form of notification to your friends and family.
- Now, comes the work of social media, you start spreading your cause to others through different social networking sites, and then ask them to raise funds for your read-a-thon.
- This increases awareness amongst them, and it increases donation potential.
- If the other person likes your work, then he ultimately donates for your read-a-thon. He can donate through the option on the online app.
- This is fun and motivating way of fundraising, and it supports a cause.
So, guys, these were the most asked questions about Read for My School. I have tried to answer these questions point to point so that it becomes clear. If you still have any other questions in mind regarding this program or you have any technical questions in mind regarding its working, then kindly visit the official website of Read for My School. I hope you liked this article, and if you did, then do subscribe to my Blog and let me know through your valuable comments below. Thank you!