Digital vs. Traditional Calendar Fundraisers: Pros, Cons, & Best Choice for Your Team

If you’re thinking of running a pick a date to donate calendar fundraiser for your team, you probably know by now that Teamfi has tremendous (& 100% free!) options for both digital calendar fundraisers and traditional, pen and paper calendar fundraisers.

Assuming you’ve already read a bit about how to run a digital and physical calendar fundraiser, now you’re just trying to figure out which is a better option for your team. If you haven’t read our “How-to” guides for each, they’re available for free for both the digital calendar and traditional calendar.

Need a refresher on what a calendar fundraiser is? Here’s the quick overview:

1. You (fundraiser organizer) hand out a calendar to each fundraiser participant, and their goal is to get a donation or “sponsor” for each day of the 31 day calendar.
2. Each day of the month is representative of a donation amount of the number of that day. For example, day 12 is a $12 donation and day 27 would be a $27 donation.
3. When a donor decides to sponsor a day, they donate that amount to the fundraiser participant and place their name on that day of the calendar, denoting that the day is sponsored.
4. If each day in a 31 calendar is sponsored, it raises $496 dollars for your team or organization.

If you want to learn more, we keep an updated list of answers to the top questions we get asked about running calendar fundraisers.

Now that we’re up to speed, let’s break them down. Here’s the pros and cons for each method of calendar fundraising and which we think is the better choice for your team:

The Digital Pick a Date Calendar Fundraiser

‍Pros of a Digital Calendar Fundraiser:

The benefits of a completely digital calendar fundraiser can be immense, and that’s exactly why we built ours for entirely free to use – to make fundraiser organizer’s lives easier. Here’s the top benefits of running a digital calendar fundraiser:

1. WAY less organization needed and paperwork/money to keep track of. With completely digital donations and calendars, that means you don’t have to print off a calendar for each participant, and you don’t have to keep track of all of the physical donations made with cash or checks. In other words, a digital calendar fundraiser will help you stress less by keeping everything clean and organized.

2. Quicker turnaround time. With the calendars being entirely online, your fundraiser participants will be able to join, create their calendar, and start collecting donations in just a few minutes! No need to print off 50+ calendars and hand them out at a team kick-off meeting. Moreover, this means no need to spend days or even weeks tracking down your fundraiser participants’ collected donations. Instead, donations are collected online instantaneously and can be tracked in your fundraiser dashboard.

3. Significantly easier to market your calendar to get donations. With a digital calendar, you can start sharing your calendar and getting donations in minutes! Whether it’s posting a link to your calendar on social media, texting a link to a family member, or emailing a link to friends and co-workers, sharing your calendar could not be easier than in a digital format.

Cons of a Digital Calendar Fundraiser:

While we’d say the benefits certainly outweigh the negatives on this type of digital fundraiser, there is one thing that could be a minor drawback.

1. It could take a bit of learning for fundraiser organizers who feel less comfortable with tech. Look, we totally get it – keeping up with all of the latest technology can be overwhelming at times. And, even though we’ve done our absolute best to keep all of the Teamfi digital fundraising products as simple and clear as possible, it’s just not everyone’s cup of tea. If you’re a coach reading this saying “yeah, this might be me”, don’t fret! We offer fully guided onboarding (for you and your fundraiser participants) and 1-on-1 support with the cofounders to help make the leap of faith a bit easier. Even with that said, this can be one of the drawbacks of running a digital fundraiser.

The Traditional, Pen & Paper Pick a Date Calendar Fundraiser

Pros of a Pen & Paper Calendar Fundraiser:

Running a pick a date to donate calendar fundraiser the old-fashioned, pen and paper way can certainly have its benefits as well!

1. It can provide a great team-bonding experience. While having to hold a team fundraiser kick-off meeting, check-in meetings, or fundraiser closeout meetings could be viewed as a negative due to the added time expenditure, it also can be a positive! The added in-person meetings have proven to be an incredible extra-curricular activity to help your fundraiser participants create meaningful connections and lifelong friendships that could increase the chemistry of your team during competitions.

2. It can be more comfortable keeping things the pen and paper way. Look, we get it! Sometimes keeping things the old fashioned way can just be easier, especially if that’s how you’ve been running fundraisers for your team/organization. If this is the case, you just won’t have as much explaining to do when it comes to the fundraiser kick-off meeting or just running your fundraiser in general.

Cons of a Pen & Paper Calendar Fundraiser:

As  mentioned above on the benefits of utilizing the digital version of the calendar fundraiser, the pen and paper calendar fundraiser does have some drawbacks.

1. Paper calendar fundraising can be a lot more to keep track of. From managing each fundraiser participant’s paper calendar (not to mention the replacements if they lose or misplace it), to managing all of the money and checks for the donations, the level or organization necessary is without a doubt the biggest drawback of the old-fashioned, pen and paper calendar fundraisers.

2. Paper calendars can be harder to publicize and share. Unlike digital calendars in which a link can be shared via text, email, or social media, paper calendars are a bit harder to share to get donations. Other than asking friends and family for donations when you see them, other options can be public events or knocking door to door in your neighborhood. Each of these options requires more time and effort, which can be a negative aspect to choosing a paper calendar fundraiser over a digital one.

So what’s the better option for your team?

Well, there’s some nuance to this decision but here’s the general summary:

If you’re looking for a quick, effective, fun and low-effort way to raise money for your team, we’d suggest using a digital calendar fundraiser.

If you’re not as concerned about putting a good amount of time and energy into a fundraiser, or are looking for a fundraiser that could be a great team-bonding opportunity, then using an old-fashioned, pen and paper calendar fundraiser might be your best bet.

Whichever direction you choose for your team or organization’s calendar fundraiser, your fundraiser will be effective and 100% free if using Teamfi. If you want to learn more, you can schedule a quick, <20 minute demo with one of our founders and we’ll show you exactly how running a pick a date to donate calendar fundraiser can look for your team or organization.