How to Launch Your First T-Shirt Fundraising Campaign

Pulling off a successful t-shirt fundraising campaign requires a bit of planning. You can't just go to a custom screen printing service and ask a designer to come up with something to print on a batch of shirts. Doing that might leave you with unused inventory, which gets you nowhere near your goal. Whether you're raising funds for a business, an organization, or a cause, you will have to keep several things in mind before you begin.

 

Get clear on your fundraiser's "why"

Launching any fundraising campaign means having a concrete reason for wanting to gather funds. You should know how to explain what you're going to do with the money you will raise. Clarifying this is especially important when you're trying to convince potential backers. You cannot be vague with the terms, either; you must have a set of actionable steps, a way to provide transparency on the funds, and a way for people to observe the result of their support.

 

Create a design that represents your cause

Once you find the "why" of your campaign, you must think of the design and message that best conveys it on a t-shirt. The design or statement must be catchy enough to make people want to buy your shirt. Also, you want to make sure that you inspire your supporters to do something other than purchasing and wearing your shirt. Although having a beautifully designed product is essential, the message behind it and its capacity to move people is of utmost importance. 

If you have graphic design skills, you could make the design on your own. However, if you're not the artistic type, you could get someone else to make the shirt design for you. Perhaps you have someone in your organization or business who has a knack for visual communication or a colleague you can hire as a freelancer. You could even get a backer to donate their skills instead of money, and have them design the shirt!

Once you have a design, it's time to bring it to a direct-to-garment printing service and start your campaign.

 

Tell everyone about your initiative

Leverage social media and post about your campaign online. The good thing about online marketing is you can scale it up or down depending on your needs and available resources. If you're on a budget, you can create a free page using a social media account and ask supporters to like and share the campaign page. If you have more wiggle room, you can set up a website and launch a multi-channel campaign involving social media, blog posts, and features on other companies' websites.

Make sure you have a selling page, whether you're on social media or an official website, and include the link to it in every post you publish online. Get your supporters to share the link to your selling page with their networks as well.

 

Conclusion

Launching a t-shirt fundraising campaign can be challenging, but you can easily succeed with it if you know how to find and organize support online. Knowing why you're raising funds and communicating it will go a long way in gathering support early on. It also helps if you have a sticky message and a beautifully-designed shirt! 

For custom screen printing with no minimums, get in touch with Bauers Boutique today. We work out of Spencerport, NY, providing premium digital screen printing at affordable prices. Contact us today for more details!