Summer Fundraising Season Is Here - Time to Get Strategic

🎯 Going Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Fundraising

Who says your fundraiser program has to stay the same all year long?

Incentives drive behavior, and that’s just as true for fundraiser nights as it is for your everyday guests. As we head into summer, a season with lower overall event activity, but still packed with summer sports leagues, camps, and church events, the question intensifies, “Why should a group choose your restaurant over the one down the street?”

Here’s the truth…community organizations have options. When they choose a fundraising partner, they usually weigh four key factors.

📌Location - Is it convenient for group members?
💲Price Point - Is it within reach for organization members?
🗓️History - Have they had a successful event(s) here before?
💸Give-Back Percentage - How much will they actually earn?

Some of these elements like your address or average check size are relatively fixed, but the two others can absolutely be influenced.

Introducing the first Strategy of the Summer: Dynamic Give-Back %'s

Give-back percentages are adjustable and can be adjusted anytime. With DonationScout, you can offer location and calendar-specific give-back percentages in seasonally slow months (like June, July, or December), for new store openings, or to lift underperforming units.

Pro Tip: Every event in DonationScout can be marked as Public or Private, and this isn’t just a toggle. It’s a strategy.

1. Public Events appear on your branded fundraising calendar and can draw in additional foot traffic from the broader community.
    
2. Private Events are invite-only (via unique link) and ideal for performance-based incentives, supporting VIP partnerships, or managing volume at new restaurants during ramp-up.

Increasing the Give-back percentage can also incentivize organizations that may have not tried a fundraiser with you in the past.  You can’t do anything about a lack of History, but a great experience, paired with smart post-event outreach, can turn a first-time fundraiser into a repeat guest - and a loyal advocate for your brand.

Pro Tip: With DonationScout you can use an Automated Outreach template to automatically reach out to groups who have yet to re-book their next fundraiser. You can also set up templates for a specific organization type such as PTO/PTAs who brought in more than $X amount of sales during their most recent event.

More on tailoring your incentives for seasonality, store performance, and event visibility…

A flat 20% give-back might be easy, but it’s rarely optimal. With DonationScout, you can:

1. Offer higher give-backs in seasonally slow months like June, July, and December
2. Incentivize traffic at new locations with limited local awareness
3. Boost underperforming units where community outreach is a top priority
    

“But won’t I lose money if I increase my give-back percentage?”

Not when you factor in flow-through economics, the idea that incremental sales from fundraiser events carry a much higher profit margin than your typical guest check.

In most cases, fundraiser traffic doesn’t cannibalize regular business, it adds to it. That means the fixed costs are already covered, so your variable cost (food and labor) is all that really matters. When you look at it that way, restaurants can often give back 40–50% of fundraiser sales and still break even, or even come out ahead.

https://www.donationscout.com/insights/restaurant-fundraiser-econ-101-community-impact-meets-financial-growth/

As we explain in Restaurant Fundraiser Econ 101 , the give-back isn’t a cost, it’s an investment in high-intent traffic that delivers: Incremental sales, Increased check average, first-time or lapsed guests who return, catering leads, brand goodwill and community loyalty.

So no, increasing your give-back doesn’t mean losing money. It means using generosity as a growth strategy, especially when deployed during slow seasons, for underperforming stores, or as part of a grand opening plan.

Use these levers to nudge behavior, both for the organizations applying and for your internal marketing goals.

Your fundraising program doesn’t have to be static, and frankly, it shouldn’t be. With DonationScout, you can build smarter strategies using tools already at your fingertips. With Dynamic Give-Back Percentages, and Private Event Types you can tailor incentives based on seasonality, store performance, or strategic goals, all while maintaining operational control.

Whether you’re launching a new location, filling seats during slower months, or rewarding key community partners, DonationScout gives you the flexibility to adapt, the insights to optimize, and the branding to make it all feel seamless.

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Reach out to hello@donationscout.com anytime!