The Elmbrook Education Foundation: GiveSmart Success Story

"GiveSmart offers us a great opportunity to build relationships, and if you look at where we are now compared to then [pre-2020], ...the money, especially for the EEF events that we bring in, we're selling out every event ... I think a lot of it has to do with GiveSmart bridging those donor relationships."
Beth D.
Executive Director at the Elmbrook Educational Foundation
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$925K

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Award-Winning Fundraising and Donor Management Platform

100%

Event Sellouts

Back in 2014, the Elmbrook Education Foundation (EEF) needed a better value for itsevent fundraising management solution. The Foundation felt it had been overpaying for its previous platform, which also included superfluous features and services irrelevant to its needs.   

The foundation evaluated a few options, concluding that they could take full advantage of GiveSmart’s platform and that it offered the best value. The team was happy to save money and streamline its use of one platform that could do more.   

Challenge & Solution

The EEF quickly realized how easy it was for staff and volunteers to use and navigate GiveSmart’s platform. And because of this, its mall staff could dedicate the limited event time to stewarding donors, rather than being stuck troubleshooting behind a laptop. From the beginning, they have found the full functionality of the GiveSmart platform easy to use for the team, volunteers, and supporters.   

The team continues to be empowered to expand their use of the platform, leaning into their creativity to find new ways to engage their support network and solicit donations.   

Results

The EEF has been a happy GiveSmart customer for many years. They’ve worked hard to achieve fundraising growth, had consistent event sell-outs, and found high donor satisfaction.   

At the onset of the pandemic, the EEF was prepared and set up for success. They were able to quickly expand online fundraising and provide the necessary support and an online fundraising platform for itsnine schools and three booster organizations, without scrambling to learn and adopt other technologies. Since GiveSmart offers unlimited admins in the system, as well as the ability to host unlimited fundraisers under one contract and vendor, the EEF had nearly all of the tools they needed to best support itsmission.  

As GiveSmart has expanded its features, now offering more robust peer-to-peer fundraising and highly customizable forms, EEF is fully set up to best support its students and staff and to develop further.    

Over the years, EEF’s long-standing use of GiveSmart, combined with its ease of use for volunteers and donors, has led EEF’s staff and Board of Directors to feel confident they chose the right solution all those years ago.   

  

About the organization

The Elmbrook Education Foundation (EEF)

 The EEF is a nonprofit organization that has provided scholarships and grants to Wisconsin-based Elmbrook students and schools for over 60 years. Founded in 1958 by parents and community partners as a scholarship fund, the EEF has since awarded $1,500,000 in scholarships to Elmbrook students.   

In 1999, EEF’s mission expanded to include innovative teacher grants for projects that would benefit all students, and it raised money to support and strengthen outstanding learning ideas that improve the overall educational quality of its public schools. The Elmbrook Education Foundation has since given $500,000 in grants to Elmbrook educators and schools.   

The EEF accomplishes its mission by partnering with parents, teachers, administrators, community members, and businesses throughout the year.  

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