#OpenForGood Profile: Surry County Schools Educational Foundation

As part of our #OpenForGood campaign, we’re featuring stories of resilience from nonprofits around the country. What does reopening look like for your organization? Share with us on social media using #OpenForGood for a chance to be featured on Network for Good’s blog and social media.

The Surry County Schools Educational Foundation supports the activities of the Surry County School System in North Carolina and was poised to host a 5k that would break fundraising records when covid hit in spring of 2020. While they were not able to hold their anticipated event that spring, Managing Director Ashley Mills successfully turned the organization’s fundraising efforts to supporting the school district’s summer camp. Now that the community is reopening, Surry County Schools Educational Foundation has decided to continue this new tradition of funding summer camps and is breaking it down for their donors through communications that both show the impact of a donation through specific dollar amounts and incorporate a storytelling element to help donors connect with the Foundation and its work.

The new fundraising focus born out of the pandemic? Offering their donors as many opportunities to give as possible. This meant not only reaching out with bimonthly updates and appeal letters, but also by targeting that outreach to reengage lapsed donors. With the help of Network for Good’s intuitive reporting function, Ashley was able to easily see who was donating and who wasn’t, and then tailor her outreach strategy to both drive donor engagement and bring in new donations. As the Surry County Educational Foundation looks forward to a future of robust community events, their mission of telling stories of their impact to donors will be more meaningful than ever. And with Network for Good, they’re confident they can engage the right donors to make that storytelling count.