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Hometown and Schoolfundr offer a winning strategy for athletic directors facing funding challenges and operational hurdles
Athletic programs and performing arts at schools across the U.S. are facing mounting financial pressures, as budget constraints continue to challenge the sustainability of extracurricular initiatives, including special education programs. As a result, innovative private sector companies have emerged to lessen the negative impact of difficult circumstances facing administrators and athletic directors at the K-12 and collegiate levels.
One of the most prominent players in the education-technology space is Hometown, a digital ticketing, event management and online fundraising platform, which recently added Schoolfundr’s ground-breaking, fee-free online fundraising platform to its suite of solutions purpose-built for the education sector. Together, Hometown and Schoolfundr have generated $1.3 billion in financial impact for schools and universities nationwide, through a shared mission of empowering students and decision makers within the education system. Yet their combined efforts date years back, before the recent merger.
Founded in 2016, Hometown has transformed event ticketing and management for over 17,000 educational institutions and community organizations across the nation. The rapidly growing platform offers a game-changing solution for schools grappling with outdated, labor-intensive methods of ticket sales and revenue management for various events, from athletic competitions to artistic performances.
For its part, Schoolfundr has been the fastest growing K-12 fundraising company, disrupting the edtech industry with its unique fee-free pricing model and purpose-built fundraising platform for schools.
The two companies have worked together as strategic partners for over two years, finding synergy in their complementary solutions for scores of shared customers.
“More and more, schools are adopting solutions to digitize and simplify their operations across all facets,” Hometown CEO Nick Mirisis says. “Hometown and Schoolfundr are aligned in all of our interests – we’re doing this for the betterment of education, educational institutions and the students that they impact.”
Decision-makers across the United States’ education sector have seen resources increasingly squeezed for extracurricular program events and initiatives, like Friday night football games between local community’s rival high schools. With limited funding, core academics take priority over athletics programs, which reinforces the perception among some that extracurriculars are not important for students’ development and communities’ overall wellbeing. Rob Eckenrode, Athletic Director of Nordonia High School in Macedonia, Ohio, has experienced firsthand these challenges.
“It just seems like people these days don’t understand the positives that come out of athletic participation,” Eckenrode said.
The focus on allocating tax dollars primarily to academic subjects overlooks the numerous benefits that sports and other extracurricular activities bring to the overall development of growing students.
Taking a proactive approach to addressing these challenges, Eckenrode became a Hometown customer in 2020. Hometown’s digital event management platform offered Nordonia High School an array of solutions for pressing issues that had only become more urgent amid the pandemic. COVID-19 only accelerated the need to shift for contactless transactions.
Hometown was Eckenrode’s path to answering the call for innovation. One of Hometown’s most significant advantages, Eckenrode said, is its flexibility; while it launched a digital ticketing platform, it allows schools to sell tickets and manage revenue from digital and cash-based transactions.
“It seems like the kids want to buy the tickets online more and the parents and grandparents want to pay for tickets at the gate,” Eckenrode said.
While Hometown drives ticket sales and helps schools manage events, its newly added online fundraising capability from Schoolfundr rounds out its offerings to empower schools with greater resources for their initiatives. new component of increasing financial resources.
Complementing Hometown’s ticketing solutions, Schoolfundr’s fundraising model has been a game-changer for schools, including athletic programs like the one Eckenrode oversees. By relying on optional, voluntary tips from donors, Schoolfundr ensures that schools keep more of the money they are raising, while also expanding the reach of their fundraising campaigns to potential donors outside their local communities. In comparison, other platforms in the online fundraising space profit by taking 20% or more of the contributions donated to schools
Schoolfundr founder Dennis Levene notes that donors “speak with their wallets” with their growing use of the platform, where over 60% of all donations come from donors outside a fundraising school’s zip code.
The fee-free fundraising platform appeals to parents and community members who appreciate that their contributions go directly to the program they wish to support. For schools, it means not having to share a big chunk of their hard-earned funds with a third party.
“The cost savings of fundraising with Schoolfundr have been huge,” Eckenrode said.
The combination of these two platforms provides athletic directors with a powerful toolkit to address the complex challenges facing their sports programs. Both platforms offer user-friendly interfaces and reliable customer support.
“Most athletic directors don’t have much spare time,” Eckenrode said. “So having something that’s easy to set up with strong customer support from both organizations saves us precious time. The time we save on event management and fundraising allows us to devote more of our busy schedules to daily work with students and administration teams.”
The company also announced the upcoming release of Hometown Engage, a website and communication hub debuting in early 2025. While not required to access Hometown’s event management, ticketing or fundraising platforms, Hometown Engage provides schools with tools to manage their websites and communications while integrating seamlessly with ticketing and fundraising as well as adding links to the streaming service of their choice. This creates additional opportunities to raise awareness, deepen community connections, and manage online presence—all at no cost to schools or districts.
Both Hometown and Schoolfundr’s willingness to customize solutions for specific events is a valuable market differentiator. Eckenrode recounts a recent hockey tournament where Hometown was able to fundraise and set up both individual game tickets and all-tournament passes, demonstrating the platform’s flexibility in meeting unique event requirements.
“We had individual tickets set up for each of the individual games, but then we were able to design a pass where a person could go in and buy a pass for the entire tournament,” Eckenrode said.
Nordonia’s hockey team, in particular, has found great success with Schoolfundr.
“The fact that they keep coming back to Schoolfundr as their preferred fundraising platform shows the success of the service,” Eckenrode said. “They wouldn’t continue using it if they weren’t earning the type of revenue that they needed to pay for the high equipment and ice time.”
With the synergy of these two service providers combined under one roof, Hometown’s partners can optimize their processes and tap into new funding sources, effectively addressing the ongoing challenge of limited budgets in school events.
The success of these digital platforms in high school athletics points to a broader trend in education – the increasing importance of mission-driven technology in managing and supporting extracurricular activities. As schools continue to adapt to changing economic landscapes and community expectations, solutions like Hometown will likely play an even more crucial role in ensuring the sustainability and success of athletic programs.
The partnership between schools and Hometown represents more than just a tech upgrade; it’s a strategic approach to preserving, and enhancing, extracurriculars on behalf of student growth.
“We are committed to raising as many funds and simplifying each process as much as possible to keep our programs solvent, and we look forward to achieving these goals with Hometown,” Eckenrode said.
Members of the Newport Beach Independent Newspaper were not involved in the creation of this content.
