A fundraiser closes in April and lands on the business office in June, and the first question is always the same one: what came off the top, and why is it a different number than last time?
When the deduction is a percentage, the answer changes with every campaign. That is the part a district finance office cannot plan around, and it is a separate problem from whether the rate is high.
Schoolfundr, Hometown's fee-free fundraising platform, charges no platform fee, no setup cost, and no contract. The only deduction is the Stripe processing fee of 2.9% plus $0.30 per donation. What funds the platform is an optional tip the donor can decline, and the donation completes either way. For a district, that turns a moving percentage into one line an auditor can check.
What a clean fee line does for a district audit
District business offices focus on security, data handling, and a paper trail they can follow. A single named deduction matches up faster than a percentage that changes with the campaign total, and the difference shows up every time somebody has to explain it.
What makes this worth the switch is not only the bigger total. It is that the deduction stops moving. Ask any vendor for the platform fee and the processing fee as two separate numbers, the way our own reasons schools choose Schoolfundr lays them out. If a vendor can only give you one blended rate, that is your answer.
The arithmetic worth keeping in mind: if you give up 20% of the funds you raise, you're fundraising for free every five years. Run it on your own last statement rather than on anyone's example. Take the total raised, subtract what actually landed in the account, and you have your real rate. Our breakdown of what platform fees cost a program walks through the same exercise.
Percentage cuts vs optional tips
Traditional models rely on mandatory deductions. Schoolfundr uses an optional donor tip to cover operating costs instead, so the donor chooses whether to support the platform and the school is never billed for it. For your records that matters twice: the school has no invoice to code, and no deduction varies by how generous a given donor felt.
- What to ask your current vendor: the platform fee and the processing fee, as two separate numbers.
- Schoolfundr: no platform fee, no setup cost, no subscription, no contract.
- What you keep: every dollar donated, less Stripe's 2.9% plus $0.30. Cash and check donations you log by hand carry no processing charge at all.
What your office actually has to record
Three things decide how much work a fundraiser creates after it closes.
When the money moves. Schoolfundr holds the funds until your fundraiser ends, and you are ready to withdraw them. There is no trickle of small deposits through the season to match up afterward, which is the version that eats an afternoon.
How it arrives. You choose the route that suits your office: a transfer to a bank account or debit card through Stripe, or a check in the mail. Knowing that timing in advance is what lets an athletic director place an equipment order against money that is actually coming. The cost of a vague payout date is rarely the tool itself; it is the uncertainty, which is the same trap a booking page that overpromises sets elsewhere in a school's week.
What arrived offline. Cash and check donations get logged by hand and count toward the same goal, with no processing charge. They stay visible in the campaign rather than sitting in a drawer until somebody remembers them.
Reporting your office can read
Schoolfundr keeps its own reporting on every donation as it arrives, so an athletic director and a finance officer are looking at the same campaign without anyone building a spreadsheet to get there. That visibility is what keeps a fundraiser off the list of things the business office has to chase.
If your district runs campaigns at several schools at once, Schoolfundr+ adds district-wide visibility across all of them, with no cost or fees to enroll.
Why choose Hometown
- Every dollar, less processing: your program keeps the full donation minus Stripe's 2.9% plus $0.30, and the average Schoolfundr fundraiser saves $2,000 in fees.
- Nothing to sign: no platform fee, no setup cost, no subscription, no contract, so there is nothing to put through purchasing and nothing to renew.
- Supportive partnership: every campaign comes with a dedicated fundraising expert at no extra charge, so launching is not one more thing on somebody's desk.
Broadneck Bruins Soccer in Annapolis raised more than $24,000 on Schoolfundr with no platform fee taken off the top. The whole total went to the team, less standard processing.
What to do next: three checks you can run this week
- Check your last statement: review how much was deducted in platform fees versus processing fees, as two separate figures.
- Compare the take-home rate: calculate the percentage of funds that actually reached the program, then compare it with the rate you were quoted.
- Read the tip terms: confirm whether a donor tip is optional or required to complete a gift, because that decides who is really paying for the platform.
Book a demo and we'll walk the deduction line on your own last statement.
