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Who they are
The award-winning Orange County School of the Arts (OCSA) provides a creative, challenging, and nurturing environment that offers bright and talented students unparalleled preparation for higher education and a profession in the arts.
Founded in 1987 by visionary educator Dr. Ralph Opacic, OCSA has grown from a small after-school arts program into one of the premier arts schools in the nation. This innovative public charter school embraces and encourages artistic creativity and academic excellence and produces lifelong learners who matriculate to top-tier colleges, universities, and conservatory programs.
OCSA serves a diverse student body and is accessible to all students, regardless of their socioeconomic standing. The school is donation dependent, and no student is offered or denied enrollment based on financial capacity. OCSA is accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).
What they did
Orange County School of the Arts uses Qgiv’s peer-to-peer fundraising platform as a crowdfunding solution to raise funds to put on school plays. Because the production values of the school’s plays are great, the costs associated with putting on the shows are quite high too. That price tag can’t be subsidized by ticket sales alone. Instead of decreasing the production quality of their shows, the school decided to use Qgiv’s peer-to-peer fundraising platform, encouraging students and their parents to crowdfund to see the vision of each play realized.
Parents and students that are passionate about the arts worked hard to get their plays fully funded. They did this by setting up their own crowdfunding campaigns on Qgiv and reaching out to friends and family for contributions to raise the funds needed for each play the school had scheduled.
The result? A resounding success as most of the plays are fully funded thanks to parent and student involvement. In fact, their Legally Blonde play reached 123% of its $4,500 fundraising goal thanks to crowdfunding efforts.
What you can do
Think of innovative ways to use your peer-to-peer platform to fundraise using non-event fundraising. Perhaps you’ve got a production or program that you need to raise funds for. Ask your supporters to not only give, but to help you raise those crucial funds by crowdfunding for your organization. They don’t have to participate in a fundraising event to take advantage of peer-to-peer fundraising tools that help your nonprofit. All it takes is for them to register to fundraise, and then they can start reaching out to friends and family to request support. That’s how the families at Orange County School of the Arts found great success while fundraising.
