2020 Made Us Run Readathons: Launching Fundraising with Reading Challenges in Beanstack
Wednesday, September 22, 2020
2-3 PM ET, 11 AM-12 PM PT

Last school year, two schools using the Beanstack web and mobile application decided to turn our “reading challenge” templates into their own “readathons.” They did so largely because of the need to fundraise virtually while students were learning from home. The readathon format also provided a COVID-safe solution without as many volunteer hours or effort. Best of all, the schools kept over 90% of the funds they raised, a much higher percentage than when running book fairs or fundraisers that are focused on selling products that don’t build a school’s culture of reading.

Our team at Zoobean noticed. We saw the reading challenges at these schools reach unprecedented levels of engagement. So, our senior school success manager reached out to better support each school’s evolving needs. Then, our product manager conducted surveys with our school and public library clients along with 1:1 interviews with several librarians. Our design lead spent two months looking at all the competitors and creating high-fidelity wireframes for our engineering team. And, after an all-hands-on-deck technical and quality assurance process, we are now launching the Beanstack reading fundraiser system for schools. Next up, a similar system for public libraries.

During this webcast, we’ll give you a transparent and straightforward look at every step in our process. This includes the specific areas where we saw problems we could fix, the blind spots that tripped us up, and a one-time look at what we have planned next. Most importantly, we’ll pose a series of questions we still have for you—both for schools considering launching a fundraiser this school year and public libraries interested in using Beanstack to fundraise in the future.

Presenters:

Elizabeth Ross, Senior School Success Manager, Zoobean

Kelly Hiser, Product Manager, Beanstack

Mike Kuzin, Design Lead, Zoobean

David Hopp, Director of School Sales, Zoobean

Moderator:

Rebekah Garrety, Librarian-in-Residence, Beanstack

Can't make it September 22nd? No problem!
Register now and we will email you when the webcast is available for on-demand viewing.


Follow us on Twitter!
@SLJournal #ReadtoRaise2021 #ReadtoRaise #BeanstackFundraisers