PS3 Charrette School in NYC: Fun-raising with a Public Elementary School in Downtown Manhattan

We collaborated with PS3: The Charrette School, an elementary school in Manhattan’s West Village to raise awareness and funds for their longstanding annual 3Fund drive.

We began by moving a massive legacy database from an antiquated system to the open source CiviCRM which allowed 3Fund to take online donations and recurring donations (with an end date). It also allowed us to group donor ‘families’ (eg: students, parents, grandparents) and to track alumni for targeted fundraising in the future.

As the 3Fund drive neared its final weeks, we launched a bold, guerilla-style campaign to draw attention to the drive, and boost donations before the end of the fiscal year.

Our creative strategy was to appeal to students themselves and the donor-funded programs they love—animal studies (hatching ducks!), dance, music, clay studio, drama, Field Day, even the healthy greens added to the daily school lunch menu. We created tabloid-style posters (with inspiration from artist Barbara Kruger and cult brand Supreme) that featured PS3 kids, animated and incredulous that these much-loved programs might disappear without donor support.

Overnight, we papered the colorful, graphic posters throughout the lobby and stairwell. The next morning trading-card-sized versions were handed out to arriving families as a group of students led a demonstration supporting the campaign on the sidewalk in front of the school. Energy was high as the students chanted and held hand-painted signs aloft.

The energy from this “political action” doubled donations in the last two weeks of PS3’s annual fundraising drive.

The Demonstration