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How the Right Incentives for Fundraising Help Teams Reach Their Goals
Double GoodFebruary 4, 2026 • Read 3 Min
Many fundraisers start strong, but then lose momentum partway through. Thoughtful incentives for fundraising give your selling team a reason to stay engaged once the initial excitement starts to fade.
When they’re clear and well-timed, incentives support early participation, maintain effort mid-fundraiser, and help your team reach their goals. You don’t need complicated rules or expensive prizes to make your incentives work. A few well-timed fundraising incentives can help keep seller participation high so your team can reach their goals.
How Fundraising Incentives Support Participation
Incentives for fundraising work best when they’re designed for different moments across the event. Early on, incentives help your team get started. Midway through, they help reduce participation dropoff. And then near the end, they give your team a reason to keep pushing toward your shared goal.
South Hills High School’s AVID program is a great example. They used fundraising incentives to motivate participation and keep sellers engaged, ultimately raising over $15,000 to support college campus tours. The incentives were straightforward and easy to understand. The students knew what they could earn individually, and the group had a clear goal to work toward together.
So the most effective incentive programs don’t just rely on a single prize. Instead, they use a tiered approach that motivates participants at every stage of the fundraiser.
A strong incentive plan includes three types of rewards:
1. Participation Incentives to Build Early Momentum
Participation incentives encourage sellers to get started through early actions like setting up their Pop-Up Store® or sharing their store link for the first time. These incentives should be easy to earn and available to everyone on your team, and they aren’t about competing. They’re about helping remove hesitation and increasing overall involvement to start your fundraiser strong.
Examples include:
An ice cream social for everyone who completes their Pop-Up Store setup
A spirit day or themed dress day for sellers who make their first sale
Recognition in meetings, announcements, or group chats
2. Performance Incentives to Motivate for More
Performance incentives motivate participants who are ready to go further. When incentives are offered, 41% of participants join with the goal of becoming a top seller, compared to 28% when no incentives are used. Friendly competition to become a top seller is a fun way to drive higher participation, and high-performing sellers also help drive up your team’s fundraising total.
Performance incentives work best when expectations are clear and rewards feel challenging but attainable.
Examples include:
Gift cards or merchandise for the top seller, like sports equipment or a local restaurant gift card
Special experiences like “coach for a day” or a special skills clinic for the top five sellers
School or team-branded apparel items like hoodies, jerseys, hats, or spirit wear
3. Goal-Based Incentives to Motivate the Final Push
Goal-based incentives celebrate milestones the group works toward together, helping build teamwork and collective excitement. They give teams something to work toward together and are especially effective near the end of a fundraiser, when participation often slows down.
Examples include:
A group party or celebration when the team reaches its fundraising goal
A fun activity day like games, movie time, or open gym time
A school or team-wide experience, like a field trip
A Simple Way to Plan Your Incentives for Fundraising
If you want a clear way to build an incentive program, our Fundraising Incentives Playbook makes building your own plan easy. It includes:
A ready-to-use tiered incentive framework
Incentive ideas for low, mid, and high budgets
A downloadable one-pager incentives overview you can share with sellers and supporters
Putting Fundraising Incentives Into Action
Incentives for fundraising don’t need to be complicated to be effective. When incentives are chosen purposefully, they can meaningfully increase focus, motivation, and results.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about fundraising incentives.
Fundraising incentives don't need a big budget to work. Low-cost options, like a spirit day or a group shoutout, motivates sellers just as well as expensive prizes. The Fundraising Incentives Playbook breaks ideas down by budget level for teams and groups exploring different incentive structures.
A fundraiser can keep its plan focused with three incentives, each tied to a different moment. Use an easy-to-earn participation reward to encourage sellers to get started, a performance reward to motivate continued effort, and a shared goal-based reward that gives the whole group something to work toward. This keeps the plan manageable for organizers and clear for sellers.
Yes. In fact, 82% of Double Good fundraisers say incentives influenced their participation. By encouraging more sellers to get involved and stay engaged, incentives can help strengthen team participation and give the group more opportunities to raise money.
A small team should start with a low-cost incentive that encourages everyone to participate, such as a spirit day or homework-free pass for each seller who makes one sale. Pair it with a small party when the team reaches its goal. You can also use ready-to-share promotional resources to help sellers spread the word and stay involved throughout the event.
Yes. The three-tier approach works the same way for an online fundraiser as it does in person, since the goal is still to keep sellers motivated to share their store link and sell. A Pop-Up Store makes individual progress visible, so performance incentives are easy to track without extra manual work.
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Inspired? Let’s get fundraising.
Get ready to boost your fundraising game. Create a Pop-Up Store that pops and helps you meet your goals.
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