Running a fundraiser entirely online isn’t a backup plan anymore. For a lot of PTAs, it’s the smarter plan. No venue to book, no weather to worry about, no families who can’t make it because of work or a conflict on the calendar.
The strongest virtual PTA fundraisers share three things: a specific dollar goal, a clear deadline, and a payment link that’s easy to find and easy to use. This post covers 10 virtual PTA fundraiser ideas, from simple donation campaigns to ticketed events, plus practical guidance on running an online PTA fundraiser and collecting payments without the usual friction.
For a broader look at PTA fundraising options including in-person formats, see our PTA fundraising ideas guide.
Why Virtual Fundraising Works for PTAs
Virtual PTA fundraising means running a campaign entirely online: collecting donations, selling items, or ticketing events through a payment link instead of at an in-person event.
The biggest argument for going virtual is access. A family that can’t make it to a Friday night event can still donate to your library fund, buy a spirit wear item, or join a Tuesday trivia night over Zoom. You reach more people because participation doesn’t require showing up anywhere.
Virtual fundraisers also remove a significant chunk of the planning overhead. You’re not coordinating a venue, arranging setup volunteers, or managing the chaos of an in-person checkout line. A well-built online collection page does most of that work for you.
And once you have a setup that works, it’s easy to repeat. Same structure, new goal, new school year.
10 Virtual PTA Fundraiser Ideas
Virtual Fundraisers That Run From a Single Payment Link
Peer-to-Peer Giving Campaign
In a peer-to-peer fundraiser, each participating family gets a personal fundraising page and collects donations from their own network: grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors, coworkers. The PTA sets an overall goal, and individual pages roll up to it.
The reason it works is reach. Instead of waiting for donors to find your campaign page, your community spreads the ask exponentially. Every participant becomes a fundraiser, and every fundraiser brings in donors your PTA would never have reached on its own.
See what a live campaign page looks like with the free giving campaign template and use it for free to launch your own.
Online Donation Campaign with a Specific Goal
A targeted online donation campaign ties a single payment link to a named outcome and a deadline. No event required, no app for donors to download. “Help us fund 200 new library books” raises more than “donate to our PTA.” The more specific the ask, the more it converts.
Virtual Readathon
A virtual readathon is a pledge-based fundraiser where students collect donation commitments upfront, log reading minutes over a set window (usually one to two weeks), and supporters pay online after. Cheddar Up handles pledge collection via a payment form with no paper pledge sheets needed.
Did you know?
Voyager K-8 PTO raised over $21,000 from their first readathon on Cheddar Up with 150 participants. Read their full success story to see how they set it up.
Virtual Fun Run or Walkathon
A virtual fun run uses the same pledge structure as a readathon but ties donations to physical activity. The key difference from an in-person fun run is flexibility: instead of everyone showing up at school on the same day, students complete their laps, miles, or minutes of movement on their own schedule, at a park, around the block, or in their backyard. And without the logistics of an in-person event, the planning lift is a fraction of what a traditional fun run takes.
Online Spirit Wear Sale
An online spirit wear store lets families order branded merchandise during a set window, with no upfront inventory cost to the PTA. Open it for two to three weeks, take orders, then purchase only what you need. No leftover stock or financial risk.
Start with the free spirit wear store template, add your items, and open for orders.
Digital Product or Resource Sale
A digital product sale lets the PTA sell a downloadable item (a school-year calendar, a student art print collection, or a community recipe book) with Cheddar Up handling payment and delivery via follow-up email.
The production work is real, but if you have a creative volunteer who can put together the asset, the fundraiser runs with almost no ongoing effort.
Hybrid Virtual Fundraising Ideas
These three virtual PTA fundraisers are fully online. Families register and pay online, and the event itself happens over video. A PTA fundraising platform like Cheddar Up handles registration and payment in a single step; you run the live event through the appropriate platform of choice.
Virtual Movie Night with Paid Access
A virtual movie night is a ticketed fundraiser where families pay for a household streaming link and watch a licensed family film together on a set evening.
Licensing a film for virtual screening is straightforward through a service like Swank Motion Pictures, which offers school and nonprofit licensing specifically for this purpose. Pick a family-friendly title, set a ticket price, and promote it the same way you would any event.
Virtual Trivia Night
A virtual trivia night is a ticketed event where families pay entry through Cheddar Up in advance and join a live game over Zoom or a platform like Kahoot at a set time. A parent volunteer MCs; questions can be general knowledge, school-specific, or themed to the time of year.
Trivia nights work especially well for working parents because evening timing is easy to plan around, and the format is genuinely fun for adults.
Online Cooking or Craft Class
An online cooking or craft class is a ticketed virtual event where a local chef, volunteer, or business hosts a live session over Zoom, and families register and pay in advance through Cheddar Up. The registration form captures the attendee count and add-on options in one step (kit pickup vs. source your own supplies), with no separate registration tool required.
Virtual Game Night or Family Bingo
Virtual family bingo is a low-production virtual PTA fundraiser where families buy digital bingo cards through Cheddar Up, receive them by email, and play live over Zoom for gift card prizes or donated items. This is the lowest-production option in the ticketed event category. Themed nights (holiday bingo, school colors night) reliably increase participation.
How to Collect Money from Your Online PTA Fundraiser with Cheddar Up
Once you’ve picked your virtual PTA fundraiser format, getting paid is the easy part. Cheddar Up gives you a collection page, a shareable payment link, and automatic tracking from the first donation to the last.
A few things worth knowing as you set up:
For peer-to-peer campaigns, each participant gets their own fundraising page, individual donations roll up to your campaign total, and you can track progress across the whole effort in one place.
Keep separate collection pages for separate fundraisers. It keeps your reporting clean and makes it easy to see how each one is performing at a glance. If you’re running multiple campaigns throughout the year, a Cheddar Up group page gives your community one place to land and find everything that’s active.
Cheddar Up lets you collect payment and information in the same step. For a simple donation drive, you may only need a name and an amount. For spirit wear, you need size and item selection. For event registration, you need headcount and possibly dietary info. Add custom form fields to any collection page, and the payer handles everything at once.
By default, Cheddar Up passes processing fees to the payer, which means your PTA receives the full amount collected. You can adjust this if your group prefers to absorb them.
Copy your collection page URL, drop it into your email, post it in your school Facebook group, and pair it with a QR code for any printed flyers. Parents who see the campaign more than once are more likely to follow through.
Simplify PTO coordiination!
See how one PTO uses Cheddar Up to keep everything in one place
Why Some Virtual PTA Fundraisers Flop (And How to Avoid It)
A well-built campaign page isn’t enough on its own. Most virtual fundraisers underperform for the same handful of reasons.
- No deadline. Open-ended campaigns stall. “Donate anytime” becomes “donate never.” Set a close date and put it in every communication.
- One email and done. Most donors need more than one touchpoint. Plan a launch announcement, a midpoint reminder, and a final push. The last 48 hours typically drive a significant share of donations.
Pro Tip:
A simple three-email schedule works for most campaigns: one to launch, one at the halfway point with a progress update, and one 48 hours before close with a specific dollar gap to fill (“We’re $400 away from our goal”). That last email is often the highest-converting of the three.
- Families can’t find the link. Post it in your school Facebook group, include it in the teacher newsletter, and put a QR code on any flyer going home in backpacks. The easier it is to find, the more people follow through.
- The ask is too vague. “Support our PTA” raises less than “help us buy 200 library books.” Tie your campaign to a specific, named outcome.
- No one knows what they’re paying for. For hybrid events especially, be clear about what families get when they pay: what the event is, when it happens, and how they join.
None of these are hard fixes. A deadline, a second email, and a specific ask can be the difference between a campaign that limps across the finish line and one that hits its goal with a week to spare.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is virtual fundraising for PTAs?
Virtual PTA fundraising means running a fundraiser entirely online, collecting donations, selling items, or ticketing events through a digital payment link instead of at an in-person event. It removes venue logistics and reaches families on their own schedule.
What are the best virtual fundraiser ideas for PTAs?
Peer-to-peer giving campaigns, online donation drives with specific goals, spirit wear sales, and virtual trivia nights consistently perform well. The best fit depends on your PTA’s volunteer capacity and parent community. Pledge-based formats like readathons work well for elementary schools, while spirit wear and ticketed events work across grade levels.
How do PTAs collect money from online fundraisers?
The most common setup is a payment link or collection page where supporters pay by credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or eCheck. Cheddar Up allows you to create these pages, automatically tracks all payments, and lets you add form fields for any additional information you need alongside payments.
Can a PTA fundraiser be entirely online?
Yes. Most fundraiser formats, including donation campaigns, spirit wear sales, pledge drives, and ticketed virtual events, work fully online. Families pay through a link with no app download or account required.
What are easy virtual fundraiser ideas for small PTAs?
An online donation campaign with a specific goal is the lowest-lift option. It requires one collection page, a payment link, and an email to your list. Virtual bingo is a close second for PTAs that want an interactive event without heavy production work. The main tools you need are Zoom and a free bingo card generator.
Before You Go
Your PTA has enough to manage without adding a complicated fundraising setup to the list. Cheddar Up makes it easy to run virtual PTA fundraisers, collect payments, and track everything in one place with no technical experience needed. Watch a 3-minute demo or sign up for a live learning session to see how it works.
You may also like:
What does a PTA president do? Duties and responsibilities
Getting elected PTA president is equal parts exciting and terrifying. One minute you’re celebrating, and the next you’re wondering what comes next. So what does the job involve? As PTA president, you’ll lead the organization, keep the board working together, and help your group stay focused on supporting students and families.
This guide walks through what to expect, from working alongside the rest of your board to navigating a typical school year. You’ll also find tools and tips that can make the administrative side of the role easier.
A PTA president is the elected leader of a parent-teacher association who guides the organization, leads meetings, and serves as the main point of contact between the PTA, school leaders, and your community. You help keep the board aligned, members informed, and everyone working toward the same goals. Local PTAs are part of a nationwide network connected to the National PTA, which offers resources and guidance for leaders at every level.
PTA vs. PTO: Which Parent Group Is Right for Your School?
PTA and PTO are often used interchangeably, but they’re actually two different types of parent organizations. The difference matters because it affects everything from where membership dues go to how your group is governed and what resources are available.
Starting a new parent group? Joining the board? Just curious what all those letters mean? This guide breaks down the PTA vs. PTO difference, compares each option side by side, and helps you decide which is the best fit for your school.
A PTA (Parent Teacher Association) is a chartered member of the National PTA. Members pay dues, a portion of which goes to the national and state organizations, and the group follows PTA bylaws in exchange for training, resources, and a voice in education advocacy. A PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) is an independent group with no national affiliation. It keeps all its funds local, writes its own bylaws, and handles its own nonprofit status and insurance.
10 Best PTO and PTA Fundraising Platforms (2026)
This guide is for PTA and PTO leaders comparing fundraising platforms before making a decision.
Picking a fundraising platform should take an afternoon, not a semester. But with dozens of options out there, most PTA and PTO leaders end up doing one of two things: choosing whatever a predecessor used or going with whichever platform they heard about at a conference.
Neither approach is wrong. But if you’re setting up your group for a new year, or switching away from something that’s been driving you (and parents) a little crazy, it helps to have a real comparison.
We reviewed the field of PTA and PTO fundraising companies and narrowed it to the 10 that make sense for PTA and PTO operations. Not generic school software. Not platforms built for large nonprofits. The ones parents and volunteers are using to run fundraisers, collect dues, sell spirit wear, and get paid without chasing anyone down.
How to Run a PTA Membership Drive (2026 Guide + Letter Template)
A strong PTA membership drive sets up everything else your PTA does. Membership dues support programs, events, and initiatives throughout the school year, while a growing membership base helps build engagement across your school community.
This guide walks you through how to run a PTA membership drive from start to finish, including when to launch, how to increase sign ups, and a PTA membership drive letter template you can customize and send to families.
A PTA membership drive is the annual campaign a school’s parent-teacher association runs to recruit members and collect dues for the upcoming school year. The goal is simple: make it easy for families to join the PTA and support the programs, events, and initiatives that benefit your school community.
Tags:
