Director of Advancement at Redwood Christian Schools, Mike Kady, has been running his school’s Jog-a-Thon for the last 21 years. This year, after researching online pledge drive systems, and being made aware of PledgeStar by his district’s superintendent, Kady decided to give the service a shot.

For over 40 years, Redwood Christian has relied on their annual Jog-a-Thon as one of their top fundraising sources. Without the Jog-a-Thon to supplement the school’s budget, Redwood could not offer the same level of quality programs that it currently does. “Funds raised through our Jog-a-Thon are used for program enhancements, and help fund tuition grants for families who otherwise could not afford a quality private education,” explained Kady.

Until last year, the school used traditional paper pledge sheets. By adding PledgeStar to the mix, Kady saw numbers unlike any he’d witnessed in his previous 21 years. “Our prior record for the event was about $73,000. When we added PledgeStar to the equation, we raised over $102,000.”

Kady credited PledgeStar’s donor email request system for the new fundraising record. “PledgeStar makes it a lot easier to cast a broader net, and invite more people to participate in the event.”

PledgeStar’s donation tracking system also garnered praise from Kady. “PledgeStar’s dashboard makes it easy to track the fundraiser’s real time progress, and it’s fun to see an increase every time I refresh it! PledgeStar definitely makes peer to peer fundraising easy and fun.”