When Bake Sales Aren’t Enough, This Startup Is A Lifeline For Small-Town Schools

In towns where the school gym doubles as a community hub and Friday night lights draw crowds from across county lines, administrators are looking for new ways to support and enhance extracurricular programs.

Edtech company Hometown, which provides easy-to-use online tools for ticketing, fundraising, communications and event management, is working to transform how resource-strapped schools raise money and operate at scale, bringing supporters back to the stands and strengthening community ties across rural areas of the country.

Following its late-2024 merger with zero-fee fundraising platform Schoolfundr, the company is doing more than purpose-built technology — it’s rewiring how rural schools fund the programs that define community identity. For small-town schools, access to Hometown’s Schoolfundr fundraising platform is particularly crucial, as it enables them to look beyond their local communities for donations and tap into support far beyond their geographic reach.

“Schools in rural areas can be limited by the traditional fundraising ecosystem,” said Hometown CEO Nick Mirisis. “Because our platform removes fees and expands reach beyond town lines, it’s proving especially impactful for smaller communities that often have fewer local donors but deep networks of supporters eager to contribute from afar.”

Breaking Through The Zip Code Barrier

Bake sales, booster clubs, and local sponsorships have long been staples of school fundraising — but for rural districts, these methods often fall short of achieving the full funding goals of a campaign. With small, dispersed populations spread across large geographic areas, traditional approaches can severely limit a school’s ability to raise meaningful funds.

Hometown, now supporting over 17,000 K–12 schools, colleges, and universities nationwide, is working to change that. The company’s growth is grounded in a commitment to serve schools of all sizes — especially those in communities that have historically been overlooked by tech-driven solutions.

Consider Saluda High School in South Carolina. With a town population under 3,500, the school’s softball team launched a successful digital fundraiser through Hometown’s platform that drew donations from alumni and supporters well beyond city limits. And because Hometown’s Schoolfundr tool doesn’t take a cut of the donations, the team kept every dollar raised (minus standard credit card processing fees).

“In small towns, these programs aren’t just extracurriculars — they’re culture. They are the fabric of the community, where everyone gathers, where everyone creates shared experiences,” Mirisis said. “Digitizing how they’re supported means more money goes directly to students.”

In Texas, Santa Gertrudis Academy, a school categorized as 3A, or medium-sized, with under 500 students, looked to fundraising to finance critical facility improvements. By shifting to digital-first outreach with Schoolfundr, they were able to maximize donations by enabling fundraising beyond their district.

Hometown’s data solidifies this narrative. According to the company, a majority of dollars – roughly 60%, to be exact – raised through online campaigns on Schoolfundr originate outside the school’s area code. For rural schools, that number is often even higher, as much as 75%.

“We’re seeing long-distance giving become a lifeline for rural schools,” Mirisis said. “Community members, alumni who’ve moved away, extended family, even supporters of specific programs are now reachable in just a few clicks.”

This long-tail support has driven growth for programs beyond mainstream sports. At Ronald E. McNair Middle School, mariachi ensemble Los Retadores raised $14,500 through Hometown’s Schoolfundr platform— demonstrating that cultural arts, like sports, can tap into donor support with the right tools at their disposal.

Tech That Saves Time, Not Just Money

Beyond donations, Hometown’s pitch is part innovation, part simplification. The same school leaders juggling a host of classroom and operational responsibilities can now handle digital ticketing, financial tracking, and fundraising within one dashboard.

That efficiency matters. Many rural athletic directors are solo operators. Cash-handling is risky and time-consuming. Hometown’s ticketing system streamlines game-day logistics and offers real-time revenue data, critical for making smart budget decisions on the fly.

“Most of our ADs are heroes who are doing the jobs of 2 or 3 people, and that can cause them to run on fumes sometimes,” Mirisis said. “We want to give them time back, and tools that make that time count.”

Jay Govan, Assistant Athletic Director at Northside Independent School District, put it more plainly: “Nick is such an innovator, gathering teams for one common goal.”

Perhaps the biggest shift is psychological. When digital tools help a rural school exceed its goals, community members start to believe that small schools can achieve big things. That success becomes a flywheel.

“A campaign that works becomes more than a fundraiser—it becomes proof,” Mirisis said. “Proof that a small school can punch above its weight. That a town can rally support. That distance doesn’t define opportunity anymore.”

That sentiment echoes in places like Saluda, where real-time campaign updates became a point of community pride—and a shared signal that rural schools can access many of the same resources as their urban counterparts.

Maximizing Impact

With 400 new schools live on Schoolfundr this past Winter, Hometown has its head down building more backend tools for administrators by expanding automated donor communications, analytics for campaign optimization and further removing friction for supporters. It’s not flashy. But for many schools, especially in rural areas, it’s foundational.

“We want every student to have the resources they need, regardless of ZIP code,” Mirisis said. “We’re building the infrastructure that makes that possible.”

For many rural school districts, extracurricular and athletic programs are often challenged with limited resources. With smaller populations, reduced tax bases, and geographic isolation, these schools frequently struggle to provide the same opportunities that their urban and suburban counterparts enjoy. Yet across America's small towns and rural communities, a quiet revolution is taking place as digital fundraising and ticketing platforms are helping level the playing field for schools that have traditionally faced uphill battles in resourcing their programs.

BDG Media newsroom and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.