Read-a-Thon Planning Report Generator

What the plan includes

The generator puts the rest of this site's tools into one document you can print and hand to your board, principal or co-chairs. It asks only for things you already know or can decide in a meeting, and it fills in the rest with the same rules the guides recommend.

• A one-page summary: reading dates, each reader's minutes goal, the group goal to announce, the two due dates (logs, then money), the celebration date and, for fundraisers, an estimated net. If your dates or launch weeks overlap Thanksgiving week, winter break, a federal Monday holiday, spring break season or summer, the summary warns you.
• A dated timeline from approval eight weeks out to thank-yous after the celebration. It is the same plan as the planning calendar, and you can add every date to your own calendar with one click.
• A money plan: the estimate, the arithmetic behind it, a pledge menu you can paste into your parent letter, what one donor owes at light, typical and avid reading, a budget, which change would move your total most, and a goal check if you enter a net goal.
• A roles table with a blank column for names.
• A print list of the free printables that fit your ages, languages and type of group.
• The ground rules to put in writing, so families hear the same thing from everyone.

Choose "One classroom, no money" and the plan drops every money step: no pledge menu, no treasurer, no money deadline, and a celebration two school days after logs come in. Choose "Library or Friends group" or "Church, scouts or community group" and the timeline, roles and print list use your people and places (desk staff and volunteers, a drop box or the treasurer) instead of teachers, an assembly and the school office.

Where each number comes from

Nothing in the report uses its own math. Every figure comes from the same calculation code as the single-purpose tools: enter the same numbers in the report and in a tool and they agree to the cent. The fundraising calculator opens with different example inputs (it asks for minutes and a cap directly, while the report works them out from your daily goal), so the two opening estimates differ until you match the inputs.

In the report	How it is worked out	Same as
Each reader's goal	Comfortable minutes a day × reading days	The goal-setting rule on our questions page
Group goal to announce	Readers × minutes a day × days, rounded down to a round number so it is reachable	Same rule
Dates and due dates	Planned backward and forward from your first reading day: logs due two school days after reading ends, money due on the day you choose (9 days is the default), celebration after the money deadline	The planning calendar tool
Estimated collected and net	Readers × share with a donor × donors each × amount pledged per donor, with the per-minute part reduced by your collection rate, less fees and your budget	The fundraising calculator
Suggested per-minute cap	Rate × each reader's minutes goal, rounded down to a whole $5 (at least $5), so the cap is reached close to the goal	The cap rule in our pledge guide
What one donor owes	At half, exactly and three times the typical reader's minutes, under flat, uncapped and capped pledges	Model comparison calculator

Worked example

Example A hypothetical school of 400 readers plans a two-week event starting Monday, February 1, 2027, with 15 minutes a day as the comfortable daily amount. Supporters can give flat or per minute. The example assumes half the readers get a donor, 3 donors each, a $25 average flat gift, 60% of donors giving flat, 5¢ a minute for the rest, 90% of per-minute pledges collected, 3% fees and the site's example budget of $300 recognition, $150 celebration and $150 printing.

Arithmetic Each reader's goal is 15 × 14 = 210 minutes. The group goal is 400 × 15 × 14 = 84,000 minutes, announced as 80,000. The suggested cap is $0.05 × 210 = $10.50, rounded down to $10, reached at 200 minutes. A donor pledges 0.6 × $25 + 0.4 × $10 = $19 on average. 400 × 50% = 200 readers with a donor, × 3 = 600 donors, × $19 = $11,400 pledged. Collected: 600 × ($15 + $4 × 0.9) = $11,160. Net: $11,160 − $334.80 fees − $600 budget = $10,225.20.

The dates come out as: logs due Wednesday, February 17 (Monday, February 15 is Presidents' Day, so the second school day after reading ends is Wednesday); money due Tuesday, February 23; celebration Friday, February 26. The report also notes that two December planning steps fall in winter break and moves them to Friday, December 18.

The example also shows something the plan makes visible: with a modest 15 minutes a day, a 5¢ per-minute pledge tops out at $10. Per-minute pledges feel tied to reading, but with short daily goals they produce small gifts. That is one reason the guides recommend a flat gift as the default and per-minute with a cap as the alternative. When the suggested cap is under $15, the report says so and suggests either flat gifts only or a higher rate: here, Arithmetic 10¢ × 210 minutes = $21, rounded down to a $20 cap.

One cap on every document. The pledge sheet, the letter templates and the donor emails show "5¢ a minute up to $20" as an example built on a 400-minute goal. Whatever cap your plan uses, write that same cap on the letter, the pledge sheet and every donor message, so families and supporters never see two different numbers.

Choosing your inputs

• Comfortable minutes a day: pick what your youngest readers can do on a busy night. For elementary readers, start somewhere between 10 and 20 minutes and adjust; a goal most readers reach is worth more than a stretch goal few reach.
• Share with a donor, donors each and gift size: use last year's numbers from any donation-based event you ran. If you have none, run the plan twice, cautious and optimistic, and plan spending around the cautious one.
• Dates you are closed: add spring break, teacher workdays and any district day off. The timeline, due dates and celebration move around them, and the summary lists them so your board sees what the plan assumed.
• Budget lines: decide them before launch. The prize guide shows how to keep recognition inside the number you set.
• Net goal: enter what the money must pay for. The goal check tells you how many readers need at least one donor to get there.

Method note: the report is arithmetic on your inputs, not a prediction. Pre-filled values are examples chosen to make the math easy to follow, not averages or benchmarks. See our editorial standards.

Privacy

The generator runs in your browser. Nothing you type, including the event name, is saved or sent anywhere, and it never asks for student or donor names. When you leave the page, the plan is gone, so print it or add the dates to your calendar first.

Next steps

• Read the complete read-a-thon guide with your printed plan beside you.
• Adjust one lever at a time in the fundraising calculator to see what it is worth.
• Copy the parent letter from our letter templates and paste in your pledge menu and dates.
• Use the planning checklist to split the work.