Second Best Method (FindMe)
While adding participant emails is the best way to the most money, we have another option called FindMe. Under this method, we load only the participant first name/last initial and their group, and you point participants to a url where they can find their participant's page. See an example at https://99pledges.com/fund/schoolexample (search "Jack T")
Some things to note:
We only need first name/last initial
Pages are not indexed by search engines
You can direct everyone to one link where the participants can search and find their pledge page. This removes a lot of friction which will lead to more donations.
Third Best Method (AddMe)
The last resort method is if you get nothing and require parents to create their own students' pages by using the ‘addme’ capability.
All of these methods will yield better results than a paper-based method (cash/check only). However, the results are substantially better when we're able to email participants a link to their page.