Remind, the company that started out as a way for teachers to communicate to parents, is aiming to monetize its business by launching a new feature that enables K–12 teachers to collect money from parents for school activities, whether it’s a field trip, book fair or sports uniforms.
Remind, which has raised $60 million in venture funding, announced the new service, which works just like regular messages on Remind, on its blog. With it, teachers can send invitations to events, which parents can respond to online, on the app or via text. It also lets teachers create group conversations to update parents or to get help coordinating logistics for events. The feature even lets teachers send invitations to people who don’t have a Remind account by sharing the activity link in an email, on the teacher’s website or via social media posts. All of the responses and transactions, if money is involved in the event, are recorded in Remind so teachers have easy access to the information they need. What’s more, since parents are paying for the activities online, teachers and school administrators don’t have to worry about bounced checks, keeping track of who paid what and handling cash. The school’s bank account can even be linked to Remind for secure payments.
In a report, Remind Cofounder and CEO Brett Kopf said the traditional way of relying on cash and envelopes to collect money for various activities per year per student can get very disorganized. By using the new Activities feature, teachers can create an activity, set the price, alert parents and track who paid and submitted the required firms. Remind will make money by charging a 5 percent service fee the parents have to pay for the convenience. After credit card processing fees, it amounts to 2.5 percent of the transaction for Remind.