Fundraising Ideas for school

[brit]

I would love to hear about successful fundraisers you've seen or been a part of. I'm specifically looking for ways to raise money for our school's athletic programs. These parents are already paying $10k a year to send their kid to school, so they are not open to things like selling wrapping paper. I'd like to be able to raise half the money we need and then can approach parent's that own businesses for sponsorships for the other half. Thanks!

[CrazyLucky]

What age group and how much money are you talking about? There's a low level professional soccer team near me, and for each home game, they have a community organization do the concessions. If that's not available, could you run a concession stand at the football games? Could you set up a 5k? Get local businesses to donate things and o an online silent auction?

[hocus2]

The quickest and most cost effective way to raise money is to:
1. ask directly for it
2. ask for high value gifts (tickets to local events, expensive items you might get someone's work to donate, gifts of time like offering 5 free piano classes etc) and then auction them off.

A lot of managed fundraisers like fun runs, scholastic book fairs, cook books, selling things etc have far less return on your investment so you're only going to do one thing I'd one of the first two. Easy but lower returning options might a restaurant night where you get a cut of the sales. If you have a book store they might have holiday wrapping programs already in place you can join.

[orval]

Our elementary school (private) has an athletic association. They host a couple events as fundraisers. In the fall, they do a tailgate party with the high school that is associated with our school. I think it included tickets to the game and tailgate food.
In the spring, they do a cornhole tournament. This is adults only with beer/wine/food. They have business sponsors for the event advertising and prizes.

[brit]

Jan 15, 2018 15:11:24 GMT -5 CrazyLucky said:

What age group and how much money are you talking about? There's a low level professional soccer team near me, and for each home game, they have a community organization do the concessions. If that's not available, could you run a concession stand at the football games? Could you set up a 5k? Get local businesses to donate things and o an online silent auction?

It's elementary (grades 5-8) and ideally, we need $15,000 to be able to do everything we need for next school year. Concessions at home games is a great idea.

[brit]

Jan 15, 2018 15:11:26 GMT -5 hocus2 said:

The quickest and most cost effective way to raise money is to:
1. ask directly for it
2. ask for high value gifts (tickets to local events, expensive items you might get someone's work to donate, gifts of time like offering 5 free piano classes etc) and then auction them off.

A lot of managed fundraisers like fun runs, scholastic book fairs, cook books, selling things etc have far less return on your investment so you're only going to do one thing I'd one of the first two. Easy but lower returning options might a restaurant night where you get a cut of the sales. If you have a book store they might have holiday wrapping programs already in place you can join.

Great suggestions. I'm looking for the easiest thing to do with the highest ROI. 

[cuadrado]

My old church hosted a dessert silent auction / live auction. People would make their own desserts and then they would get auctioned off. It turned into this HUGE fundraiser where people got really intake making fancy desserts. People wanted to be the one who had the most expensive dessert

[jinkies]

I'm not particularly wealthy, but I have less time than money. I would almost always rather just cut a check for my kid's portion of costs, than have to spend time making/selling/coordinating for a fundraiser. On behalf of other parents like me, please, whatever you do, give parents the option to buy out their portion of the fundraiser if they'd prefer. (Meaning, child can either sell $200 worth of popcorn OR parents can cut a check directly for $100).

[brit]

Jan 15, 2018 15:40:07 GMT -5 jinkies said:

I'm not particularly wealthy, but I have less time than money. I would almost always rather just cut a check for my kid's portion of costs, than have to spend time making/selling/coordinating for a fundraiser. On behalf of other parents like me, please, whatever you do, give parents the option to buy out their portion of the fundraiser if they'd prefer. (Meaning, child can either sell $200 worth of popcorn OR parents can cut a check directly for $100).

Oh, there will be nothing where the parents have to participate. That's why I hate the idea of selling anything. 

[sandandsea]

Our school hosts some events like dances, movie nights, festivals where everything is donated and all proceeds go to the school.

Also asking for donations and company matches works well here.

[trissie18]

I am the fundraising chair for the catholic school our DSs attend (there are <100 students PK3 - 6; participation is about 30% of families). Our annual fundraisers with profit include:

Yankee Candles - $4k

Comedy Night - $2k

Christmas Bazaar/Craft Fair with >100 vendors - $5k

Poinsetta Flower Sale - $250

All-You-Can-Eat Breakfast - $1.5k

Gertrude Chocoloates - $2.5k

Easter Flower Sale - $300

Family Jazz Night - $1k

Memorial Day Basket Sale - $350

Box Tops - $500

ETA: We used to do a fashion show/chinese basket raffle/spaghetti dinner which raised $10k+. Each basket had a minium value of $40 and there were over 100 baskets. A sheet of tickets was $10 for 25 tickets. Baskets were donated by families, local businesses, teachers, administrators, etc.

[tcu2003]

Our elementary school does a fun run - it’s entirely hosted by the PTO, and done during a school day. The goal is for each kid to raise $50, I think. All of the cash except for what they use to buy a snack for the kids after they run around the cones in the playground go to the school - I think they raised around $15k this year.

[egishere]

Class at a local cycle studio. My friend did that for her kids school and it raised like $1500. They had light snacks and mimosas for after.

[broadsheet]

Kroger is the big grocery store chain where I live, and they partner with schools to donate a proceed of all sales on registered rewards cards to the school. So there is literally zero effort on the parent’s part, after they register their Kroger card, and the school gets 5 percent of every grocery order linked to that card.

I think it’s called a community rewards program -it may be worth checking to see if there’s anything similar in your area.

[ellipses84]

I know this is a selling one, most of which I hate doing, but my DS had to sell chocolate bars and they were only $1 each. They were a huge hit. We sold them at his games, at a field that didn’t have a snack bar. Seeking out places like that and selling other drinks/snacks could be a good idea. I think a lot of fundraisers sell way overpriced goods, but this was such a low price point, just about everyone will have a dollar to support a kids fundraiser.

[jewel]

Scrip sales - you get a percentage back on all orders, value depends on brand. Market it to parents as buying scrip cards for places you already shop. It doesn’t cost anyone anything extra.

Restaurants - many local restaurants will do fundraiser nights. Pick one Friday/month (or whatever) and they’ll give you back a pretty decent portion of the night’s sales. You usually have to have a flyer or mention the fundraiser at checkout, but you can have people stand out front and mention it to anyone who goes in, not just school families. We’ve easily made over $1000 a night, with almost no effort.

[tres3]

I know you said no wrapping paper but teams around here have the KIDS sell cookie dough, candles, candies etc.. I assume it makes decent $$ for the teams and gives the kids some experience selling to friends and neighbors.

Also agree about restaurant nights. We went to one last night for my son. It will probably make $1k for my son's school without us really changing our dining habits. 10% of our bill last night went to the restaurant and it was packed on a Monday night.

There is another restaurant here that let's our Mom's group sell gift cards to raise $$ for school. The gift cards cost $100 and are worth $100 at the restaurant but the school gets $20 for every card sold. (it is a nice steak house).

[tres3]

I should ad, my son's school's tuition is well over yours and they still ask for $$ for the annual fund. This year they asked us for $2500 on top of tuition.

[mmmomof2]

Our school does a jog-a-thon (where we solicit grandparents or other relatives to donate) and a straight donation fundraiser (just write a check). We also do the dine outs at local restaurants (these add up, but we're a big school), the cash back from the grocery store/amazon (we put an associates link on our website - way more cash back than amazon smile), and Box Tops. We also have a big Carnival at the end of the year that is fun but a PITA.

Our old preschool used to have a silent auction. We had a committee that got donations from the community (tickets to events, lessons, gift cards to restaurants, etc) and we had a dinner (with cash bar!) at a local golf club to bid on them. You could get great deals, but all the money raised went to the preschool. It easily made over $10K each year. A lot of work for the fundraising committee of course though.

[lindyanne]

Our district has recently cut out most fundraisers. We are allowed two. There are 7 Elementary schools in our district so everyone did different stuff. We do a fun run and a Mayfair. Fun run has business sponsors, kids all get a shirt and try to get sponsors for the run from Family and friends. Mayfair includes raffle baskets (buy tickets and drop them in a box) and silent auction for higher end items. We also have games kids buy tickets for and earn punches on a card that they can trade in for small prizes. Food trucks (I assume they pay the PTO a few or percentage to be there), pizza and drinks and sweet shop with candy and baked goods. The PTO also gets around six blow up items each year - mechanical bull, big slides, laser tag. Different stuff every year. Kids buy a wrist band for unlimited use of these. Our school has about 600 kids but kids and families that don’t go to our school attend as well.

[sparty04]

My high school does a tin can auction every spring. Each sport solicits donations and receives $ based on how many tickets they collect in their cans. It's a big community event and I love going to it. Public school though, small city

[egeiger]

We do an annual fundraising dinner that includes Chinese Auction, Silent Auction and raffle items. This year we raised $30k, based on cash and goods donations from businesses and locals. We raised $5k hosting an alumni softball tournament, and hope to raise another $10-12k hosting a 1 month high end purse lottery.

[sandandsea]

The restaurant ones are my favorite. And ds loves finding friends at them.

[msn06]

What about a reverse raffle? The Catholic high schools athletic department does one every year. Tickets are sold and/or tables, meal is provided and open wine and beer. Each ticket gives you x number of raffle tickets and more can be bought. As your number is called you drop out. There are points in the night you can buyback in. Last one standing wins half the pot, the other half goes to the athletic department. It's huge and raises tons of money.

[arehopsveggies]

Scrip sales -
Convince parents to buy the gift cards for their regular grocery shopping. No extra money spent for them, and a % to the school.

[JayhawkGirl]

Our school’s PTO just asks for direct donations. They ask for $100 per family and don’t do other fundraisers.

Except they do. The kids don’t have sales sheets, true. But we do have tons of restaurant nights (chipotle gives 50% of sales back). Family movie night has a donation basket. Spirit wear includes a profit for the PTO. Back to school night had silent auction items.

Auctioning off parking spots for every school event made our old school a ton of money. So did “cut in the carpool” passes for six cars/year.

Add in the numerous requests for donation items/money for several charity drives and staff appreciation.....it’s a lot.

[gretchenindisguise]

Our jog a thon raised over 30k this year. We are k-6, so more students, but it's probably our biggest fundraiser for the amount of work. The auction probably makes more but is a lot more labor intensive and less kid focused.

[badgergrl]

Our elementary school does a big carnival every year that raises more than 50k- games, food sales, silent auction, balloon pops (&20 a pop) and a variety of raffles (spend $20 kids can win a prize or a popsicle day with a teacher etc). One year they raffled a wheelbarrow of alcohol.

[dale]

Does your school have uniforms? We do a "Box Tops Dress Down Day" every month. Each family send in 50 Box Tops or $5 for their children to have a no uniform day. We've made almost $1400 so far this year.

We also have a HUGE tricky tray auction every year. It's held at the local golf club. Cost is $80 for drinks, apps, dinner, and dessert. The raffle tickets cost extra. Tons of donations come in from local businesses (minor league baseball team, karate schools, restaurants, a resort in FL) and families also donate baskets (family game night, movie tickets, tons of stuff!) There's a 50/50. We literally have a few hundred prizes. That night alone raises about $15K.

[covergirl82]

My kids' elementary school does a walk-a-thon each fall. There are about 650 kids in the school, and last Fall they raised over $22,000. Kids can ask family members and friends for donations, and also try and get corporate sponsors. If each child raises $50, they get an extra recess. We usually write a check for $100 and call it good.

Outside of that, you could do a pop/soda can drive if you live in a state that has a can/bottle deposit. Also, schools in our district do fundraiser nights at local restaurants (e.g., the restaurant donates 15% of bills between specific hours on a specific day).