Inpired by the school fundraising thread---what are some GOOD school fundraisers??

[marshallandcartersmo]

We're getting the dreaded wrapping paper and jugged cheese fundraiser starting this Friday. I'm joining the PTA tomorrow, and hoping to eventually offer suggestions about better fundraisers out there. What are some of the good school fundraisers out there??? Are there any??

 

[StitchandPooh'sMom]

Our school requests a one time contribution per student (it is either $50 or $75, can't remember and they haven't asked yet this year) in lieu of any wrapping paper, pizza dough, etc. sales. It is very popular in our school, and the percentage of families participating is close to 100%. All the parents appreciate not going door to door or bringing order forms to work - it is so worth the contribution! The school also gets all of the money, instead of a small percentage of sales.

The other big fundraiser we do is Fall Festival. It is the Friday afternoon before Halloween at the school, and we sell tickets for the games and rides (inflatable slide). Prizes are from Oriental Trading - silly kid stuff. There is a parade of all the kids in their costumes, and there is a cake walk. The big draw is the silent auction - people donate anything (tax deductible) from gift baskets or Halloween crafts to surf boards and weeks at their beach houses. It seems that the school made over $25,000 (if I am remembering right) last year at Fall Festival, and we only have 245 students in the school. Even families without kids in our school come to Fall Festival to have fun and check out the auction. Between Fall Festival and One Big Splash (the contribution drive), all of our PTA activities were funded for the year and we were finished with fundraising in October!

We also do the box tops, but stopped doing Campbell's soup labels this year.

 

[ZanneMarie]

Scrip is a good program. Basically people send in $25 to buy a $25 gift card to their selected store and then the PTO/PTA gets back a percentage of the cost. We use Great Lakes Scrip Company. See the website and it will explain further--- www.glscrip.com It can be a big money maker if you get people in the habit. Even if not a huge money maker it is a relatively easy/painless way to bring in some extra for the school.

 

[luvsmickeymouse]

our local car wash was a good one. You could buy a book of tickets for car washes, or you could just buy one ticket for a car wash. It was actually something that you could use and it was cheaper to buy the tickets for the car wash than just getting the car washed there. Most fund raising items are over priced. This was a good one.

 

[Littlemotherhaywood]

One I really like but have never done is discount cards. A lot of the sports teams back home would sell them. Area businesses offered a discount and it was placed on this card (usually multiple retailers) and the kids would sell them for $10 each. It was usually very much worth it if you used a lot of retailers. Mostly it was restaurants and movie theaters and such, but we always saved what we spent and then some over the course of the year.

 

[HolidayRose]

The elementary school my children went to did one fund raiser--a spellathon. The PTA in conjunction with teachers made up a spelling list for each grade. (The difficulty was age appropriate.) Children were encouraged to get pledges from parents and relatives for spelling words correctly --you could pledge by word or in total. Prizes were awarded for achieving a certain amount of pledges--i.e. a $35 level prize, a $75 level prize, etc. The tests were all administered on the same day, and PTA volunteers graded the tests and send out requests for the amount due. In addition, there were special prizes for most raised by grade and school-wide. Prizes were handed out after the final monies were collected. The grand prize one year was a limo ride with the principal and vice-principal to go for a carousel ride. Children that age still think that's a nice prize. They raised a lot of money that way--I believe over $24000 in a school of 700 children.

 

[Tink n Poohbear]

Last year, my DS's school did cookie dough. I can't remember the name of the company, but they come in cubes. It was SOOO good, I actually had friends ask me about it for this year. Turns out, they're not doing that again, but a neighbor's dd is doing it for cheerleading. I've got several orders for her because I already knew people looking to buy it. It's not often that someone actually seeks out fundraiser products!

 

[GlennandAnn]

Gold Canyon Candles does fundraisers. The candles are really great, very pretty and super fragrant. Their website is www.goldcanyoncandles.com.


Ann

 

[cepmom]

my DD's dance team sells Dutch Mill Bulbs (flower bulbs)and they give 50% of the sales to your organization. A little different than your usual candles, wrapping paper, cookie dough etc. They offer fall and spring sales...the flowers are so beautiful and sell for only $5.00 per package

www.dutchmillbulbs.com

 

[rt2dz]

There is a ton of PTO/PTA information on this website, a whole board dedicated to fundraisers. I'd start doing research there.

The best fundraisers are where parents don't have to sell junk that is over priced to friends, family, & co-workers or the things that everyone else is selling, especially at the same time--like cookie dough. BTW--anyone want to buy some cookie dough???

One that is really good for elementry kids are penny wars. Each class gets a huge container of some sort outside their door. For every penny that gets put in there, the class gets a point. Then other classes can stick nickles, dimes, quarters in there and your class will lose the equivalent points. The class with the most points gets something like a pizza party.

Pledge drives are always good too because then people feel like they get out of the whole thing all together.

Simple things like turning trash to cash are great. These are boxtops, cambell & Tyson labels, and ink cartridge & cell phone recycling. The later actually being quite profitable.

School events are nice too. Talk to restuarants about donating a percentage of profits on a certain night, or skating rinks, movie theaters, book stores. You could host a movie night at school too. Or some type of auction.

Just get rid of those stupid catalog sales!!!!

 

[mamalle]

I agree- the cookie dough rocks dd's school makes quite a bit of money selling the "candy lady" food. I think the school grossed over $120,000.00 in sales last year. the cookie dough is their biggest seller, along with the cheese cakes. I dont have the flyer right now since mil has it with since she took it to work this week. It pretty much sells itself. last year dd sold over 50 items just by me taking it to work and it sitting there on the desk along with mil. women were already asking at the beginning of school year when they could order more. we bake over the holidays and the cookies are always so yummy! this is the only fundraiser that the school does. we do have a fall cookout and a spring carnival that is incredible! they get quite a bit of support from the community and the only thing we do- is put together a themed basket for each class that gets auctioned off.

 

[Stimpy]

Our cub scout pack was doing Holiday wreath sales (& pine roping, centerpieces, christmas trees etc) for a while that were pretty popular since they were different. I think the company was Mickman or something like that.

 

[Toby'sFriend]

we have 2 main ones - a bike-a-thon and a dinner/auction. They alternate those by year and they each will make around $35k. We are a tiny school. There are 160 kids in the High School and around 75 in the Jr. High. Also, each family is asked to contribute $125 annually to the Booster Club which supports all athletics and the music and drama programs. In exchange for that, your family gets into school events for free.

Other things like the Library, the computer Lab etc - are covered by school fees.

Beyond that, Teachers just often publish "want lists" in the school newsletter... ie Ms. _________ would really like an area rug for use in the reading area she is setting up for the 1st Graders. Teacher Wants are almost always fullfilled.

 

[Kim1964]

We did the Kids Art note cards a couple of times, and I really like that one. The kids design their own greeting card in art class (which was coordinated with the art teacher way ahead of time), and then you order as many sets as you want and they get sent to the printer. We're a small school so it didn't make a ton of money, but the people who participated really liked it and requested that it be done again.

Car wash coupons are also a good one. It's nice to buy something that you'll actually use and support a good cause at the same time.

 

[blanq]

I am involved in my school's parent teacher organization, and we do and have done a number of the items already posted. One that hasn't been mentioned, that I would encourage you to consider, is creating a school cookbook. I have worked with G & H Publishing in the recent past and would highly recommend them. We are likely doing a cookbook for my DS's school this year, but I recently completed a book (called "What's For Dinner?"), with some of my staff, for our department at work. I work for a government organization, and we cannot and do not use taxpayers money for our own staff events, like recognition events, so we raise our own money on our own time.

This company will do the typing for you, so your committee needs to market the project, gather and sort the recipes, pick the design, handle sales and a few other small details. For schools and non-profits they will waive a down payment. We did advanced sales, advertising books for $10, and let everyone know that the price would be $12 per book once the books arrived. This was an incentive to purchase early, but also really helped us determine how many books we needed to order so we weren't left with a boatload of them in the end. Our books had 500 recipes, and we sold them below the price suggested by G & H, which I think was around $15.00. The cost per book is cheap, and the mark-up, which your organization sets, leads to lots of profit.

Additionally, you are creating a keepsake. So many people love to cook, so these have wide appeal, and wide gift appeal. We made sure that ours were in right before the Christmas holiday, and advertised what a great gift they would make. We sold oodles and made thousands in profit!!

For marketing purposes we created a few kitchen-related gift baskets that included food items (like salsa made from one of the book's recipes), a cookbook, stand, etc. For every book that people purchased through advanced sales, they were able to enter into a drawing to win one of the baskets.

 

[Catrin]

Our PTO does a Yankee Candle Fundraiser every year.

I cannot believe how much money they raise! The candles are more expensive than at the store.. but they still sell them.

I am glad someone mentioned the Discount Card... the High School does this... and I bought one.. but I have NO IDEA where it is!
Catrin

 

[NoelGypsy]

AVON... I sell AVON and the fundraisers are awesome!!
Most schools make 40 to 50% of everything they sell.
And right now we are starting fundraisers with the sports teams for the new Derek Jeter cologne.

 

[AnninIowa]

As someone who doesn't have children but have lots of children coming to the door selling items, the ONLY thing I like and will buy are candy bars. I do not want to look through a catalog of overpriced wrapping paper or buy $12 tubs of cookie dough. When you have upwards of 10 kids coming to you for sales, you can't afford anything more than a couple candy bars from each. Good ol' World Famous chocolate - can't beat it!!

 

[Soupermom]

I drive into the next town just to order/buy my Market Day...from another school...AND DH and I are both teachers with two kids in our district. I can't say enough great things about Market Day.

Do a search on these boards and you'll read lots of great stuff! Good luck!

 

[momimouse27]

Where I live something that is really popular is the Krispy Kreme fundraisers, and everybody loves them so people are willing to buy that.