Most Successful School Fundraiser?

[Madi100]

What has been the most successful school fundraiser that your school has done?

 

[mjkacmom]

Our tricky tray usually generates over $35,000 - pretty good!

 

[yellownovawife]

What is a tricky tray???
Our school does very well with the magazine subscription fundraiser. You are not asking people to buy something they do't already buy - just renew their regular subscriptions.

 

[mickeyboat]

The Little Caesar's pizza fundraiser did very well last year.

This year we tried something different, and I am curious to see how it works out. People are so sick of selling junk to their friends and family - and the schools do not really earn much from each product. They decided to sell custom note pads - printed by the high school's vocational program, and school t-shirts. I think they were a big hit!

Denae

 

[luvmy2sams]

We kicked off a Read-A-Thon on Monday. I'm curious to see how much it will raise. Everything is pure profit for the school so I'm hoping we'll have a high participation rate. It's tied in with this 9-week's reading incentive, so the kids have to be reading anyway.

 

[golfgal]

Our kids' old school sold $90,000+ in magazines every year netting 40%+ from that. My sister's kids' school does a marathon where they require each student to raise so much money and then they clean up the city parks or something, they bring in about $50,000 each year with that and other then a few hundred toward prizes the rest is pure profit.

 

[Madi100]

We kicked off a Read-A-Thon on Monday. I'm curious to see how much it will raise. Everything is pure profit for the school so I'm hoping we'll have a high participation rate. It's tied in with this 9-week's reading incentive, so the kids have to be reading anyway.

Would you explain this a little bit better, pelase?

 

[Madi100]

The Little Caesar's pizza fundraiser did very well last year.

This year we tried something different, and I am curious to see how it works out. People are so sick of selling junk to their friends and family - and the schools do not really earn much from each product. They decided to sell custom note pads - printed by the high school's vocational program, and school t-shirts. I think they were a big hit!

Denae

What a GREAT idea!!!! I'll have to check into this.

 

[yellownovawife]

Still dying of curiousity about "tricky tray"???

 

[mickeyboat]

I googled it. I tsounds like a chinese auction.

http://www.trickytray.com/

Denae

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

googled and found this:

http://www.trickytray.com/

I think our school did something similar - but it was really just a theme basket raffle - never heard that term before.

 

[TheGoofster]

I went to a small private school. There were only 9 of us in my Senior class, yet in one day, with a sponsored FREE car wash we raised about 8,000 dollars. Paid for our entire Sr. Class trip from that one day. (We did WDW by the way).

 

[Savsmommy]

I dont know how successful they were, but the ones I liked.....

For Art, the students painted a picture that you could get there painting put on anything...shirt, tote bag, pillow, ceramic plate etc.. There were a ton of things you could put it on. My DD6 painted a really cute bird with a tree. I spent the most money ordering from this one.

Then they did personalized note pads. On the top it says, From the ______ of
child/childrens name. Then on bottom they put your full name. They came in different colors. Really cute!

 

[padams]

Our school raises about $12,000 from selling gift wrap.

 

[mchames]

Our elementary school raises outrageous amounts of money!

This year we sold around $100,000 in Sally Foster, which our school recieves 50%. We have a Halloween Carnival in the fall which brought in around $25,000 this year.

We do the Scholastic bookfair every January. This is a huge hit and we were able to fill every teacher's "wishlist" and then some, with books last year. We even donated a couple thousand dollars worth of books to other local elementary schools that do not have the same resources that we are fortunate to have. I believe that is the plan again this year. The book fair is in two weeks.

This year the kids have been doing "ArtWorks" which is where their artwork is available for purchase on items such as coffee mugs and notecards. The catalog will be out later this month. I don't know how much money this one will bring in.

Until this year we have done a Silent Auction every spring. This takes a lot of work but has been incredibly profitable. Last year's auction brought in around $75,000 which is why we won't be doing one this year. The PTA has decided to do the auction every other year.

Except for Sally Foster, most of the rest of our fundraisers are "events" so parents really don't fell "nickel and dimed" to death and we raise a great deal of money.

Mary

 

[mjkacmom]

What is a tricky tray???
Our school does very well with the magazine subscription fundraiser. You are not asking people to buy something they do't already buy - just renew their regular subscriptions.

Back in the day, before the PC police, it was called a Chinese Auction. Baskets of stuff (worth between $50 - $150) are donated by businesses and parents, and then people buy tickets for dinner, and buy tickets, to put in buckets in front of the baskets (about 350 baskets, I think, for 700 people). There are different levels of prizes, with different costs for the tickets.

 

[luvmy2sams]

Would you explain this a little bit better, pelase?

Each kid pledges to read in 20-minute sessions as much as they want over the designated time period (ours runs 14 days). They then collect pledges from family & friends. Pledges can be for a flat amount, for a specified amount for each 20 minutes read, or a combination of the two. For example, I can pledge $20 plus an additional $1 for each 20 minutes my DD reads. If she only reads for 14 20-minute sessions during this time period, my pledge committment equals 14x1=$14 plus the $20 flat donation, for a total of $34.

The only cost to our PTF was the printing of the information and pledge forms, which totaled a whopping $4.00 for our small school. Any amounts earned from this drive are complete profit to the PTF. We're projecting this will be a good money-maker for our school. Our parents would much rather write a check than buy things they don't want or need.

We're awarding the readers with the most minutes read in each class a gift card to a local bookstore. The second place finisher will also receive a smaller gift card, and the class with the most total minutes read will receive a pizza party (big incentive at our school for some reason). We're also giving out free snack day coupons and homework passes to kids that reach certain goals and turn in their collected funs by the deadline.

Make sense at all?

 

[KristiKelly]

Tax deductible donation.

This year our school did this and it did really well. So many had complained about selling junk so they tried this. The goal for our school was $25,000.00 and we raised close to $27,000.00. 100% straight to the school. Not bad and we also get to turn it in on our taxes.

Also, in December we did do a t-shirt, sweat shirt sale before Christmas. I'm not sure how much that raised. I don't mind buying that though.

They've also talked about pre-selling school kits at the end of the year for the following school year. You pay a certain amount (I'm thinking $25-35.00). When your child goes into their class on the first day of school next year, all of their school supplies will be at their desk in a bag.

We also have a school store for kids to buy notebook paper, pencils, erasers, pencil grips, etc. The kids feel so big when they get to take their money in for shopping.

 

[CEDmom]

We do a Mardi Gras Casino night that raises around $18000. The other big fund raiser is wrapping paper which raises about $7000. Usually our PTO raises around $35,000 each year. We also have a United Way designated code that brings in around $6000

 

[chicagodisneyfan]

Auctions are very popular here - schools can raise over $500,000-$600,000. Of course these are private schools - but they have great items

Seat at the Oscars
Superbowl Packages
Golf at Augusta
Cruises
European vacations

then a ton of other stuff - people work year round on the auction, but they are great successes