OT - Good school fundraiser ideas needed...

[kathmzh]

A real quick-turnaround thing we do is a few movie nights at the school a year. We even did one of them outside. We charged $5 per family and got candy from BJ's or Costco. Families bring blankets and/or lawn chairs. We had someone donate a popcorn machine for the night and charged a couple of dollars for a bag of popcorn. We used movies from our own collections (G or PG, of course) and got the necessary equipment from the high school. Pure profit and lots of fun!

 

[Tensixmom]

Here are some of the fundraisers that we do year after year and they seem to pull in quite a bit of money:
See's Candy Sales: the boxes not the candy bars, and we usually do this at Easter.
Carnoween: we have a carnival type activity prior to halloween, no rides but activities and game, horse drawn carriage and food. We sell tickets for food and the activities. Brings in a ton of money, but is not something you can throw together takes a lot of planning.
Scholastic Book Fair: done several times during the year, doesn't bring in a lot of money but the kids like it cause they good new books, and the teacher go through and put out wish list for the classroom so parents can donate books.
Non-Traditional Fundraising: E-Scrip, Target, Albertsons Grocery, Safeway grocery, Box Tops for education.
This year we tried a new fundraising program and I don't know what the results were cause it occured over the summer. We went through a company that would put together a package for each grade of all the back to school stuff a kid would need: notebooks, erasers, etc. You log on to their website purchase the package for whatever grade your child is in, and they kick back money to the school. The site is www.buyschoolstuff.com. Too late to start now, but for next year it might be an option. And they deliver to your home and you don't have to go out to the stores, a major plus.

Good luck with your fundraising.

 

[D L and K's Mom]

Our Barnes and Noble helped me set up a GREAT art sale/book sale. They had great ideas and gave us the posters, flyers etc. The $$ you earn can be used for books of you can get a check (they give you more towards books of course). The way it works is one day is designated as "YOURS" and anyone who is buying books has to mention your school or give a voucher and the school gets a portion of the books. We made $$$ and we had a great time. We had children and teachers scheduled to read throughout the day and we decorated the store with Artwork. It was great and some moms went while the children were at school and others came at night...no pressure to sell. The flyers were sent home and could be given to neighbors, relatives etc...you cannot hand them out in the store or bother customers in the store.

Another thing we are trying this year is we are contacting some of the local museums etc to see if they will donate a family pass to our school. The pass can be signed out for $10 (or whatever you set it as) and then family can use it for the day they sign it out. The museums win because usually the parents buy lunch or stuff in the store and quite a few parents have purchased memberships after visiting. My SIL's public library does this. We are just in the planning stages right now.....not sure if it will work or not but we are hoping. Since I opened my big mouth I will be the one starting it in the fall.........

 

[gower525]

I am a teacher and every year each classroom has to put together a basket to be auctioned off. ( gardening, movie, Titans, summer fun, etc.) Each basket has a theme. Parents in the classroom donate materials to put in the basket. I have done this at two schools. The first was fairly affluent - and it did very well. Parents definitely paid more when there were things in the baskets made by the kids ( flower pots, painted aprons, stories). My school now, however, has a 95% poverty rate. The baskets (which the teachers end up putting most of the money into) usually go for $5-$10. My sister's school does the same thing in a very affluent area. You wouldn't believe those "baskets". They had tons of gift cards, bikes, manicures, you name it. Some of them go for $1000 or more. You just have to know your parents and what they are willing to pay.

 

[sharlon]

Another NC mom here. I was PTA President at our school, and here are some of the things we have done/do. We are going back to an old fundraiser this year, a Readathon. It's a great kickoff for the Accelerated Reader program and has, historically, raised close to $20,000 for the school. We also do Original Artworks and this year are doing some program (don't know the name, sorry) where the company frames artwork and you display them in the school where parents can come in, take it down, and buy it matted and framed. We do Scrip at Christmas which usually takes in about $1200. The movie night is a spring event for us, but you have to be careful in NC. We found out you can't charge for a movie without permission in NC, even if it is for a non-profit. Anyway, hope this helps, and Good Luck!

 

[mommybunnyof2]

This is our second year doing an auction. We get donations from local businesses, families and teachers. It's held in the evening (adults only) and is billed as a night out for parents. It is themed and we rented our community center and have our food catered. All of our costs are covered by business donations.
We have a silent auction with baskets/experiences and we have a live auction with the bigger items. Last year we had a piano and a few vacation giveaways. We also live auction the most popular thing -- principal for a day. The winning student (parents bid for them) gets to shadow the principal for the day, make the morning announcements, etc. The other very popular items were experiences with the teachers such as making cookies, seeing a movie, bowling, two hours of playing your favorite board game. We also had a homeroom mom who painted each child in her kindergarten class onto a white framed mirror that she bought at Lowe's for $20 -- that sold for over $300. This is our only fundraiser for the entire year and we hope to make over $30,000.
It's been great for our school because our parents would rather get together with their neighbors (we live in a planned community) and have fun while raising money for their kids school instead of trying to sell wrapping paper, etc.
MommyBunnyof2

 

[MomofCKJ]

I haven't read them all so I don't know if its been mentioned but we did quite well with a Yankee Candle fundraiser last fall. It was great timing for holiday shopping.

Also we have done the artwork one and loved it. We used Square One Art.
Allyson

 

[Minnie's Pal]

Ok, what's Scrip? I tried to research it, but I'm still a little "muddy" on how it works...

 

[IDoDis]

How about a fall carnival? Our school does a spring fling (carnival) every year. Each teacher signs up to run a booth (cake walk, games, etc..) and charge between 1 and 4 tickets. Presell the tickets at 5 for $1.00, and then the day of the carnival they are 4 for $1.00. We have local vendors sell pizza, hotdogs & soda and the school gets a percentage of the profit. We have classes sing songs on the cafeteria stage, and parents pay 4 tickets to watch. We also have a silent auction in the library. Every class does a themed basket and the kids bring in the items (gardening, dogs, movies etc..) and we have a silent auction. The carnival is the largest fund raiser of the year.

A smaller fundraiser would be to sell Smencils. http://www.smencils.com/

The kids at school will buy them like crazy so they won't really have to go door to door. They come in several scents. PTA can sell them during recesses. Those will sell out in only a few days.

My DD's skating club sold raffle tickets ($2.00 each) to raffle off a Nintendo Wii. That would make a ton of money (make sure you find a Wii first). You could also get local businesses to donate other prizes (manicures, dining certificates, etc.). Do the raffle during a PTO meeting or during open house.

 

[MomofCKJ]

A smaller fundraiser would be to sell Smencils. http://www.smencils.com/

The kids at school will buy them like crazy so they won't really have to go door to door. They come in several scents. PTA can sell them during recesses. Those will sell out in only a few days.

The 7th graders sold Smencils this year at school and they were a huge hit! They sold them in the Elementary School and my DDs and all their friends wanted them They were just $1 so very inexpensive, not sure how much profit they made off each one but they sold a LOT of smencils!

Allyson

 

[Mean Queen]

Our school has a knowledge a thon also but last yr and this yr the proceeds are going straight to a new playground so the PTA needs something else this yr. so they are trying a "no selling anything fundraiser" every family is asked to donate $20. a child (or more if they can) or what the wish, if they want to participate and then not have to sell anything if enough is raised. Last time I spoke to any of the officers it was being well received! Everyone is sick of selling stuff and would much rather just write a check and more money actually goes to the kids this way.

Our school did this 2 years ago and it went so poorly they had to do an emergency fundraiser in the middle of the year to cover what they had projected. I had figured everyone would love to just give the school money rather than buy more junk. But not at our school. The cookie dough fundraisers always seem to do well along with the Entertainment books. We also sold the Chick Fil A calendars.

 

[WildGrits]

Yankee Candles did good at my Niece's School last year.

Girl Scouts have done skating night and a HomeSpun with good results.

 

[Disney Crazy Debbie]

I am interested in ideas, too. Our high school choir has been approved to travel to Great Britain (Dublin, London, and Cardiff) to perform during spring break.

 

[NicksMommy]

Mary Kay is a great fund raiser! Easy to sell and 50% profit! As well as no upfront money going out!!

 

[ptmmg]

the smencils look really cool I am going to look into that one for ds hockey team!

 

[shannon47142]

A local elementary school does a Spell-a-thon. The grade level teachers create a spelling list, the kids collect pledges for each word spelled correctly, the teachers get a grade in the book and the group collects money!
Good luck!

 

[mickeylove2]

Ok, what's Scrip? I tried to research it, but I'm still a little "muddy" on how it works...

I'm not really familiar with Scrip but I see that no one has answered so I'll try!! Scrip is a gift card program...there is a list of stores that participate and also next to that is a percentage of what you earn. For example, Acme is listed and if I remember correctly it is 5% earning...so parents buy the gift cards, at no savings on that; $20 is $20, but on a $20 gift card, your school earns $1, since Acme is a grocery store, I would buy $100 GC so the school profits $5. Gap is another one that I suspect would bring in some money...I don't remember what other stores are listed, I think about 30 or so and the %% is anywhere from 3%-10% I believe. The parents, neighbors, who ever buy what they want and when they go to the store they use it like a debit/credit card! My PTO doesn't do this but I am trying to get them involved in it!!

 

[mickeylove2]

One activity that we did was host a Spring Fling event...after spring break we held a carnival where we had about 50 game booths; each game was 1 ticket and we sold tickets for about 25 cents each, we also had a cotton candy machine, popcorn machine, we sold pizza, uncrustables, chips, drinks, baked goods, candy, water ice, and charged for those items. a "meal" was slice of pizza or uncrustable, drink, bag of chips, and a baked good or candy for $3- everything was donated so it's a 100% profit, we charged $1 for popcorn, cotton candy and water ice. The kids loved it! We also had 5 gallon water jugs set up in the cafeteria for about 2 weeks prior to this and had certain teachers pictures on the jugs and the kids put in spare change to vote for the teacher to get a pie in the face, we even kept them up during the Spring Fling so that the parents could get involved, the vice principal was very popular!! there was a $20 bill in his! Then just to be fun ALL of the teachers got a pie that night! The kids had a blast and they talked about it for the next month and want to do it again this school year!

 

[katieandallycat]

One DD's schools does the math-a-thon. The other did the spell-a-thon.
My niece's does a walk-a-thon. 90% of the supplies are donated, including a parent who acts as a DJ. That is their only fundraiser and they raise a quite a bit, of course it has been a tradition for the last 10 years, so even people without kids at the school come out for the music, and food. And now they even have it were kids donations can be set up on paypal.
Before we moved our school did wrapping paper (Sally Foster). I know it get's pricey, but I wait every year for a school around here to do it, because I love how thick the paper is. I buy 2 birthday rolls and 2-3 xmas rollos and I'm covered for the year.

 

[sharlon]

I'm not really familiar with Scrip but I see that no one has answered so I'll try!! Scrip is a gift card program...there is a list of stores that participate and also next to that is a percentage of what you earn. For example, Acme is listed and if I remember correctly it is 5% earning...so parents buy the gift cards, at no savings on that; $20 is $20, but on a $20 gift card, your school earns $1, since Acme is a grocery store, I would buy $100 GC so the school profits $5. Gap is another one that I suspect would bring in some money...I don't remember what other stores are listed, I think about 30 or so and the %% is anywhere from 3%-10% I believe. The parents, neighbors, who ever buy what they want and when they go to the store they use it like a debit/credit card! My PTO doesn't do this but I am trying to get them involved in it!!

Pretty good explanation! Essentially, the scrip company (I can PM name and link of compnay we use if anyone wants, just PM me) buys the gift cards in bulk from retailers at a discount. The company then sells them to the non-profits (typically schools) who sell them at face value to the parents and friends. There are about 300 retailers available through the company we use. My only concern to mention is that scrip is not big or widely understood in our area and we have had some problems getting people to understand that they should buy scrip from the school to use for everyday purchases. It is hugely popular on the west coast, but many areas of the east coast, it has never been done, so keep in mind that you might have to really "sell it" to get people to buy it.