School Fundraiser ideas

[Rafiki Rafiki Rafiki]

thanks- I added the website to my favorites!

I was the PTO President at OLPH in Selma, Texas. Our PTO was the South Regional Winner of the Parent Group of the Year from PTO Today Magazine in 2004. What we did was try to turn the focus away from fundraising and more toward achieving our goals by other means.

What does your PTO want to accomplish? Can you get there with donations of goods and services instead of collecting money to purchase what you need?

I've written a couple of articles about how we accomplished those goals, and I'd be happy to share them with you...just PM me.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

One of the things I love are penny wars. You get big buckets, jars, banks, whatever (you might get a restraurant to donate items from bulk supplies. Banks have also been known to donate) and put them in front of classes. The kids then bring in coins for about a month. They get one point for every penny in their container in front of their class. They get points deducted for any other coin in their jar. The deducted points are equal to the coin amount. So, they are putting pennies in their container and nickles, dimes & quarters in other classes containers. They get pretty competitive and can pull in a bunch of money ($1000 range). It costs you nothing. It takes no time on PTOs part after getting the containers (make sure people can't pull money out) except for counting coins. And you could use coin star for that.

Penny Wars was my absolute favorite as a kid. We got ultra competitive over it, made a ton of money for our school, it was easy and mainly it was a ton of fun. The winning class always got a pizza party. I was on Student Government and they had us counting the change, so that made it even less work for our PTC.

 

[aprilgail2]

Our school does many (TO many as far as I am concerned!!) we have our normal dues to join the PTA (different tier memberships, 7.00, 20.00 and 30.00) and then the winter fundraiser-that stupid book with the wrapping paper in it- we have supermarket bingo which is actually really fun, I love working and playing at that one! They have a spring funraiser which is that catalog thing again, they have a dessert night where kids bring in desserts and people pay a couple bucks to come in and eat all the desserts they want, they do a valentines day lollipop sale where you can send any kid in the school a pop for 1.00, we do box tops, campbells soup labels, Washington mutual has some program we do, Target give a percentage of each purchase made if you pick your school as the school for it to go to, we do ink cartridges (1.00 per cartridge so its not a biggie but it can add up), they do book fairs, all those little holiday fair things that the kids go shopping at for christmas and mothers day, they have a plant sale around mothers day, they sell spirit wear with the school name on it, they do greeting cards where your kid makes a picture and they turn it into a greeting card...I am sure there are others but I can't recall right now!

 

[rt2dz]

thanks- I added the website to my favorites!

You're welcome. That website and their magazines and other materials just are wonderful. The great thing is you can use those principals for any organization/fundraiser.