School Fundraisers

[Hrhpd]

school carnival -
buy tickets for entrance, different activities, pizza. Most popular is teachers and principal all donate time and put buckets out. Kids can put tickets in the buckets and then there is a drawing. Principal for a day is a popular one - child shadows the principal all day, does the morning announcements, etc. Music teacher and art teacher donate hour lessons, each grade team often donates lunch out with them - so 4 teachers will take 8 kids out to lunch. Silent auction is included with tables and tables of donated stuff from local businesses. Our PTA must be very good because they items they get are unbelievable. But the two items that make the most money are the two prime parking spots by the front of the school that are auctioned off. The families get their own sign by the spot that declares the spot belongs to them.

Read-a-thon
Kids get pledges (set up online donation pages so they don't have to go door to door.) And then spend a week reading

Capital Campaign
Our PTA listened to the parents and hasn't had a selling fundraiser for years. The principal, who is a great sport, offers to do something for each level raised. Reach the top level and the kids can duct tape the principal to the wall or other stunts they have had over the years.

Scholastic Book Fair
Self explanatory. Set up during conferences. Our conferences are in the evenings, so parents leave the conference and go to the library to peruse the books and other stuff.

Restaurant nights

Copper, Nickle, Silver week - bring in your change and put it in the buckets. Classroom with most coins (not necessarily highest dollar amount) wins some small thing like eating in the classroom with the principal rather than in the cafeteria.

All in all, last year, the elementary school raised $83,000 (490 children) without having the students sell a single thing.

 

[barkley]

Our school is going back to the gift wrap catalog sale - we live in a fairly poor area and people do not donate when asked - but they seem to manage to buy from a catalog?

We also do a walk-a-thon, but after many years it is losing momentum...

Visit ptotoday.com for lots of great ideas (you do NOT have to be a PTO to view the site or participate).

Be cautious with Bingo nights - it is considered "gambling" in the eyes of the IRS and can lead to big problems if caught.

it's not only gambling in the eyes of the irs, but also for some state and local governments-and unless you've got a gaming permit it's prosecutable. same goes for raffles-they are 'games of chance' and come under gaming in many jurisdictions.

some assume that a school would never get in trouble for it-they have and do (as do the organizers). best bet is to call the local district attorney's office to find out what is/is not legal for non sales/donation based fund raisers.

 

[Disney Doll]

Bakeless Bake Sale.

Basically asks for a donation instead of asking someone to bake something for a real bake sale.

If you google it, there are some cute poems that you can send out to parents.

 

[Claudia1]

One of my kids' schools did one pass the hat at the beginning of the year.....encouraging parents to give as much as they could. If they raised enough, there would be no fundraisers needed.
We were in that school for 4 years and never had to have another one. It was great!

 

[Malibustyle23]

The best fundraisers our school has is when we use activities as a prize incentive instead of a junky dollar tree style treat.

Thankfully our staff is VERY involved and willing to go the extra mile. Last year we had a fun run style event for the first time. We were able to raise around 6 THOUSAND DOLLARS and we are a Title One school with about 500 students. It was the prizes that were the draw. Every student that brought in $10 received a "trot" tshirt but if you brought in $25 you got to throw a wet sponge at our school principal and vice principal. The top earner also got to throw out the first pitch at our school night at our local minor league baseball game. Besides the tshirts and sponges these were all FREE prizes!!

We also hold contests to see which class will have the most PTA memberships. Last year the winning class got to "pie" the principal. This year they get to slime the vice principal.

This year we are selling a discount card to Domino's we get 90% profit but top grade winner will get to punch out for money prizes on a money board. The top school earner will get to have lunch with the principal and get to ride around in the town police car and get taken to the local ice cream shop for a sundae.

We try to do an attainable minimum prize that everyone wants and can get and a nicer prize for the top seller in each grade and the for the school. Parents can get junky toys any day they can not get the experiences that we award without selling the items.

PP, we order shirts from Custom Ink. They are cheap and if you get their small, cute logo on the back top of the tee they give you a further discount on the shirt.

 

[Pembo]

The only school fundraiser I support is the walk-a-thon. Kids get donations/pledges and one morning the whole school walks a set course. I think it is a little over a mile. PTO was able to get donations of water and snacks from the local grocery store. The kids loved it, the teachers loved it, and as a parent I loved that every penny I donated went to the school. Bonus-it promotes healthy living. My daughter's school raised over $10,000 last year (600 students).

At the school I teach at they are doing a bike-a-thon. (We have 100 students K-6). Same premise but on the day of the event, kids bring their bikes to school and ride a course. Our PTO has secured lots of local business sponsors as well and tshirts are made for every student and staff member. Last year I believe they raised $6000....again very little overhead and lots of profit.

Personally I dislike the selling of overprice merch that the organization only gets a small percentage of the profits coupled with all the cheap trinkets. My kids learned early on to throw all flyers away for those kinds of fundraisers. I'd rather just give a donation.

 

[CPT Tripss]

Just about anything that does not involve sales and ____ -a - thon that might wind up involving door-to-door soliciting. We support the schools financially every quarter when we (willing) pay our property tax.

 

[jodifla]

Our school district does Fun Runs for elementary. They are massively popular and raises a ton of money. They are healthy, and kids and parents love them -- the kids because it's play, and parents because they don't have to sell stuff.

Basically, all the kids run/walk laps they've gotten pledges for. We raised close to 20 grand one year. We brought out a DJ that played music while they ran, a local dentist donated Tshirts in different colors for each class, and parents handed out water and a rubber band for each lap run. There were door prizes for those who ran the most laps and turned in their money on time or even just participated.

 

[Mickeypooh99]

Two of our elementary schools did a walk a thon today. One school is K-1st grade and they raised over $12,000. The other is 2nd - 3rd grade and they raised over $10,000. I love these fundraisers. I would much rather give a donation for something like that than buy food or products I don't want or need.

 

[samheatherwhite]

Thanks so much everyone, you've given me a lot of great things to look at. I really appreciate the help.

 

[design_mom]

Our school has done the "please donate so we don't have to sell anything" fundraiser for the last several years and it has been successful.

Prior to that, they did a walk-a-thon where students collected pledges. I think the PTO realized that most parents were just donating the suggested goal amount, so they skipped the walking part.

I agree with others that I'd rather donate directly to the school, rather than buy something I don't really want and have the school only get a tiny percentage.

That being said, my niece's school sold mums. They were from a really nice nursery, didn't cost much more than mums other places, and apparently they gave a nice percentage back to the school compared to other fundraisers (according to my sister-in-law). I didn't mind buying those because I would have bought mums anyway.

 

[Ephany]

Opt-out fundraisers are my favorite. DD's last school is was a $25 suggested donation instead of selling anything. Band this year was $50 + plus a bit extra for the t-shirts. Apparently they have a few extra Cinnabon kits left over from the fundraiser, so I have a feeling one of those will be coming home on Monday. One year her school did a combination silent auction of artwork made by each class, a chili cook-off and bingo for school spirit prizes. Oh, there the silent auction also included items donated by local businesses and some of them were pretty nice. I personally love Scholastic Book fairs and I know DD's favorite is the fall or spring carnivals.