To ask your best ideas to raise a lot of money quickly?

[Readytomakechanges]

DD's primary school is in desperate need of £15,000.

I've been tasked with coming up with fundraising ideas.

I've never done anything like this before and I have a job, so probably not the best person for this, but there are no other parent volunteers.

Have any of you hosted a really successful fundraiser?

[MuddlingMackem]

Depends what the £15k is for.

Never done anything like this either, but how easy it will be to raise might depend on the demographic of the area, how deprived is it?

[CaptainMarvelDanvers]

Is there a particular reason they need £15k or is it for the running of the school? The former is easier than the latter as you could find a fund which doesn't mind granting funding to schools or to their PTAs.

[NoKidsTwoCats]

Cake sale! When I was fundraising I used to have cake sales at work - get a few people together to bake, sell cakes at work/school. We used to make £300+ each time.

Raffles with really good prizes are also a great shout. Get local businesses to donate eg get local restaurants to donate a meal for two, a hotel to donate an overnight stay etc and sell the tickets at work/to parents. Good way to make hundreds!

Car washing, curry nights (team the latter up with selling things like homemade jewellery and greetings cards) also great fundraisers. What about a fundraising ball/auction?

[Teddy7878]

A disco for each year. £5 per ticket could make £500 per year and it would only cost £100 max to throw as you could just get some disco lights, a few decorations and some refreshments

[Goldensunnydays81]

Our school does a cake sale every Friday after school each class are in charge on a 7 weekly rota which makes quite a lot of money,
Christmas gift evening local selllers are sold a table each plus each class has a stall/games stand
The school also helps with the village bonfire night, they organise the food stall which they then get a percentage of the profits.
Our local tescos has the plastic token collections things at the door where you chose between 3 local charities/ organisations and the one with the most coins gets £4000 then 2nd £2000 and last £1000. The nursery atttached to the school has just won the £4000 and the school are going for new play equipment which will be next month so although not a quick solution good for other things.
Curry and a quiz night, a Christmas craft class for parents.
Our school is into fundraising!!

[Argeles]

The school could do all of the great ideas above, and also hire out the hall privately at weekends and evenings. This could be for parties and other functions/events/meetings, and also to private dance/yoga/drama Teachers etc. I used to teach in a school that did this, and they used to make lots of money.

A school local to me opens every Saturday, and their field, tennis courts, and sports hall are hired by some kind of physical education company. It’s a Secondary school, but only Primary school age children attend these sessions, and it is always packed.

[lilydaisyrose]

School tea towels - with pupils drawn faces on - raises so much!

[Tilapia]

A posh night out for the parents might work if you live in a naice area. Contact the local hotels and see if it’s possible to book a black tie event with a three course meal and a DJ. Sell tickets for the price charged by the hotel plus £20 per person. Get a few people on board to actively sell tickets. Make extra money on the night with a raffle.

[Argeles]

The idea by a previous poster of a disco is brilliant! I do think though that it could bring in much more money than that poster suggested.

If you had 60 children in each year group and they all paid £5 each to come to the disco, that would make £300 per disco (before deductions for soft drinks etc, which wouldn’t cost much). If you offered a disco to the juniors only, that could make nearly £1200 before deductions (£300 per class).

[SleepFreeZone]

I would be approaching local businesses.

[BoomBoomBoomBoooom]

Throw a ticketed dinner with an auction/raffle. Local businesses to sponsor and provide prizes. Few local bigwigs and headteacher do a speech.Black tie and posh dinner people will happily pay £50 a ticket just to get dressed up. Offer first 20 tickets at £40 to drum up interest. Did one here for about 200 people and it was very successful, decorations, flowers, prizes and food all done for free. Drink was subsidised- few bottles of wine on tables and then cash bar. Got some local musicians to play or local groups to entertain. BOOM £8k.

[BoomBoomBoomBoooom]

Dinner can be done in school hall with space for dance floor/ DJ in evening.

[ArcheryAnnie]

A primary school local to me (not my DS's old one) made a mint by opening up their playground every Saturday for use by a posh farmers' market. It depends on what link of location you are (we are very mixed - low income people living cheek-by-jowl with very rich families), but I was amazed by how well it worked.

[GwenStaceyRocks]

Depends what it's for. If it's for equipment then you may be better soliciting gifts in kind rather than funds eg if you need printers then ask the local PC World or similar for one rather than trying to raise funds to buy it. Lots of large businesses have schemes for donating their products to the local community.
You could make school branded merchandise to sell eg tea towels with a drawing by a pupil; cards with a drawing by a pupil.
Our school has also held concerts (performances by pupils) gigs (performances by local bands) ladies' lunch (catered by pupils and where local businesses pay for tables to sell their items).

[IHeartDodo]

Does it have facilities?
Our school used to let families use the swimming pool during the summer.
They charged quite a bit but it can't have cost much... (pool cleaning +lifeguard).
A hall as well for events and conferences etc.

[innagazing]

Form a committee with parents from each class, and set a target amount to be raised by each class. You'll be amazed by the wide range of fund raising ideas and skills that people have.

ANother idea is doing the lottery bonus ball. Sell all sixty tickets for a specific lottery date for £3 or £5 each. the winner takes a third of the takings and the school takes the rest.

Bag packing is a good one, as is a sponsored walk, as well as regular cake sales. A master class given by a famous sportsperson is another if you can persuade your local team to provide someone.

The trick is, is to get a lot of adults on board, and to delegate individual fund raising events to them to organise.

[speakout]

Why does the school need such a large amount of money?

More details please.

[HolyShet]

What is it for?

Whatever tactics you use being absolutely clear what it is for is primary thing.

How good is parent engagement and how affluent is the area?

I would deffo steer away from making things to sell that people don't need. If it's really desperately needed I would make a strong case to parents to chip in for some of it. Got to be tied to an actual thing that is is needed and their children will benefit from not a "nice to have".

PTA Crowdfunder if the story is good and the network around the school is strong, (esp good if you have minted/famous/connected) former pupils, grandparents and extended families.

Some grants are available for schools but not for delivering statutory work but for additional stuff.

It depends what it is for though.

[thecatfromjapan]

Depends on school demographic: affluent parents can buy things; less affluent, you'll need money from outside.

Picking up on previous poster's suggestion: can you rent out playground for a regular car-boot sale?

[pringlecat]

Firstly, you need to start thinking about a few questions.

1. What resources do you have? Do you have a small budget to help make this happen? Presumably you have access to the school's facilities - what are they? School hall? Sports hall? Do you have any local celebrities on tap? Parents with skills? Talented children? No one wants to organise this. But will the other parents follow you if you tell them what needs to be done?
   

1. What is the local demographic like? Could you empty out their wallets and get the £15k, or is it too deprived for them to be able to chip in more than a couple of quid max? In which case, you need to be looking at businesses and/or grant funding.
   

1. Why do you need the £15k? Are people likely to sympathise with this?
   

1. What has been done before? A big gala fundraiser can get you tons of money (if you're in the right area) but if it's been done before (and recently), people are not going to buy in. They do get bored easily.

[Kazzyhoward]

affluent parents can buy things; less affluent, you'll need money from outside

But even the less affluent can "do" things and "buy" things. You need some events that everyone can be part of. Those who can afford it can donate or buy stuff, those who can't should have options to give their time instead, i.e. running stalls, or to buy things for themselves, i.e. christmas cards, cakes, burgers, beer, raffle tickets, etc. Events need to be inclusive to get everyone involved.

[MyOtherHusbandIsTomHardy]

Buy a teddy bear and a name the teddy bear scratch card - pound or two pound a go.

Charity auction.

[Kazzyhoward]

Form a committee with parents from each class, and set a target amount to be raised by each class.

This! Like everything else, break it down into manageable chunks. £15,000 sounds huge amount, but if you break it down into £500 from each of ten classes which should be fairly easy to achieve - i.e. from cake sales, jumble sales, car cleaning, etc, that's £5,000 in total, leaving £10,000 from a couple of big events of £5,000 each. If you try to think of a single way of raising £15k, you're setting yourself up to fail. Break it down into as many smaller events as possible - it also means that the responsibility/work is also spread out rather than all falling on your shoulders.

[MyOtherHusbandIsTomHardy]

Parent volunteers and ask the local supermarket if the pupils can do bag packing.

I always chuck a couple of quid In when they do mine.