I'm chair of our PTA, in our first year we raised £15000! This is going to be long so sorry! But we are bloody good at what we do! It's also a bit of a brain dump 😁
Each term we do a disco and a movie night. One each half term.
Pennies for the playground - bring in pennies or foreign coins to go towards new play equipment.
At parents evening we offer a craft and crèche service (all dbsed)
Christmas fayre
Sell refreshments at Christmas performances
Christmas raffle
Whole school sponsored event
Parent sponsored event
Summer fayre
Refreshments at summer concerts and sport days.
These are are core events and we make about £6000 from them. They raise our profile and make sure we can chat to parents.
Speak to your local councillors who should know who to speak to in the council.
Register with HMRC (under £5000 income) and then charity commission to allow you to claim gift aid on sponsored events.
Speak to parents and see if any of their employers release staff to help out at schools etc (useful bodies on big event days).
Also see if any offer match funding.
Sign up to the grant finder email and check every one. It takes half an hour once per month to choose where to apply. The applications take more time but are often worthwhile.
If you are a registered charity (worth doing as many grants only give to registered charities) sign up to Amazon smile and easy fundraising.
You're too late for this year's co op local community fund, applications reopen in the spring, the new partners have just been decided (my pta have been chosen!) But go make friends with the local manager, they are often good for small donations.
Offer staff an incentive to be involved - we give £50 per year to each class for classroom bits.
On fayre days, try to get volunteers into school to do things like facepainting through the day, kids love it and it means that it's one less thing to run at the stall.
Asda green tokens is a good one to get, most asdas have a charity champion, make contact and see how they can help.
This year we are looking at doing a gin festival, we have loads of local distillers and know many gin drinking parents so are investigating the profitability of this.
Run the committee as a business. Schedule regular catch ups, communication is key to keeping people on board. Find out people's key skills and use them. Parents like to find a way to help the school, particularly if it won't cost them loads!
Be honest with parents. Government cuts have cost the school x amount. The council is charging for this extra service so we are now paying for it. (In our case school crossing patrol is now charged for and costs us 3000 pa).
When you organise events tell parents where the money is going. Our Christmas events all go to the crossing patrol. If you know exactly where money is going your more likely to give.
I'm sure there's more, I'll let you know!