Best (and worse) school fundraisers

[TellerTuesday4EVA]

If your DC's school has fundraising events throughout the year could I trouble you to ask for the best/worst in your opinion?

We are a recently formed PTA group and there hasn't ever been one at the school so we are starting from scratch. We have some good ideas but would love to know what have been the most positively (or negatively) received.

Especially interested to hear from parents involved in the fundraising to know which ideas were the most successful revenue wise.

Thanks so much in advance.

I found that those tea towels/bags/xmas cards that the children design themselves were unpopular as they are very expensive. We got stuck with loads. Ended up giving them away.
We tried that present thing as well but that was a flop as no one wanted Poundland stuff. Poundland things like packs of pens are good for children's prizes but as gifts for grown ups - no !!

Tuck shop brought in a steady income.
It was once a week on a Friday. Various parents on a rota to provide home made biscuits/cake. In summer there was ice pops. Other small things also purchased. Everything cost 50cents. Children allowed to buy one thing, then second go around when everyone had had a turn. Raised about 15-30Euro a week in a school of 100 pupils with an outlay of a few euros a week.

Christmas fair. PITA to organise but was our main fundraiser. We used to have people pay to rent stalls, then lots and lots of very cheap pocket-money things for DCs. Charge £2 to enter. You got a free cup of tea but we also sold sausages on rolls next to the tea stand, they always sold out.

Raffle was the other main money-spinner, you get local businesses to donate things for that.

Printed tea towels always went a bomb too but the trick is not to do them too often as people are a bit 'meh, I just bought a tea towel'. Do tea towels one year, then tote bags the next.

Oh and a calendar - local businesses sponsor a page and you can charge quite a bit for them. Children draw themselves and their pics go on their birthday month.

I'm relatively new to our PTA but the Halloween party is a great event. Parents pay £5 per child & donate cakes.
The children are taken to the local village hall straight from school by the teachers who run the party/party games; PTA cook/supply hot dogs or cheese sandwich & a cake; party runs for approximately an hour, so parents get an hour longer before pick-up & a fed child. The cost is minimal (though decorations were left from previous years) & everyone loves it.

Oh something that is very worthwhile is to look at big companies near you and approach them for funds. They tend to want to contribute to a specific project rather than funds in general, and it's time-consuming, but the sums involved are worth it.

For eg we have had LOADS of house building near here, two of the firms gave £500. A big civil engineering project gave £1k.

Tombolas was always a popular game at xmas fairs. But really insist people donate decent prizes. We stuck to 'bottles' - eg bottles of booze, soft drinks, bubble bath, shower gel etc. Please no dusty bottles of cooking vinegar from the back of your cupboards. It's crap no one wants to win.
Raffles made lots of money. Personally however I rarely bought tickets because the prizes never interested me - usually donated local restaurant vouchers type stuff.
I suggested having a children's raffle too with prizes that children would prefer (eg donated vouchers from local book/toy shop etc). I would of probably bought loads of tickets for that. If planning a raffle for the first time do a survey before of what sort of prizes people would actually want to win. I would of prefered more simple prizes like a basket of bath goodies or book vouchers than a restaurant voucher or '10% off at a local hair salon' type things but it could turn out I am the online person who thinks like that !!

Have you looked at Amazon Smile? My kids' school does it and they make a lot of money from it. Zero effort for parents.

One that goes down well in dds school..
A small group of year 5 or year 6 kids choose a charity and all profits split 50-50 to charity and school.
The group of kids did a cake sale once a term and other small things they organise themselves.

One year, they simply had a collection bucket out for people to put a couple of quid in as they walked past, on the way to an xmas play.
They had advertised on the play flyers that they were doing this, to raise money for a specific item a new baby needed.
They raised enough for the one they wanted. And had enough money spare to buy a second one for another needy baby.
I think they were about £400 each, 10 years ago.
No pressure to donate. Or no given amount.

Michelin star chef (parent) bought in food at cost. His assistants, sous chefs etc all bought in for the eve.

Decorated the hall & turned it into a Black Tie event. Parents charged £70 a head.

Raised £6k in one evening.

Personalized Lego minifigures for £3.50 (£1.50 for the pta). Choose a face and hair option to go with the mini school uniform. My dd loves her mini-me 😂

Our Easter bingo is always popular too, and it really does give that sense of community that you seem to be looking for.

We always make a lot at fairs but they are really hard work and everyone seems to think they happen by magic. We know that not everyone can, or even wants to, pitch in, but so many people expect a good time without giving up even 10 minutes to help with the mammoth task of organising - even when we beg!

Nothing to stop people making a donation of course
I do think it's more than just making money
We gave a donation every year ,£300 I think
But DC would have been horrified not to join in on all the other stuff
Good luck
A well run PTA can enhance the primary school experience

www.easyfundraising.org.uk/
You get everyone to sign up then it's free money. Not a lot, but a steady trickle and you get a lot more in December

Things that parents would otherwise pay for but negotiated discount and a cut to the PTA like group purchase of panto tickets.

Book sales, second hand uniform and instead if pocket money stalls, get the older kids to bring in toys from home that fit in the palm of their hands. The younger kids love these stalls, we also end up with a lego figure table on this stall. Hugely popular, as is the teddy tombola, despite that fact that no parent ever wants to see another soft toy arrive in the house, kids LOVE it!! Every ticket wins a prize.

Depends how much money your local parents have. Lots of the above wouldn't work at our school.
Alcohol-free mulled wine at Christmas play and parents evening worked.
Quiz night in local pub works since the intake got posher - didn't before.
Christmas and summer fairs got analysed to see which stalls made money and which didn't, so the ones that only made ten quid could be ditched. Selling drinks and ice cream is the big money-spinner.
Silent auction at the fair also works though some donors got offended when they saw how little their item went for.

We got about two quid a year from easyfundraising. One donation. That was it.

I have been in PTAs and fundraising groups for more years than I care to remember.

The very best initiative I have come across is currently running in my children's secondary.

www.yourschoollottery.co.uk/

School lottery. Zero effort. Weekly winner, and the prize grows the more people sign up. It really is brilliant, so much better than faffing with raffle tickets and bake sales.

@Forkinghell that sounds awesome! Do you know which company that was done through?

@JessesGirl it was the chesham brick house :)

Leisure passes can work but you have to do the sums carefully. We used to buy a family pass for a local attraction near us every year and rent it out for £10 a time. That tends to work best in smaller schools though otherwise the organisation of who has the pass can be a bit complicated.

I've been to a load of school events as my friend is chair of the PTA. They held a ladies pamper evening, gave out goodie bags which were donated by the local department store, had vouchers for 10% a local hairdresser. You could book a 15 min treatment with various people for a fiver, and I think it cost £10 for the ticket.

It was a lovely evening and raised a fair bit for the school.

One thing that you would need to be certain of is that you are licensed to sell alcohol. You can get temporary event notices (TEN's) from the local council, might be worth ringing the licensing department and getting their advice in terms of whether it would be best to have a personal license holder at the school or if TEN's are the easiest option.