Ideas for school fundraising campaign

[Bohemond23]

I have (rather accidentally) put myself forward to lead a PTA campaign to raise £20k for our small (rural village) primary school. This will be outwith the usual PTA calendar of events and the headmaster has given me leave to be honest about the school's finances with parents, the village etc.

It is an outstanding school, is very old, and has a brilliant team of staff but, like all schools, the main school budget can no longer stretch to funding everything they would like to do, including replacing some of the IT.

We want to give the staff team some breathing space and a buffer so they can get on with their jobs rather than worrying about what they can't do.

I've got loads of ideas for fundraising but thought I'd tap into the hive mind here for extra ideas and also recommendations for how we make giving easy for parents and others (ie tech). We have a PTA bank account and will set up a sister one for this specific campaign but we don't know what's out there with regard to easy payment apps, Go Fund Me etc. I am willing to explore them all.

Hopefully this thread can be useful for others that want to/need to do similar so I will share our ideas (these are over and above usual PTA fetes, mufti days, ice cream Fridays etc).

'Your school needs you' formal letter to parents encouraging one off donations/set up standing order.
Leavers letter (for families with Yr 6)
Similar to the two villages served by the school. Many locals and their children went to the school.
Talk to local businesses for one off donations.
Donation recognition in school (plaque or similar) and in village magazine.
'Thermometer' outside school (church roof type).
QR code/GoFundMe/Bank account details to make donations easy.
Specific fundraising reaching out to village - car wash, carol singing etc
Specific campaign fundraising events for parents - cheese and wine, race night, bingo night, pub quiz

Would love to hear from you all on what works!

Tesco - apply to do the Tesco scheme.

When applying, generally best to describe a specific project, such as new computers, rather than general stuff. We did that for our sports club. We came third but still got a thousand pounds.

Yep the Tesco scheme is a goody.

I don't know if it's a thing where you are but estate agent boards are a thing here: get 20 houses to put up a board advertising an event but with the estate agents branding = £700-£1000

Raffles - as I'm sure you know - are always a winner as local businesses are usually keener to donate stuff that's cold hard cash.

Tapping into corporate matching schemes - we do quite well out of this. Ask parents to check if their work has a scheme - it's usually just a case of them filling in a form bigging up their involvement to get a matched donation.

Finally - it's a way off but selling Christmas trees is massive for us. We set up a website and take orders through November then order direct from the supplier and they get delivered to the school super early one Saturday morning. Then we have a bit of a winter fair where people collect them and also buy a mulled wine and a mince pie. We make about £3k a year from trees (2 form entry school)

Good luck!

Thank you @Riverlee and @soundsys . I will look into the Tesco thing - there is a small one in the village next door. Great idea on the estate agent boards. This is a desirable village (mostly due to the school) so that could work well. And noted on the corporate matching.

We actually have a Christmas tree farm in the village so that's a non-starter but we are going to ask them to donate!

Oh also easyfundraising. Assuming the PTA is a registered charity it's super easy to set up - people just choose it as their charity and when they buy stuff online you get small amounts of cash (kind of like Quidco). It doesn't make huge amounts but it's basically no effort!

Maybe be are adults now but their junior school did the following...

Outdoor cinema nights in the summer.
A popular family film was shown on the side of the building and everyone brought a blanket to sit on.
They sold popcorn and drinks and charged for entry.

Bingo nights

They set up car wash stations

Plants and bulb sales

I'd encourage you to investigate ways of funding which don't rely on parents constantly dipping into their own pockets - Tesco, for example, but there must be other 'award' type schemes in existence.

Thank you @everythinglooksbetterpaintedblack and @KeinLiebeslied54321 outdoor cinema night is a great idea. And I agree on the parents thing. Interestingly the headmaster has always shied away of asking for much from parents. It is a relatively mixed school income wise but a lot choose to send their kids because of the quality of the school (there are not a lot of families in the village itself). It's why we've decided to do one big bold campaign to ask directly for what we need rather than the £1s here and there.

Big jumble sale for the whole village. Our church does one and it raises between £3000 and £6000 every year. This year we got over £5000 you just need to advertise it well and you do need the storage space.

If the PTA is a registered charity, investigate if there are any grant making charitable foundations with criteria that you would meet. Some are very niche/ others broader. Application format varies widely but with some of the smaller ones it’s often literally just a letter outlining the need and the benefits. So for example my mum wrote a letter to one that supports church buildings that predate the reformation and got 750 to fix some stained glass windows.

if you don’t meet the criteria, don’t write begging to be the exception as just a waste of time.

And also a lot of volunteers to sort it as you will get a lot of unsaleable crap. However, I agree and jumble sales need to come back because they were awesome and seem to have died out a bit.

Regarding asking companies and shops to donate prizes, every school, sports club, WI etc does this this so a lot of companies don’t donate prizes now. A lot of national companies have a particular charity they support, so don’t be disappointed if you don’t get much.

(We got to learn which local companies were supportive, and which weren’t).

Is the PTFA set up a charity so you can claim gift aid? What is the 20k for? If it’s just propping up the general financial short fall then what happens next year?

How any pupils are there in the school? 20k would be an awful lot for our school but it’s tiny.

Held a music festival at my kids small village school, made £6k whole village came pretty much and ran out of beer.

Entertainment started with kids, moved onto band from nearest (feeder) high school who were very good then a band a teacher was in (free) another local free band then a brilliant covers band who did get £500. Not too much work as local pub sorted the licence and booze then paid us £1 per pint sold, similar arrangement with ice cream man, parents did send cakes in and there was a few stalls bouncy castle, hook the duck etc. shutting down around 6pm as sold out but easy, main work being the BBQ and had 3 pairs running it so no one person on it all the time, made so much money from it as started with bacon or egg baps at 11am (and coffee which was also lucrative) moving onto sausages, burgers through the afternoon then did chicken, ribs and salads between 6&8 (plus whatever burgers were left) I was in charge of the salads procurement! So much easier than a full fete on a £ earned basis and this was quite a while ago, I'd hope to earn £10k now at least.

You do need someone to lend you a lorry for the stage, farmers to lend square straw bales, and a friendly publican.

Thank you everyone - some great ideas. We could definitely have a music festival and jumble.
The school is 150 kids and approx 100 families. I’m hoping under a new government there might be a funding boost but this will at least cover the IT and ‘extras’ for several years.

See if you can get sponsorship for eg IT. So you might have a local shop calle, "Smith" you end up with "Smith's PC lab".

Raffles - approach businesses to donate items so you have no outlay other than raffle tickets.

As well as items you can ask for experiences so night in a hotel, spa treatment, meal etc.

Have a look at charities and grant making trusts, they do exist.

What can the school do that people would pay for? An art or craft class / course? Is there a parent that cooks a particular food that could do a demonstration, could someone do a lecture / talk?

One of my grandparents used to do some talks at the primary school she attended. That was for the children as part of their history but someone with an interesting life (most people) could do a talk.

Maybe someone has something interesting from their travels? My carer has been to Japan a few times and he brought back darumas. These are small dolls with blank white eyes, when you want something you pain the left eye in and when you achieve it you fill in the other eye. Something like that with photos and a few other items would make a talk.

Do you have any parents who do home brew beer or wine? You can't sell it because you are not licenced but people can make a donation.

Ask for donations of things you can sell on vinted.

'School trips' but for the parents. Things like a brewery tour. Obviously that depends on where you are and what is local. Often people don't visit local attractions so an organised trip can get people interested.

Does the school have space to grow some veg to sell to parents? Maybe room for a couple of hens?

Where is your nearest cash point? Could you put one in the school? I don't mean literally in the school, more like a freestanding one at the school gates. The banks actually pay you to have a cash machine and you can also get a (very small) percentage of transactions.

That applies with a free to use machine and it is a free way for parents to donate.

Our secondary school has done a couple of Jumblebee "auctions" where parents can " buy" named lots of things for the school, like pieces of science equipment, footballs, books etc. It's essentially just a way of parents making a cash donation but because it's linked to a "thing" people are more likely to donate.

This works well for our secondary school where parents are happy to bung us some money but really don't want to give up their time to attend an event they are not interested in. Obviously there is more parental involvement at primary level but there are still cash rich, time poor ones who'd be very happy to just hand over some money.

I've always found raffles are a pain. No one wants to donate prizes and the amount raised isn't worth the hassle. I ended up losing money on one as getting tickets printed and buying enough prizes to supplement donations cost more than it raised. The best fundraiser I did was to go to a gig at a pub (with agreement obviously) and pass a bucket round. The band announced what it was for and asked people to chuck change in. I guess since the pandemic people don't maybe carry cash the same though. It's a lot bit early yet but is making Christmas decorations to sell an option? Maybe kids do them. Collect at plays etc? Basically ways to monetise things the school would do anyway, but without excluding people with compulsory charges that they can't afford.

Thank you @TwigTheWonderKid @DrCoconut @sashh loads of brilliant ideas. We definitely have some parents that would be up for a talk/demo I think.