PTA Fundraising

[themummyonthebus]

Our PTA is currently not very active (as in 2 coffee mornings a year, the summer fete and that's it) and so next year we're having a clear out and we will all be "new" parents next year, as in no previous school aged children experience and only this year's poor showing and Mumsnet as a guide.

They didn't make any money last year at all so the goal this coming year is obviously to have regular fundraising events. But which ones work best? I've suggested a few of the MN staples but considering most of them crop up on here because people are moaning about them I'm not sure that's the best template

So tell me what your favourite (PTA) fundraising events have been please!

[themummyonthebus]

Some more great ideas! What time do you start cinema night for the infants?

[Piddlepuddle]

Boden sales have been successful - they provide all the clothes to display on the day, give you a discount code for people to give to friends who can't get there, and the school get 5% of the proceeds. Funnily enough more people volunteer to help for that one, too.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Don't you need some sort of licence for film nights? We looked into it and that was the reason we didn't do it IIRC, something to do with copyright, it could be one of those things were so long as you only charged for the refreshments and the film was free you might be OK.

Our cake sales raise £100-£200 a time at very little cost, all the cakes are donated by parents (and most are homemade, which is great, we have some very talented bakers), so we only spend on squash, tea and coffee.

The clothes recycling thing is very easy money too.

[eosmum]

Family quiz, nets us over a grand a year. 2 kids 2 adults, half questions geared to kids e.g. What room number does mr. Smith teach in, and half to adults. Really fun night.

[UnMasterChef]

We did the free film and charge for refreshments model, and refreshments aren't compulsory. It's probably not the biggest fundraiser we do, but really popular. We now have to do 2 nights, and there is sometimes a draw for tickets as they are oversubscribed.

[themummyonthebus]

I'm really impressed by some of the amounts being raised here. We are a small school (approx 100 pupils) and very mixed intake (I would guess 75% immigrants with very mixed income levels) so I think we'd be happy with a few hundred pounds rather than thousands. I guess that's another thing we need to set - our fundraising target! There are no funds at all being carried over so all the outlay will be at the committee's expense to start with so I'm thinking we start with a cake sale or second hand sale or something cheap to get some working funds.

For the second hand sales do you charge per item to be sold or take percentage/flat rate per item actually sold? I assume the pta manage the sale then redistribute the money minus fees to the parents who provided the clothes? Or is that too complex?

Good grief, I'm naive.

[BlueGoddess]

When we started the monthly stall we didn't have funds either, which is why we did cake and second hand uniform. Both are donation based so there is no outlay and it takes £75 - £100 per month.

[RumAppleGinger]

Biggest fundraiser this year was a silent auction. Appealed for parents to donate their skills and time so hairdressers donating a cut and blow dry, bakers promising a birthday cake when the time came etc along with people offering to do a basket of ironing/ an evening of babysitting etc. We ran it along side a coffee morning. We're only a small playgroup (less than 40 kids) and we raised over £800. Will definitely be an annual event.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

We've never done a second hand clothing sale, but that is the model our NCT sales run on, it is complicated. Each seller gets given their own number, they attach a two part paper label with their number and price written onto both halves to each item, at the sale, half the label is attached and kept by the cashier to enable the money to be sorted out afterwards.

When you say a silent auction Rum - what do you mean, how does it work?

[eatyourveg]

The new parents bbq/picnic is a great way to get to know other parents and meet the teachers in an informal setting. Tickets are sold beforehand so you know how much food to buy. You pay for drinks when you are there. Our school is less than 200 and the Y7s are approx 25-30 and we still raise four figures. there is a cake sale there and village fete style games such as guess the name of the teddy, throw the ball in the jam pot and a cake stall.

Second hand uniform sale on the last day of each term was always one of the biggest in terms of funds raised - especially the new year 7 taster day sale. All items are donated so all takings go straight to the PTA

[greeneggsandjam]

A silent auction in our school isn't very silent. You print out on a large sheet the offer, eg 2 nights in a holiday cottage or a cookery lesson or whatever it may be then you leave spaces for people to write their name and the amount they are willing to pay and basically it goes to the highest bidder by a certain cut off time but you can see what everyone else has bid. If you have parents with good connections and live in a fairly well off area the PTA can do very well indeed.

[greeneggsandjam]

Second hand clothes - loads of clothes are left unclaimed each term, you put a note out to say that any clothes unclaimed by a certain date will be sold off on a second hand stall on such a date, a good chance to get your hands on cheap uniform. Parents can also donate what they don't need anymore and you keep all of the money. I have never heard of parents getting money back, though we only do uniform sales.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

They have a tiny lost property pile at our school, literally just the odd jumper and socks/gloves, anything named gets back to the owner normally (6 years and 2 DCs and so far I have only lost permanently one glove). Donations might work though, a lot of people hand them on anyway.

Thanks for the explanation re the silent auction - I just don't get the feeling it would work very well in our school, it's a reasonably well off area but not a wealthy demographic, some of the surrounding village schools have a very different demographic and I could see it doing well there.

[FatalCabbage]

Bag2School take rags - we have two or three collections a year and raise £125 ish a time.

Christmas and summer fairs - games with low overheads eg Whack A Rat and stocks, or stalls selling/winning donated items are better money spinners than stalls selling stuff you have to buy. Round here you can get a temporary licence to sell alcohol for £21 and we can easily turn £££ over in a few hours.

Raffles - we recently had themed hampers as prizes, each class taking one item from the theme and bringing donations. Colours of the rainbow, countries of the world, that sort of thing.

Re films, we showed in classrooms on the interactive whiteboards and this was covered under the school's PRM (?) licence. Licence to print money, frankly.

What do you want to buy/fund? That should inform your targets. We prioritise subsidising school trips, visiting shows, that kind of thing, where every single child benefits. The visiting Christmas show only cost the equivalent of £1.70 per child.

[HRHQueenMe]

Hi! We have a fantastic busy PTA thanks to two amazing chair ladies who have great ideas and fun filled spirits! Do get involved, it is what you make it!
Any sponsored event makes ££££
Cake sales are great fun, but do push push push for people to donate cakes! Ours are happy to buy but we tend to run out of cakes!
Pyjamas to school day (the kids still talk about it)
Bringgrandparents/dad/mummy to school days, run a tearoom for breaks with coffee homebaking and snacks (dads loved the 10 o clock bacon butties) .

Piddlepuddle can you tell me more about the boden sale? Would love to organize one!!!!

[themummyonthebus]

Whoknows I don't think a silent auction with open, written Bis would work well here either but I'm thinking a box into which you could post your bid would probably work ok.

FatalCabbage the main money raising goal will be to fund outings. As I mentioned up thread it is a pretty mixed demographic and I believe there are a number of families that can't afford the small contributions requested for the four or five outings the classes have done this year. So I think we'd all agree that paying for those families and reducing the overall parental contribution is the priority and then we'll have to see what else we can best spend on, if there's any surplus.

[themummyonthebus]

• Written bids

[neolara]

Auction of promises worked well. They made over £1000 just auctioning off art that each class had produced.

[TheWanderingUterus]

Cold drinks/ice creams at sports days
Regular cake sales.
Ice creams for sale once a week after school in the playground
Warm Ribena and mince pies in the winter.

DDs school had a recent arrangement with a local magician. He did two after school shows for KS1 and two for KS2. £5 a ticket, he took a percentage of the ticket sales and the PSA took the rest. Think they raised over £400.

There was also an Easter Egg hunt in the playground after school. Year 6 hid lots of little coloured stones and if you found one you got an Easter egg. £2 a go. If you found the gold one you got a extra big egg.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

How does the ice cream etc at Sports Day work? Is it during for the parents and younger siblings, or after for the DCs who have been competing? We've given them to the DCs afterwards before now but it's a bit of a scramble as they are allowed to go home early with their parents once it's finished and everyone tends to want to rush off. But if we did it during then the competitors wouldn't get one. I suppose you could do both.

[TeenAndTween]

OP - second hand uniform. We ask for donations, then charge £1 for every school logo item, and 50p for standard grey stuff. This is more of a service to parents as it means there is a supply of cheap uniform, rather than a massive profit making exercise.

We don't generally subsidise trips, schools do get extra funding for those on FSM etc which can be used to subsidise trips if parents can't pay. But we do sometimes subsidise things like theatre groups visiting the school.

Our PTA prefers to save for larger capital items e.g. an outdoor play trail, that generations can enjoy, rather than her-today gone-tomorrow spending.

[TheEnchantedForest]

Camping nights are popular here. £20 to pitch a tent and an additional charge for a BBQ dinner and breakfast.
We use the school toilets.
Minimum outlay so big profits plus a good social event the parents and children really enjoy.

[themummyonthebus]

TeenandTween I think we are aiming small to start with as we just don't know how much potential we have among our intake. But it would be great to be able to renew the playground equipment!

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

We're similar to TeenandTween, mainly use ours for big ticket items, we do pay for theatre groups visiting but not for trips. Smaller things include replacement non-scheme books for the classrooms, leavers photobooks for Year 6, a set of wellies for the infant classes to use etc.

I've heard of others doing camping nights, how do you maintain access to the toilets throughout the night without compromising school security? Limited parking which is some way from the field might be an issue for us with that one.

[themummyonthebus]

Is an auction of promises the idea of auctioning parental skills as mentioned upthread?