Fundraising - How do you make money from "Coffee Mornings"

[eversomuch]

I was wondering how people generally raise money for their schools by hosting Coffee Mornings. Do you just serve some coffee and cakes and put out a bowl for donations? Or is it more involved than that?

Just wondering if it's worth trying for our small preschool. Thanks!

That's how it worked at DD's primary. They usually had a raffle too.

Usually you sell tickets, which give you coffee and a biscuit, then have a cake stall.

Sell coffee for £1
or if you want to really make money, be like Starbucks and sell it for £5

a tombola/draw with donated prizes
sell slices of home made cakes

A lot more involved here. The "vintage style" coffee morning happens every last Friday of the month. The village hall gets decorated with lovely bunting, tables set up around the hall with white table clothes and flowers, Tony Bennett music playing in the background :) Most of the mums bake for the coffee morning and donate baking for free. The cakes are set up on lovely cake stands. The cafe has been running for about 2 years now and is a massive hit with the older members of community, it's a great chance for them to get together once a month and have a good chat. Entry fee of £2 buys you a cake and tea/coffee and you can also purchase cake to take home at £0.50 each. Children's entry £0.50 for biscuit/cake and juice.

I think the reason it's been so successful is in the thought and commitment that went into it. The cafe raises on average £130 pm for the school and never less than £100.

We don't do them. School fairs normally raise about £3k and other events £350-500 each. We raise about £13k per year, it's an infant school only. £100 from a coffee morning wouldn't be worth th effort.
Having said that, fulsteams coffee morning sounds like its providing a lovely event for older perhaps more isolated members of the community. Th church near our school does similar once per week with an afternoon cafe.
So I think there can be other benefits than financial.
Good luck

It depends on what space you've got, where your pre-school is, etc.

If you can attract people other than parents of the pre-schoolers, then you are on to a winner - if your pre-school is on a high street or the village hall or whatever, or maybe in a Church hall, and you can get members of the congregation or passing members of the public in (obv. would need to be when the pre-schoolers aren't meeting in the hall). Or if you are next door to the school and can start just as the school day starts, so the 'crowd' is there anyway.

If it's whilst the children are there, then you will get more people (Grandparents etc., or people ducking out of work for an hour) if there is something else to attract them in..... the children singing a couple of songs or something they'll want to see.

As a rule, when fundraising with cake stalls / coffee morning type things, I've always made much more money by asking people to put in whatever donation they'd like, rather than charging a set fee.

We only did them as part of the Christmas or Summer Fairs. Parents baked cakes for free and we priced them up on the cake stall and sold some, sliced, with coffee. We are a fairly affluent area and could raise quite a lot of money pa. I have been a governor in a poorer area and we only raised about £2000 pa there. People had far less disposable income . You have to tailor your fund raising and expectations to your parents' incomes.