Any fund raising ideas for dd school?

[manchita]

I have just voluntered to help out with fundraising at my dd's school. Does anyone have any experience/ ideas in this field?

No organisational experience but I know that things like tea towels or place mats featuring pictures (self portraits, whatever) drawn by the children are money spinners. We've had lots of these (usually one per class or yeargroup), parents seem to feel sentimentally obliged to buy them!

christmas fair
mufti days
job abob weeks. wehre kids fill a samrties tube with money
100 club.

Have a look on this thread

Thanks everyone for you ideas.
Castille- how does the tea towel thing work? Is it your individual childs design or a general one for the school?
pukkapatch- Can you expand on mufti days and 100 club?
Policywonk-so many great ideas on this thread. I read that you have recently got involved with the PTA do you have any organisational tips? What ideas have been well recieved?

To be honest, the more experienced committee members are holding things quite close to their chests at the moment (quite wisely), so I haven't really got a lot of experience yet!

We had one tea towel design for the infants, another for the juniors (not one per year group, in fact, I checked!). Each pupil drew a picture - self-portraits are the best - and they were assembled to make 2 designs for the school. There are companies that do these things. We've had aprons as well which were nice. Sorry I don't know who as I wasn't involved, but a Google search might reveal some.

Another thing we had was a mouse mat and a t-shirt with a picture drawn by DD. Parents are suckers for that sort of thing!

At my friends school they do a great thing for the Christmas Fair - all the children are asked to bring in a present suitable for a grown-up. The gifts are then placed in a room and during the fair the children all go into the room and for £1 they pick a present for their Mum or Dad and it is wrapped up for them to take home to give to their parent on christmas day. Apparently it makes a lot of money and most people send in nice things as they know their is a good chance it might come back home !

100 club.
people choose a number from 1 to a hundred, for which they pay 12 pounds, or one pound a month.( i think, mya be two) each month a lottery is chosen of two numbers. one gets 25 pounds, the other gets a tenner i think. the rest of th emoney goes towards the school.
so 1200 incoming a year, and four hundred outgoing. adds up to 800 a month profit for the school

mufti days. the kids wear own clothes to school. they have to pay a pound into bucket at school gates to do so. or something. or collect round classes, but simpler to collect at school gates in teh morning as parents there. iyswim.

secret santa type thing. unwanted gifts etc donated to school by parents. kids can then buy and have them wrapped up in secret santa classroom during school fair. parents not allowed in secret santa room. run by pta. parents donate gift wrapping as well. good opurtunity fo rlo's to choose and pay for gifts themselves.

www.easyfundraising.org allows you to get a percentage of any internet shopping.

www.everyclick.com is a search engine that raises money from each search done - you may need to be a registered charity for this one.

For more of an event, what about a "50:50 auction"? Parents and friends of the school donate items for sale and the money raised is either split 50:50 between the school and the donor, or 100% goes to the school (the donor just ticks the appropriate box on the form that they submit with the auction lot). It also gives you a chance to raise additional funds from the sale of tea, coffee, cakes etc.

Would definitely recommend using a professional auctioneer to lead things for you as they are brilliant at eeking out extra cash from people, just contact a local auction house to see whether they have anyone who would do it for free, or for a nominal fee - they're usually very accommodating for these sort of things.

My Mum & Dad's church hold these 2 or 3 times a year now and they have proved a great success over the while.

This is a good website for schools to raise money through parents' internet shopping - www.onlineforgood.com

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Quiz nights are always popular. We charge enough to cover the cost of a fish supper and a drink plus a bit over for a profit but then run a bar which makes a good profit (you need a licence for this).

For Easter, have an Easter Egg raffle. Ask parents to donate an egg and sell tickets. No outlay at all so pure profit.

auction always raises loads

this yr was £4000

A few ideas:

Cake sale - parents/kids bring in contributions (preferably home-made) - so, apart from buying a few bags / paper tablecloths it's pure profit, and you can do one every term or half-term depending how popular it is.

Another one we do is international food as we have a lot of different cultures within our school. The last we had we sold lasagnas, samosas, home-made sweets from Poland, Thai food and loads more - all home-made and, again, donated so it was pure profit.

Bingo and chips - a Saturday afternoon in winter, played Bingo in school hall - had donated prizes, entrance price covered the cost of a portion of chips for each person (the chip shop delivered them and threw in sauce / vinegar for free as we placed such a huge order!), and people paid about 25p per game - that was great and raised quite a lot of money.

I've helped to organise quite a few small and large events at our school so can try and help with tips if you have any specific questions

www.yellowmoon.org.uk

If your school has a uniform a second hand uniform shop is a good idea - split the takings between donor and school. Open the "shop" maybe twice a term eg in the school hall. Needs quite a bit of admin input but a great service and money maker.

My last school did a Friday cake stall - each class or year group on a rota to privide cakes each week, manned by Mums of that class/year. Flat fee of 20p per cake, place stall on way out of school for guaranteed sales to exiting children!

Stalls at sports day selling Pimm's and sweets / crisps etc bought for nothing at cash and carry (in fact make sure your school has a cash and carry card for everything they are great!!)

Quiz nights, discos, wine tastings, coffee mornings, curry night, scottish celidh all done over the years. A lot depends on the spending capacity of your parent cohort - you don't want to make them feel they are putting their hand in their pocket constantly.

Another thing I have found is that parents want to know where their money has been spent so if you can say it's for something specific eg electronic white voard, minibus or whatever then people are more willing to contribute in my experience.