PTA fundraising ideas, little and often

[sborber]

I've recently joined the PTA at my DC's very small school in the local village. First time being in a PTA so pretty clueless, but keen to help out as they desperately need it.

It'd be great to hear from fellow Mumsnet users who have had success in fundraising for the PTA who can share what worked/what didn't work?

We've pretty much nailed down the two main events for the year ahead - there's only a couple as we have few members and not a lot of volunteers to help us run them.

So, I'm interested in anything that might be steadier throughout the year - smaller, incremental fundraising that sort of generates cash in the background. Do such things exist?

Are there any good grants we should be applying for?

Thanks for all help and advice in advance 🙏

It benefits the parents. Trust me it's very popular

These are a huge hit at my school. The kids love it

Our local school does a Christmas hunt where you walk around and spot the decorated posters in windows of houses displayed by parent a following a trail. There is some sort of quiz, £1 entry.

Lots of locals enter too.

I do agree - I'm a working parent myself and while trying to think of fundraising ideas also would just be happy setting up a DD of like, a fiver a month. Less than a coffee these days.

Just returning to say thank you everyone for sharing your ideas!!

This is simple to set up - www.easyfundraising.org.uk - promote to parents/grandparents/others. It will bring in money every time someone purchases something. They can set it up to get a reminder or just go through the app. Set up soon to get the Xmas rush. Over the years I've raised around £400 for the school.

Disco.
I pay you money, you entertain my child.

Or an option to pay a lump sum in advance

Before the summer we did a doughnut sale with dunking doughnuts. They run a scheme where you can buy doughnuts for 50p each, and we did at £1 each. Had to do the order and pay, someone collected boxes of doughnuts in the morning, then had about 4 of us selling them after school - people got them on way home. Was a bit of a guess of how many to buy - we sold out the first time, and had a few left the second time. Think the first time we bought 300 for a primary with approx 420 kids. Might be worth investigating. Better if have somewhere covered you can sell from (we were lucky both times).
Otherwise break the cruses day is popular, and have summer and Xmas fair as bug events. Also do tea towels every few years, and lego keyrings are popular. Want to do more adult only nights really - think bingo might happen next year!!

A coin collection once a month, with a payment link as an alternative. Suggested donation £3-5 per family, with - important! - Apple Pay or Google Pay enabled so it’s an easy and quick option. Pick a fixed day, eg last Friday of the month

edited to add: one of those coin-counting machines at the supermarket will get rid of the shrapnel and provide a receipt. A commission is payable, but it’s worth it to save the hassle AND have a paper trail of the amount collected.

Our PTA made a surprising amount of money by sending the kids home with those little boxes of raisins and asking parents to fill them up with spare change (fund raisin’!).
The class that raised the most all got small Easter eggs and the PTA still made a good profit.

Thank you for your recommendations, now they are also interested in this topic.

Absolutely this!

The thing with regular low level fundraising is it puts so much pressure on parents who maybe just can't afford the £1 here, £2 there on a regular basis.

@tigger1001 @zeitweilig this is where the Easy Fundraising site comes into its own - obviously only for those that do online shopping. There are so many shops affiliated to it including Amazon, M&S, Asda, Argos etc. Even Just Eat is on it now.

Absolutely. Better than continuously expecting parents to put their hand in their pocket.

When is it time to move away from unhealthy food and sweets as being central to PTA activities? It’s doughnuts, sweets, chocolate and only raisins gets in as being healthy. I thought healthy schools was a thing?

We used to do a Race Night once or twice a year when I helped out with Scouts, and it was always a brilliant fundraiser 🎉
It’s definitely more of a “big night” event rather than something you’d do regularly — but worth it for the social side and the boost to the annual total. Everyone gets involved, it’s easy to run, and you can even use funny money or play notes so no real cash changes hands on the night.
If you ever fancy organising one, there’s a free step-by-step guide and printable materials at www.RaceNight.me.uk — it explains how to set everything up for PTAs, Scouts, and small community groups.
They were always such fun evenings and made a nice change from the usual raffles and cake sales! 🐎🍷

Our PTA organises a terms disco on Friday afternoon - we have enough kids for 3 discos back-to-back. It’s £3 and for that the kids get a glass of squash and a small packet of crisps if they want too. It’s very popular - mums sign up to help out as they love a boogie! Generates not much money but a lot of goodwill towards the PTA.

PTA also organises a Christmas Grotto, a Mothers Day and a Fathers Day Gift sale - basically you pay £2.50 in advance online, and then your kid is given a voucher and they can go to the Grotto and choose a small gift from a selection (so there will be a selection of gifts on display; child chooses the one they like best and goes and gets a wrapped one from the PTA person who runs the grotto). The gifts are ALL designed either for mum, dad, grandparent or sibling - the idea is that the child can feel they are buying something lovely as a surprise for a relative, and enjoy the feeling of giving as well as receiving. The kids absolutely love going in to pick a gift. Gifts I’ve I had included hot chocolate sachets (great), a packet of biscuits, hand cream and a little mug saying “World’s best mum”. Happy with all those!
PTA obviously buys cheap so makes a few quid per gift and that amounts to quite a lot!