Fundraising ideas for scout group

[MrsWombat]

I am about to join/ help restart the fund raising committee for my son's scout group, along with some fellow school mums, and was looking for some ideas. I get the impression that the families are time poor but happy to throw an extra couple of quid at us every now and again to make us go away.

Events that are currently run are a race night, and a new years eve party. The leaders would also like a Christmas Fair organised.

Ideas I current have are: setting up an EasyFundraising website; lottery bonus ball which would net a whopping £1.5k if we pull it off; doughnut stall once every half term where we buy fresh doughnuts from the supermarket and resell for a small profit after the group finishes (works well when the PTA does it at school) and something along the lines of Christmas cards but not Christmas cards as they do them at school.

Anyone got any good ideas, please?

Beetle drive ?
Something sponsored.
bag pack (nice to not have to tap the parents every time)
Apply for grants if you are fundraising for specific things..

100 clubs seem to work well as once people have set up the direct debit they have to make an effort to stop it. My parents are still in one 20 years after I left the club in question!

Do you have an alcohol licence at your events? If not, it's £23 a time.

Christmas slots for bag packing can be lucrative if you can get them. Get the Beavers to do carol singing also.

Fairs are hard work
Is there a local community event you could offer to run a stall at instead - hot dogs/burgers, tea and coffee, or beer tent?

Easy things to to are registering with Easy2name and Organised Mum - selling name tapes etc and diaries respectively. I did this a few years ago for scouts and found it very easy to make money as it was products people wanted anyway.

Family bbq, cooked by the scout fellowship and a charge of £2 per head.

Quiz night with BYOB and sell soft drinks, tea/coffee.

Pamper night.

Get a local comedian who need experience in and charge £5 with BYOB.

ChippyMinton The evening events are always BYOB. Much easier!

You are missing a trick then!
Get a license. Buy in wine, beer and cans of pop and ice. Supermarket special offers are usually better then cash n carry. Haul the coolers and gas fridges out of camp stores for the chilled white wine, lager and pop. Do a sensible price list, wine by the bottle etc. Free squash for the kids after their can of pop. Have a couple of volunteers running the bar. If you don't make money I'd be amazed!

Or do sale or return from your local friendly off license if your worried about being left with booze (as if!)

Run a tuck shop. Our scouts take £1 each evening for pop and sweets, and it's run at camps too, saves everyone traipsing to the camp shop.

Gosh. Is this really necessary? Don't subs cover what you want to do? Our scout/guide groups don't really do any fundraising apart from very occasional pushes for something specific. Everyone tends to be very busy with PTA events etc. and the scouts/guides are always asking for new leaders and parent helpers for trips, camps etc. I think we'd drive our parents to a nervous breakdown if we started asking for their help in regular fundraising for scouts/guides as well!

(DH is group scout leader and I help with some guides stuff).

So given you said people are time poor, but don't mind throwing you a few pounds, my first suggestion is just to put subs up a bit if you really need the extra money. My second is to make sure you are claiming Gift Aid on subs. My third is to look for local charities, local council, supermarkets etc that might have pots of money you are entitled to a share of.

Or if you really want to do something, our local scouts/guides have done quite well with car washing events. The PTA's best events in terms of money raised relative to effort are an annual 10K run (a lot of work though) and an occasional promises auction with some really good stuff.

Actually 10K probably to big an event for a scout group. Piggy backing on other local events can work well. Help with car parks, or doing refreshments, in exchange for a donation.

Increasing subs and making sure everything is giftaided are easy wins - talk to your treasurer.

Otherwise bag packing slots at your local supermarkets tend to net a few hundred if you can get willing Cubs and scouts.

Selling Christmas trees nets us several thousand a year but takes a lot of planning and willing parents to deliver. See if any other groups do it and tag into their system.

Deliver Christmas cards locally for a small fee? The traditional scouts "bob a job"?

We used to do things like bag packing (nightmare but usually does well), penny mile, sponsored bike rides, also check with your local council for any grants etc

Ensure everyone signs up to pay subs monthly by standing order.
Sort out gift aid.
Bag packing is the obvious one if you want the dc to understand they need to "earn" their subsidised activities or a car wash - although market has dropped out of that a bit since so many have sprung up around the cities.

The '100 club' is easy money once it's set up, (I presume that's the 'bonus ball' idea?) although people might not be as keen to set up 2 STOs to the same group.

I agree about the bar though, if you do have social events - you can borrow glasses for free from local supermarkets, and you make a bomb on the bar for not a huge amount of work.

Use disposable 'glasses', even less work (although recycle them obvs.)

They've not done any major fund raising for the past few years as far as I know, and they need money to be spent on the building and new equipment. (Not going in to too much detail there deliberately!) The subs haven't gone up in the past 8 years either so I'm guessing that would be a good start, but having a quick google they are rather high already. (£110 a year) It's a small group in a small hall. 20 Beavers, 30 cubs, don't know how many scouts.

Thank you for all your suggestions so far.

jumble sale?
bag packing at supermarket?

We'd love to support your son's scout group - Drop us a message at [email protected] and we can help with funding!