<p>It’s the age old problem…fundraising for an EC, trying to raise money from people other than ourselves. We’re sick of buying our own raffle tickets and calling it fundraising. </p>
<p>The group wants to have some Saturday Night something that would draw adults (other than the EC parents) to the school. Themed dinner? Silent auction? Fashion show?</p>
<p>Is there *any *type of (non-sporting) event for which you would leave your house and drive to the local high school if you didn’t have a kid of your own involved?</p>
<p>(Please, no lectures on the evils of fundraising for ECs. I’d personally to prefer to just write a check for expenses, but not everyone is in a position to do so.)</p>
<p>Church youth group offers babysitting nights. I took my D when she was younger and I know parents who take their young children now even though they are not members. The charge is something like $10 for the first child and $5 for additional siblings.</p>
<p>I was actually thinking of babysitting. Church chld care departments are ideally suited for such activities. I don’t know about schools. I wonder how that would work from an insurance standpoint.</p>
<p>Perhaps a clinic of some kind? If it’s a sport, then that’s easy enough but you can even do it for things like theater; arrange a day of improv games and the like. It gives parents the day off and younger kids just love working with older kids.</p>
<p>Actually, you could have a comedy night with an old fashioned bake sale. Every bake sale in this town makes a ton of money just asking for any donation amount, rather than an actual price listed on each item.</p>
<p>Comedy night could be volunteer parents/teachers/students.</p>
<p>I personally wouldn’t go to something at the high school now that I have no children at home. What people do tend to support is dinner at a restaurant events. Find a Tuesday night when a local restaurant is slow. Get them to donate five or ten percent of their profits. Some will also create a limited menu and let the volunteers wait tables and keep the tips. My public library board did this and made 1800 dollars with no risk. No up front costs or overhead. We did add a small raffle with donated items. Lots of people came who are older, single, families. Big cross section of attendees.</p>
<p>Having run a casino night/silent auction for years, I can tell you that I don’t think anyone would go to one whose kid wasn’t benefitting from it. Ours was only attended by parents and teachers who had kids at the school. You pay for the casino to come and hopefully the playing and or table sponsors pays for them to be there. You make money if you get people to sponsor tables and or from the auction. We never made much money off the casino night portion – that was just the entertainment/draw. You also generally have to have some kind of food at an event like that which factors into the cost of attending. So, basically, people buy tickets to come, which would include the cost of the casino, and which you might or might not make some money off of, and you are outlaying some money for decorations, food, etc. The auction is the main moneymaker and silent auctions are a huge, huge amount of work. They are the most intensive amount of work of any kind of fundraising I’ve seen done. </p>
<p>I would go with something easier. I’d check out programs like escrip, grocery shopping programs, restaurant nights, etc. but if you must have an actual event, then know your target audience. In our target audience, we realized after a while that the cost of tickets and a babysitter were so high that people didn’t spend as much at the auction or casino tables as we wanted. A more well-off group might have. So if the people you are trying to get to attend are well-off, you can do something like a fashion show or dinner-dance, but if they are not, you might want to do a family event that kids can attend. We found our parents came out in higher numbers when their kids were included. One thing we found that was very successful was tile walls – selling tiles to be painted that eventually went up on walls at the school and those walls are beautiful. You can also sell bricks, things like that.</p>
<p>We did well with a euchre (card game) night for our soccer team. Prizes, food, drinks, and lots of card playing and laughter. There is some format for switching off partners every game or so (can you tell I don’t play myself???). Actually my job was going around and selling 50/50 raffle tickets to people who were playing. I think we had about 40 players or 10 tables (4 to a table). The majority of the people there were friends/neighbors of the soccer player parents who just like to play cards.</p>
<p>We didn’t do it at school though - a local coffee shop agreed to open up for a few hours in the evening - they were new and it helped them build a customer base. When people signed up to play, part of their fee covered the cost of one free drink from the coffee shop that night - they could purchase additional drinks. All food (munchies) was provided free.</p>
<p>My college EC does restaurant nights like in post 9. That and bake sales in places where people will already be are the only things worth doing to my knowledge.</p>
<p>Some of our local hs marching bands participate in partnership with local bingo alley. It’s an elaborate setup in an old bowling alley… owned by the bingo folks but manned by parent and student volunteers. Our marching band volunteer students/parents hired out at the CU football games - they pay/donate money for the many helpers at the concession stands. </p>
<p>On of the local music departments did a nice dinner “theater” (actually many different acts with hs musicians). We gladly paid for tickets to have a fun evening and see the neighbor girl sing.</p>
<p>50/50 raffles, yes! People love those because they can win money! And you can do them at all kinds of fundraisers easily. We always did those at our events and sometimes the winner donated their half to the school.</p>
<p>How about a Trivia night? I know a number of organizations who have them where I grew up. There are a number of people who try to go to as many as they can. They can raise good money. They usually have the 50/50 raffle and a silent auction.</p>
<p>You could also have a rummage sale. Lots of people have items that they may have to donate – especially if you go pick them up. </p>
<p>Barnes & Noble used to have non profit groups come in during the Christmas holidays to wrap gifts (they supplied the paper, but we usually had extra). It was for donations, and our church group did it for a couple of days. I think we raised over $500 for the two days. I think it was either a 2 or 3 hour shift. You have to ask early about it.</p>
<p>This isn’t a Saturday-night kind of event, but D’s dance studio used to do an annual fundraiser that pulled in some non-studio money. They did it the first Saturday afternoon in December, and billed it as “Leave your children with us for the afternoon, and get some Christmas shopping done.” It was held at the studio, and run by the Company kids. Activities included a craft, a snack, and a dance lesson (and pugmadkate is right, the little non-dancers were bedazzled by the glamorous big girls). I think we charged ~$25 per head.</p>
<p>This was always my favorite fundraiser because: it didn’t involve selling, the dancers did all the work, the only cost was snacks and craft supplies, it required minimal prep/setup, and it was over and done with in an afternoon. It was good for the studio too; inevitably a few of the little guests later signed up for lessons. Success depended on getting “outsiders” to attend; as you say, it’s not helpful if the only attendees are younger siblings. We moms were given flyers to hand out to everyone we knew who had little kids.</p>
<p>Thanks, everyone. We do an annual clinic. It goes over well. Other groups in the school do casino nights and 50-50 auctions. EVERYONE does restaurant nights. (Last spring we had two and they were mandatory for families in the EC - it was ridiculous - we spent something ilke $40 on dinner so the restaurant would make a $2 donation to the group.) (Also, w’e have to do about 100 r We’ve done Bingo forever and everyone is just burnt out on that.)</p>
<p>^ you’re dead on … never mind folks getting “tired” of the event your group is running … there are the other 100 fundraising events going on for all the other organizations … my third kid is just starting high school and I’m totally fried on fundraising between their school and EC fundraisers (and their friends, and their cousins, and our neighboors, etc). It’s tough to be unique and compelling in the middle of the blitz of begging for money.</p>
<p>Getting people to donate money to a school group with which their children are not involved is certainly challenging. I always respect when the members of the group are providing an actual service for the money. Fraternities who do rent-a-brother and will mow your lawn, schlep something heavy in your house, weed your garden, etc. Even a car wash provides something I need and would be willing to buy from a high school group rather than the service station. Babysitting really is a nice service–I would sooner get my babysitting as part of a fundraiser and go to the entertainment of my choice (a movie, a professional performance) than hire a babysitter in order to go to the high school for a fundraiser.</p>
<p>My daughter is involved with a program at a theater that holds “pajama parties” at their more family-friendly productions. They pick one performance in the run that is designated a pajama party and children within a certain age range (not too young) can be dropped off before the show and picked up as late as 10 or 11. They get volunteers from the theater company to provide the supervision. They do have a classroom where they are able to give the kids pizza before the show and a craft/snack afterwards, but mostly the kids watch the show. They (and the volunteers) do wear their pajamas.</p>