<p>Our HS Parent Teacher Org. is experiencing hard times. Along with a big turnover in leadership and the economy, it is finding that their reliable fundraisers have lost their appeal (or have been copied by other groups.) There are 3000 students in this school and it is difficult to coordinate large fundraisers. We are hoping that we can get clubs and organizations more involved.</p>
<p>Does anyone have any fundraising ideas? The goal is to raise at least $30,000 by next year’s graduation. This year’s class will have less than $10000 for scholarships, senior grad activities, etc. I’m greatly disappointed since this is my kid’s yr. and he won’t have the big send-off that other classes had.</p>
<p>My younger daughters innercity school, has a lot of different groups that need supporting & the fundraisers are usually tied to them
performances by the orchestra etc.
Specifically for the senior class- the class generally does their own fundraising beginning freshman year- earmarking it for graduation
Bake sales, car washes etc.
The annual school wide auction is mainly for the senior class as well, although there may be specific ticket items for certain departments in the school
I don’t know that the school earmarks money for graduate scholarships, but there are often local scholarships or alumni organization funds</p>
<p>I don’t really know how much was required to be raised for the graduation/party, but the combined amount is a low cost so everyone can feel they can attend.
The party occurs immediately after graduation and the class take buses along with their chaperones to afterhours venues which is tightly controlled.
It is a highly encouraged event to control underage drinking & perhaps your school could encourage local businesses to sponsor the event in some way.</p>
<p>Our high school’s most successful fundraiser is a dance marathon - the proceeds go to an area camp for children with special needs, but I don’t see why a similar event couldn’t be effective for in-school fundraising. The participants raise an amazing amount of money each year (over $100K for the most recent events). There’s a minimum amount of money each kid must raise in order to participate in the 12-hour event ($50?), which is planned (by students) many months in advance. Local merchants donate prizes, which are awarded to the individuals who’ve raised the most money. It’s a huge community undertaking, and most students in our school of 1500 participate. It’s been going on for years, and you don’t have much time to pull something like this together - but it could happen if each club would commit to supporting it.</p>
<p>Another effective school fundraiser is a special music concert each fall, held after a dessert reception. Our school has a strong music department, which presents many free concerts throughout the year - this is the only one with a price tag attached. It’s primarily the music parents who attend, of course.</p>
<p>Some schools raffle off a prize parking space or two, which would be attractive if there are a lot of folks who drive to your school. You could offer the space for a whole year, or have several raffles throughout the year. You’ll want to talk to the local police department or town clerk about raffle regulations.</p>
<p>I work for a small not-for-profit that raises about $50K annually to cover much of our budget. The easiest fundraiser we do takes 2 hours on a Sunday afternoon - it’s a walkathon, and even when we have 20 participants, we can come up with $2000 if some of the walkers are enthusiastic about collecting donations.</p>
<p>We make about $8-9K annually with 2 large flea markets, held in the spring and fall. It’s back-breaking, but there’s very little expense involved (just the ads in local papers) and everyone loves to pitch in on it, for some reason. Great opportunity to clean out a little junk from the basement. We’ve refined this event over the past 15 years and have learned a lot through our mistakes - if you want to try this, feel free to pm me.</p>
<p>Another easy fundraiser (if you have willing volunteers - there’s the rub) is a business partners program. You can ask local businesses for annual donations in exchange for advertising space in the school newsletter and/or on the website. Good luck - fundraising for high school activities is usually the job no one wants to do!</p>
<p>that reminds me- one of my daughters schools sold space in yearbooks to parents- to add tributes- another sold space in the school newspaper but also in the graduation program- to businesses- ( mostly owned by parents)</p>
<p>Another school where I was on teh board- we had yearly festivals- one of the most popular items was a dunk tank- where teacher/principal volunteers would be subject to dunking by students/community members who paid for the privilege.</p>
<p>At the same festival ( this was a K-12 school), we had teachers who volunteered to sing karaoke and parents/students, who bid on them, got to do the honors of putting them into a costume from leftovers from various musicals</p>
<p>One of my friends is very involved in her sons lacross team as a booster parent. They had a very successful fundraiser recently. It was a scavenger hunt that began in one town and ended in another ( both are the same high school district ) It was for adults only since it ended with a beef and beer. There were several donations and door prizes but in the end, they netted $10 grand…not too shabby ! We are a small district too. Now the copycats are coming out ,but I understand it was a lot of fun. We didn’t go because we had guests , but we did donate one of the prizes ,which wa also the very last find in the hunt
We have seen a rather significant drop in the funding for the association we belong to as merchants , so my husband came up with an idea that we will be trying for the first time in about a month. It is related to our business</p>
<p>Can you give tell us what types of fundraisers the school has already tried?</p>
<p>One idea is a wine tasting. Many wine shops will run a wine tasting evening, at a reasonable ticket price. People love to drink. At the event, you can have a raffle and a few auction items.</p>
<p>A big winner at several events that I’ve chaired: buy cases of wine and attach an envelope containing gift cards and certificates in various denominations to each bottle. Charge $30-$50 for the bottle and advertise that the total value of the wine plus the mystery g/c is more than the price paid. Have parents donate g/c’s and certificates from local businesses. Try to get a local liquor store or distributor to donate the wine. It’s a bit like gambling, and people love to take a chance.</p>
<p>At my kid’s small grade school, we routinely raise $80,000 with annual events like this.</p>
<p>emk - how does your school handle the silent auction? Is it a part of a bigger event?</p>
<p>frazzled - I heard talk of a “talent festival” w/a talent competition among the PTO board members. It could be set up similar to your dance marathon. Using clubs to dissiminate info and bring in prize donations would help.</p>
<p>lje62 - the scavenger hunt is intriguing! Our local businesses are very supportive but there are so many groups (from our school alone) that solicit support from them. I wish there was a way for the groups to put all of their money in one pot and then draw from it. There’s power in numbers. Too bad the culture in our school seems to be “every man for himself”. It worked when the economy was strong but not now.</p>
<p>kajon - the small groups have bake sales for their causes already</p>
<p>gourmetmom - our recent successful event was a wine tasting. Our best yr. netted us $45k. and now our city’s business association has decided to have one! We really need to regroup and find ideas from other areas so we won’t compete. BTW, I love the wine bottle and “surprise GC” idea and will definitely suggest it!!</p>
<p>Our school has a very successful volleyball game twice a year where teachers compete against each other. We also have done Sumo wresting with teachers…a company comes in and brings the big suits. Guaranteed lots of laughs. Sometimes its the simple things that brings in a lot of interest. In both cases you can raise money with ticket prices but also have a silent auction going on in another room for fund raising.</p>
<p>The K-12 I was involved with tried different things</p>
<p>There was a small blackbox theatre- where the karaoke was held- that had been originally part of the lunchroom on the main floor, and since I was actually running around during the whole thing I don’t remember how they did the bidding- but since it was a small school- it could have been as simple as you picked up a number when you entered- were told who was doing the singing and then there was a short bidding war.</p>
<p>We also did a silent auction of donated items- classroom projects that was held in the school- it was to supplement the live auction ( which was held elsewhere), as an emergency, because the district had forbidden us to take home the theater box office money & reciepts as we had in the past over the weekend and although we had put it where they wanted us to- it was stolen- and the district apparently doesn’t cover that sort of thing. Since ( the parent group) had already fronted money to the drama dept for their years performances- and that the reciepts were supposed to go back into the general fund for the arts programs for the whole year- we had to work fast to come up with other money.</p>
<p>If you forgive a little rant which is totally off topic- the alternative K-12 school had been in this building for twenty + years, and in the district for longer than that.
The parent group had raised the money to build the black box theatre, to build play ground structures and to develop the arts programs, by adding wings for kilns etc.</p>
<p>While the district never really publicized or looked fondly on the school in the last 10 years, it was left almost alone- however, last year, suddenly the newish superintendent decided the program was to be closed , the building " reopened" as a completely different alternative school designed to take the enrollment burden off a middle school in a neighborhood of college professors and former owners of large computer companies.
All the mulitple copies of books that the parent group had donated over the years to the library for book groups- were now the districts to decide what to do with.
Etc.
Grr.
( needless to say- the burden has not been lifted, because neighborhood students who want the comprehensive middle school that is overfull- are not satisfied with a untested program that has been slapped together)</p>
<p>sigh.</p>
<p>Anyway
this time of year- you could also sell services
people with trucks could do dump runs
people with strong backs can do yard work
etc.
:)</p>
<p>emeraldkitty4 - I hear you.<br>
It’s hard enough to raise money that used to be “supplemental” and now has become necessary funds. Now, we (as in parent org) have to deal with district “restrictions”. Our district has decided that food can only be sold by the district food services (aka the cafeteria) during school hours and that rules out any bake sales and other food oriented fundraisers.</p>
<p>^^ Lilmom, the rule about not selling food during the school day is actually not your district’s rule, that’s the USDA rule for any school that is part of the National School Lunch Program (which includes virtually every public school). If you get audited and the USDA finds out, they will require that all monies earned by the non-cafeteria group thru the sale of food during the school day be turned over to the cafeteria. Many principals aren’t aware of this rule (and many schools violate it) but they should be aware of it. There’s no USDA rule against food fundraisers outside of school hours, though. I kind of wish there was, D brought home a box of candy bars to be sold for $1… guess who ate $40 worth of candy bars? :(</p>
<p>In our high school, the PTO does no fundraising. Why? Because we don’t want to compete with the sports teams, each of whom does their own fundraising, or each grade level, or the clubs or any of the other groups in the high school who are constantly fundraising. Our PTO is pretty much purely a communication vehicle between the parents and the principal/administration/teachers.</p>
<p>We do have a Project Graduation group, which is separate from the PTO. They do bottle and can drives, and ask parents for donations.</p>
<p>We also have an Education Foundation in town that gives out grants to teachers to try new programs that the school district can’t afford to fund. They hold two large fundraisers annually: A Casino Night in the fall, and a Trivia Bee in the spring. The Trivia Bee features teams from local businesses and each of the schools, each team pays $300 to enter a team. It’s fun.</p>
<p>Most scholarships at our hs come from local businesses, foundations, churches, or private families in someone’s memory. Also all the sports booster groups give out varying levels of scholarships.</p>
<p>Lilmom- do you have the axxess book in your area. Different non-profits sell them. Up here they sell for 30 and the organization gets to keep 10. The purchaser gets discounts at shops and dining places around town. I think other areas have this as well or something similar.
HS also does the magazine sales for the seniors to make money to cover the senior costs.</p>
<p>mom60, the athletics groups and others sell something similar to the axxess book. That’s what our problem is, too many small groups “hitting up” the same customers. The other hurdle is how to encourage as many kids as possible to participate. I can see the seniors selling magazines to cover their costs. That’s an idea.</p>
<p>Fundraisers that have been successful here include 1) a “rock-a-thon” - similar to a dance marathon but participants use rocking chairs 2) a basket auction where themed baskets are raffled off 3) a bag auction where trendy purses (Coach, D&B, Prada, etc) are raffled off 4) a recital night where students and faculty members share their talents and desserts are sold 5) a pageant for guys in the senior class (the whole nine yards, including formal-wear and talent - don’t laugh, it has raised a TON of money) 6) selling school spirit items like golf umbrellas, school car decals, stadium seats and blankets, etc</p>
<p>Do the grocery stores in your area have the “discount” cards…the ones you swipe at the checkout to get discounts on sale items? These cards can be linked to your school with a special code. Then every time you shop and use your card, the grocery store donates a portion to the school/group. If you can get lots of people to link the card, it’s a painless way to raise finds. Last year the kids from the marching band stood out in front of the store handing out flyers to everyone who entered asking them to link their card to help the h.s. band.</p>
<p>Our school also has the Guy Pageant. It’s called the Mr. “high school name Pageant”. S1 was a competitor his senior year.
It was hysterical and the auditorium was packed. They had a group dance number, swimsuit, talent and formal wear plus videos of each guy answering hilarious “world issue” questions. It was one of the highlights of S1’s senior year. Oh, the talent was pretty funny, not serious talent. S1 and a friend both worked at gro. stores so did a cart race and gro. bagging competiton as their talent. They did this wearing only extemely short shorts and their grocery aprons with Gwen Stefani’s Bananas Song blaring. The audience (lotsa girls) went crazy.</p>
<p>My SIL used to live in Napa. They had quite a few wine related fundraisers at the local schools. She said the best money maker was when everyone was required to bring in a couple bottles of wine. They would then fill empty wine cases and sell raffle tickets. (maybe $25 or $50 each) Total profit.</p>
<p>I recently learned of a PTA that collects clothes a few times a year and sells the used clothing to an exporter. Seems like this type of fund raiser should be a “win-win” — because it will encourage families to do fall/spring cleaning …and will give them an easy place to drop stuff off that they would have otherwise have thrown out or would have had to find a place to donate to.</p>
<p>I don’t know the name of the company they use, but found a company online through a google search: [Trans-Americas</a> Trading Co.- secondhand used and vintage clothing](<a href=“http://tranclo.com/charities.asp]Trans-Americas”>http://tranclo.com/charities.asp). I’m sure there are other companies like it, and maybe someone on this site can give a more direct reference for one of these companies.</p>
<p>Another good fundraiser, if there isn’t anyone in your area already doing it, is Christmas wreathes. There are a number of growers that will “drop ship” to individual locations --so you don’t have to deal with the hassle of pick-up or delivery. You can enourage out of town family to order, too. If you can get a corporate customer or two to buy wreathes from you…it can be quite a windfall. (“profit” on wreath sales is usually anywhere from $5 to $10 per wreath.)</p>
<p>A bowl-a-thon can bring in some nice money if the students are in to it. They have to go out and get pledges but most kids have fun at a bowling alley so it can work well.</p>
<p>How about washing cars at the school during a staff development day when the kids are off but the staff is there? Another variation is to do a free car wash but have the kids get pledges based on how many cars they can wash in a day.</p>