<p>Son’s jazz choir needs $10,000 to put on its big spring show. While other groups were out in the August heat doing car washes, they were doing nothing. Other groups have sold everything you can think of, and the jazz chior has sold nothing. The director is a low energy type of person, and the officers (of which Son is one) haven’t initiated anything either. They’ll earn a bit of money through holiday gigs, but they’ll still be way short. It would be nice if all the parents could just write a check but there are only about 10 of them in the group so the checks would have to be really big.</p>
<p>Since they’re not motivated to raise funds, why not pare down the cost of the show and spend considerably less than $10K and have the parents or attendees fund it? Why would they spend that much just to put on a show anyway?</p>
<p>They’ll probably have to go minimalist, but it will be disappointed to them. Over the years, various parents have wondered out loud why they need to perform to a live professional band, rathern than just using a student keyboard player or something. But for most of them, it’s their one chance to sing a solo with a live band…most of these kids will not be music majors, and it’s a highlight of their high school careers. But this may be the group that ends up with the student keyboard player…</p>
<p>Can they use the high school’s jazz band or a small portion of it? Our high school has a jazz band and a show choir, 2 separate groups. I think it would be cool if the jazz band could attract a few of the choir singers over to sing some numbers. Maybe I’ll suggest it to our band director.</p>
<p>Our show choir has hired band members to play with them. They come A LOT cheaper than professional musicians.</p>
<p>$10K is a lot of $$ to raise in such a short time. Most fundraisers don’t make that much money. Exceptions would be a golf tournament, perhaps. But with the economy being in such a hole, it might be hard to get businesses and golfers to pony up substantial fees.</p>
<p>Perhaps a casino night–but it has to have the support of the community. That would require a lot of energy from choir director, which doesn’t seem to be what you have.</p>
<p>How about hiring a professional keyboard player? Our middle school choir hires a professional piano player to accompany the choir. A student wouldn’t normally have the skill set to do it.</p>
<p>Can the students do yard work/snow shoveling/odd jobs and ask for a donation to the choir ?
What about selling scrip? You can also use Goodsearch to search and purchase items through the internet. That will raise a little bit of money. It’s tough because your group is small.</p>
<p>This group would probably love to volunteer for snow shoveling…here in Texas. I was actually thinking of a babysiting night/parents night out for Christmas shopping, but I thought the school might not want to get involved in the child care business. The drill team, cheerleaders and theater do all day “children’s worshops” that are really no more than glorified babysitting but I don’t think choir is as big of a draw.</p>
<p>Why don’t they quickly advertise their availability to perform at Christmas parties in exchange for donations? They could break into a couple smaller groups. Our high school jazz band does this.</p>
<p>Maybe they could market themselves to serenade people – the “buyer” could select from a limited number of songs (and number of singers with a sliding fee), for surprise drop-in singing at workplaces, homes, whatever (with adult supervision for safety). Birthdays, anniversaries, Christmas wishes, etc. Maybe unworkable…just a thought!</p>
<p>It’s funny, they have several paying gigs lined up (including one tonight) but I’ve never seen a mass email to all choir families or to all PTA members or anything advertising that they are available for private parties and what it costs. Seems like even a low energy person could do that.</p>
<p>We just did a night of Galactic Bowling for one of our many fund raising things for Project Graduation. The bowling alley stays open late, disco lights, music etc…$10 at the door… and we split all proceeds with the Lanes…all the kids from the high school are invited…up to the kids to get the word out… we had about 4 couples, men and women at the door to collect and chaperone…we grossed about $1500-1600 for one night…so we netted $780-800 give or take, cause the Bowling Alley rounded down their share to only $700. </p>
<p>Another thing we do is an Annual Spelling Bee…$300 per team… not for Project Graduation… teams are 3 people…and we get about 30 teams each year… we hold it in the HS theater…every team has a name and they wear costumes… and we raise almost $10K in the one night. It is fun for everyone…not as much work as some events but definitely need a great wordsmith…we bring 4-5 teams up in each round until there is a winner of the round…and then all the round winners compete in the final spell off round…big trophy to the winning team… we have local newspaper, firefighters, elementary school teachers, local public library teams… families, some “college teams”, ie Yale, Dartmouth, Univ of Maine etc etc… </p>
<p>If the students are indeed available for private parties, it would be easy to make up a simple press release and send it to the local newspaper and news stations. “Jazz Up Your Holiday Party!” or other title; brief info on the group; brief explanation (sentence) of what revenue will be used for; contact name and numbers (including email); possibly pricing. Someone needs to be ready to respond promptly to any inquiries. You might be able to get some news coverage to boost visibility and increase engagements.</p>
<p>When my kids were in school, there were annual bake sales, art& craft fairs, silent auctions. Parents helped out by offering either goods or services (an architect might donate xx hours of his/her time for a consultation; a parent might cook a whole meal for 2 or 4); the kids made the rounds of local businesses for donations or ads on the printed program for the spring performance, and so on.</p>
<p>Do they solicit sponsors for the show? My business was always a sponsor of my D’s high school musicals. The business got a nice ad in a program. A friend of mine who owns a business participated too so that was several hundred dollars from two sources. There were numerous other businesses that participated.</p>
<p>Not sure how big of an area you can reach, but you can try a Krispy Kreme donut sale. For many years I was on our Post Prom committee and we sold them twice a year. Dozen per box sold at $5.00 actual cost was $2.50. We would sell about 500 boxes. Another fund raiser we did was at night at a local resturant or Chic Fil A. They would donate a portion of the sale as long as our fund raiser was mentioned at time of order.</p>
<p>If you want outside money, a big garage sale with neighbors, other students’ families also requested to donate items. Our little school made about $4k. If you have a clean up and Christmas wrap station for the used goods, you can make even more. You can also include some hand made crafts like spools or blocks or papers in a tin with little sayings on them. We made an astonishing amount on those things, and I am not handy. A bake sale and coffee, hot cider, hot chocolate, hot tea station selling treats and drinks can make a few dollars too, along with raffle tickets, if you can get a local business or someone donate something to be raffled off, like a highly desired Christmas show, prime seats to the band’s concert, etc. What’s nice about this sale is that most of it was outside money instead of hitting the same people for cash.</p>
<p>Getting monetary donations for recycling Christmas trees netted our Boy Scouts some funds one year & they hauled the trees to the school where it was chipped up for mulch. They handed out flyers with the collection date & rules (no tinsel, wires, flocking, ornaments, etc.) ahead of time & collected the donations & noted the addresses.</p>
<p>Playing at holiday parties & receptions would be a natural if they could get publicity–maybe a local TV or radio station would be interested in a story?</p>
<p>Our jazz ensemble is going to Disney for a clinic in the spring - they are having a “Hot Jazz on a Cold Night” event in an old church in town that has been converted into a wedding/reception hall place. We are featuring an alum of the school that is a jazz musician in NYC now, as well as some local artists and students (nice to have the Eastman School closeby). it is win-win-win for everyone, since the musicians and the reception hall get exposure for possible future business, they are charging us little or no money for their share of things. No alcohol, just coffee and desserts…mostly donated by local businesses and parents.</p>
<p>Another idea that has been successful for a small group here is a “Chinese Purse Auction” - individuals, businesses and stores donate designer purses (like of the Coach, Dooney and Bourke ilk) and you sell tickets that people drop in the boxes of purses they are interested in winning, then draw for them at the end of the night.</p>
<p>I emailed some of your great ideas on to the director. She nixed them all…she is considering a couple of really lame ideas. It bugs me that she won’t even go to the effort of sending an email to all choir parents regarding their availablity for private parties, etc.</p>
<p>The mom of the president of the group is very involved (single mom/only daughter). I think I’ll tell her about some of your terrific ideas and maybe she can make some of them happen.</p>