School Fundraising Ideas

Lounge By vww104 Updated 18 Mar 2009 , 11:52am by KATE39

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vww104 Posted 8 Apr 2008 , 7:02pm
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I'm looking for new ideas for fundraising for my son's school. I'm tired of the over priced candles, wrapping paper and candy. Does anyone have any ideas or names of companies where they have had good fundraising results? Thanks for your help.

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michellenj Posted 8 Apr 2008 , 9:18pm
post #2 of 17

Try Joe Corbi's Pizza and cookies. They have great products.

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leily Posted 8 Apr 2008 , 11:35pm
post #3 of 17

Local schools starting doing the entertainment books www.entertainment.com

Or other local coupon books. Some of the books are only $5 or $10 and using one of the coupons (restaurants usually buy one meal get one free or something close) can pay for the book and then you have the other 100-200 to use and keep saving money.

Our local grocery store also does it for $5 the club gets $4 and then you get $50 worth of good coupons.

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adonisthegreek1 Posted 9 Apr 2008 , 4:48pm
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Some schools here will sponsor a Chuck E. Cheese night or some similar venue where a percentage of all sales are donated to the school.

I don't like the Entertainment books, because they cost $40. I don't like the coupon cards, because you can get most of the coupons without buying a card.

Some local pizza parlors will also have a special day where a percentage of sales are donated to a particular school.

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vww104 Posted 9 Apr 2008 , 6:15pm
post #5 of 17

Thanks for all your tips, I will definitely look into the Chuck E. Cheese night, that sounds like fun.

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ccr03 Posted 9 Apr 2008 , 7:40pm
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Yeah, our school did Chuck E. Cheese night too. You can get info on their Web site.

Also, is there any type of amusement park in your area. We have a Cedar Parks park and since they need TONS of help in the summer, they allow schools to do fundraising. Also, you might want to check with MLB, NHL, MSL teams. We have the KC Royals and Chiefs and the school has worked concessions at games and gets a portion.

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KATE39 Posted 10 Apr 2008 , 2:14am
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Where I live Burger King does a Burger Bash and they donate 20% of the total to our school. We have a 50/50 raffle while we are here doing this. It is a fun and busy night.

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nelja5 Posted 10 Apr 2008 , 12:42pm
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Applebees does pancake breakfast! We did it before and it was a great hit! We sold tickets for 5.00 all pancakes you can eat! They offerred the cook and the restaurant you have to bring the people to work! Great Fundraiser!

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abbyg7 Posted 11 Apr 2008 , 12:33am
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My sons school does Fun Night. The parents set up games at the bigger gym of the middle school or high school. The games are simple, popping balloons, throwing bean bags, lollipop tree, picking numbered ducks out of a tub of water, etc. We usually give out tokens at the games that they can turn in for prizes, nothing elaborate, plastic rings, pencils, erasers, candy maybe a few larger things like inflatable pool toys that they can get with more tokens. We have found that the kids like to get a lot of little prizes for their tokens rather than trading them for one larger prize. We sell tickets for the games, if they buy them at school they get a discount, 5 or 6 for a dollar, at the door they are 4 for a dollar. Each game is one ticket to play. We also have a raffle that is $1.00 a ticket. A lot of businesses will donate things for a raffle if you let them know it's for a fundraiser. Also parents might be willing to donate things(Cakes?). And we also had food available for a small charge, Pizza Hut will donate, possibly Chuck E. Cheese or the school food service or parents might be willing to donate food. If you split things up and request that a certain number of parents supply things like 1 bag of chips, 1 dozen buns, 1 batch of sloppy joes, 1 pan of brownies we usually had more than enough. The grade school kids look forward to this every year and their olding siblings come back too. This is aways our main fund raiser and we don't need to do much of anything else. It is a lot of work though and takes some planning.
Our school system also does a Chili Night which brings in quite a bit of money. The food service program makes the chili, cinnamon rolls and usually some veggies and dip. Some years we have had the kids in the schools from grade school right through high school make bowls(the higher grade art classes make some awesome ones)and auction them off. This also takes some planning but it is worth the effort.

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vww104 Posted 11 Apr 2008 , 7:21pm
post #10 of 17

Thanks for all for all of your great suggestions. For those of you who did the Chuck E Cheese/Burger King nights were they profitable? I noticed on the CEC website that the school gets about 15% of all receipts. I know the kids will love it, but I'm wondering how profitable it really is.

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ccr03 Posted 11 Apr 2008 , 7:33pm
post #11 of 17

It wasn't too profitable for us. 1. Everyone needs to remember to say they are with the school or you won't get credit, and 2. you have to buy everything at the counter - tokens included - in order for it to count.

but I guess it depends on the time, date, parent involvement - all that good stuff. PLus, one way to look at it is that there is NO cost to the school for doing it. Can't really beat that.

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vww104 Posted 17 Mar 2009 , 12:53am
post #12 of 17

I'm reviving this thread in the hopes that some will have more fundraising ideas. With the economy being so bad its getting really hard to find meaningful and worthwhile ways to raise money. Any new ideas?? Thanks!

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maryjsgirl Posted 17 Mar 2009 , 1:45am
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Our school has special weeks when every day they get to wear something fun or bring something to school they normally wouldn't be allowed to. Some things I can think of is "hat day", "pajama day", "stuffed animal day" etc. It's only a dollar donation each kid to participate, but the school receives 100% of the profit unlike most fund raisers. They also do "Popcorn Friday" and they sell bags of popcorn to the kids for $.50 each.

My boys are in PAL football and they get some pretty good local donations for raffles. Or you could get donations from local businesses and parents and have an auction too.

Does your school have a weekly newsletter? Maybe sell advertising space? If that is allowed anyways.

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redpanda Posted 17 Mar 2009 , 2:25am
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The elementary school my son went to had McPrincipal's night at McDonald's, where the teachers and administrators worked the cash registers, and the kids got to order their teachers around a bit for once. The restaurant gave some set percentage of the evening's "take".

Other restaurants have deals where you can reserve a night and anyone bringing in a flyer that night will have a percentage of their bill donated to the school. This has been for both national chains and mom-n-pop smaller places.

Silent auctions often do really well. Each class can have a theme, and local businesses related to the theme can often be counted on to donate small items. For example, the martial arts studio I attended donated a "kicking paddle" and a certificate for 30 days free. The class theme was sports and fitness, and I can say that the bidding went crazy.

(Another year, the theme was Cookie Fun, and I had to use restraint not to get into the bidding.)

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blondie500 Posted 18 Mar 2009 , 12:00am
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Friendly's does a fundraiser also. They donate I believe 15% of TOTAL sales from about 5 to 8 on a Monday or Tuesday. You need a representative there to greet people at the door, but other than that, that's all you need to do (maybe do a poster featuring the event). People don't need coupons or to tell the waiter/waitress that they're there for the fundraiser. It's all sales from a specified time. I'm not sure if you have Friendly's in your area, but this is one my kids love. We've done it for swimming, baseball, even a parent did it to try to raise money for her daughter to do a Semester At Sea. It was a decent fundraiser for us.

We've also done WaWa hoagie sale coupons. I'm also not sure if you have WaWa's, but how we do it is people preorder how many coupons they want. The cost of the coupons from WaWa is $2.50, but you sell them to parents for $3.50 (you can set your own price, it just depends on how much you want to make). You then place the order and distribute. We consistently raise about $500 each time we do it, and our season is only about 6 weeks. They're handy and people use them for trips, gifts to bus drivers, etc. Some parents put them in their glove compartment so that if they're on a business trip, they can stop for a quick lunch. It's probably one of my favorites.

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Shelle_75 Posted 18 Mar 2009 , 2:07am
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Our school does "McTeacher Nights" where the staff works at the local McDonald's for a set number of hours, and part of all the money made during that time goes to our school. VERY popular with the kids, getting waited on by the principal.... I don't know how much $$ they make at it.

Also new last year, and also very popular, they started doing Market Day sales, which is a food selling thing every month. They have a website to check out. Their food is very yummy.

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KATE39 Posted 18 Mar 2009 , 11:52am
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Our Burger King donates 20% of the sales. McDonald's gives 25% but you have to have the flier that is sent home with your child. We made out well with McDonald's that we are doing it again on this Monday. We also sell Gertrude Hawk candy twice a year, at Christmas and Easter. We have a family movie night where we sell popcorn, water, juice, and homemade goods. We purchased a blow up screen and we are in the gym with air mattresses and blankets. We have a lot of fun and usually the kids and some adults wear their pajamas.

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