your favorite school fundraisers??

Julie Billingsley

Julie Billingsley

The Ghost of Awesome Past
My son goes to a small charter school that relies on fund raising a lot. So, the fundraising committee is asking the parents for ideas on what we'd like to see for next year and I thought I'd ask you all what your schools do. :) This year the school did cookie dough, a Christmas shop, and Entertainment books. Not that I want to be nickle-and-dimed to death, but I'd rather do a fundraiser that is a good product than some worthless ones. So, any you liked?
 
I personally don't care for the entertainment books THAT much....my favorite one is the Christmas wrapping paper one (well there's other paper too)

I also like the supplemental ones, like there is a car wash by us that if we put in our school's code, they get 15% of what we spend on washes.

I also like buying candy bars :p but mostly sports teams do those anymoe :)
 
I was our Charter School fundraiser coordinator for a bit. It takes some work. But a really good one is See's Candy!!! They have an awesome program and usually you can get s bunch of sales around a major candy iving holiday. Here is the link:

See's Candy
 
my favorite is cheesecakes. My daughter sold these awesome cheesecakes in chorus and they were sooooo good!! Like 25-30 dollars a piece but man they are so good. (Did I mention how good they are? LOL)
 
One of our favorite fundraisers that the girls' school does is Papa John's pizza night. The PJ's location closest to our school sponsors it, they send home forms to be given to the store or delivery driver. They donate 20% of your total (before tax, coupons & discounts) back to the school plus the classroom with the most participants wins a free pizza party. They do it about every other month or so during the year, we eat pizza at least once a month anyway so we usually participate. Kaylie's classroom won the last pizza party of the year right before school let out it May! If you don't have Papa John's in your area maybe there is another chain restaurant that might have a similar program or be interested in setting one up to help the school out.
 
I like the Sonic Drive-in cards...with lil pull off coupons for different products...$5

Hy-Vee grocery store and Price Chopper sells $5 coupon books...the organization pays $1 per book and the fundraiser earns $4 per book. Generally there is a coupon inside that with a $50 purchase, you save $5 so you get your money right back...plus lots of other coupons. That is my fave...generally I will buy 5-6 from each child that asks me to buy.

Ci-Ci's pizza had school fundraisers...but they left our area...bummed as it was our fave pizza place.

The local roller skating rink did fundraising...they reserved a night for a school and they would have a skating party...a portion of the money went to the school. Kids loved it.

Good luck.
 
another one they had that was always a hit here is pennies for pasta. They sell spaghetti dinners from either Fazolis or Olive Garden for a small amount and the whole family can come to eat. They always do well with that.

the last thing is does your school collect boxtops for education? They give the school money for each label they turn in.
 
When I was in 5th grade we sold citrus fruit right before the holidays and it was enough to send our whole class to overnight camp for 3 days.

My kids' school does spirit nights at lots of local restaurants where the restaurants give the school a percentage of sales. It's good for the local restaurants and the school.

Also there are soup labels, water labels (Dannon), box tops, Tyson points and Capri Sun label programs from the manufactures where you can raise money. Our has a paper they send where you put 20 box tops on it. If you kid brings it in they can go to the Box Top store on Friday and get something for free like a pencil with eraser, highlighter, etc. Things the PTA bought cheap when all the school supplies were on sale at the beginning of the year.

I do a trade with my co-workers where I bring them Coke and Pepsi points and they bring me box tops and soup labels. The school raised $50K on box tops alone last year.

Target also has a program where when parents use their Target cards the school gets money.

I hate fundraisers myself! I wish they weren't all at the beginning of the year. The ones I don't mind are car washes, Smencils ($1 smelly pencils they have sold at every event this year), dinner/family nights at the school for a low price on nights we would be there any way (conference night, PTA meetings, Family Dance night), set of 4 re-usable 16 oz sport cups (that have college and professional sports teams on the cups). I wouldn't mind selling stuff that my kids can bring home themselves and that don't need a freezer (cookie dough).
 
When I was in high school...eons ago...I was the class treasurer and our best fundraiser was doing inventory for a local department store. 4 hours 30 people...big bucks and nothing to sell!
 
As a purchaser of said fundraisers I like wrapping paper and cookie dough. The base always has a big cookie drive for the airmen at Christmas, and I love just pulling the tub out of the freezer!
 
I'd actually do this one. Love, love, love Yankee Candles!

pbumbaca said:
Yankee Candles
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My kids don't go around asking people to buy stuff...'cause then I'd just have to buy other people's kids' crap, too. So, I usually just order a bunch of stuff, but it's generally crap we never use...like cookie dough and frozen pizzas. This year, I just send cash to support the program and not get stuck with crap that I have no use for.

lol...I said crap 3 times in that paragraph. Guess you know how I really feel. :p
 
I am our school Parent Group President and I have loads of info for you.
I will list a few here but feel free to PM if you want more info
1. Fall carnivals
2. Find a local business to team up with (win-win for both) we used our local greenery business and did fall deco kit, winter wreaths.-swags-centerpieces-trees
3. Dollar store for the Gingerbread shop at the holiday time
4. Taco dinner at Parent-teacher confrences
5. auctions for teach-for-a-day, community member positions for a day (fire, police, store manager...etc)

Again...I have others if you need them.
 
I'm PTO President of our elementary school and we've done many of the ones already mentioned. However, in the last couple of years our parents were getting sick of fundraisers. So we did a donation-only fundraiser where the funds went to something specific (Smart Boards) and we raised $8600. The parents appreciated not having to buy something they wouldn't use and were happy the money was going directly to something great for the school...instead of operating expenses.

We also do silent auction baskets at our carnivals and those bring in several thousands of dollars. But it's a lot of work getting the goods for all the baskets.
 
My kids have a Jog a thon. Where they get friends and family to sponser them per lap example 1 dollar for every lap around the school's field they run. Or they can just be given a flat rate.

Also my favorite is the Raffle! People from the school donate themed items for themed baskets and once all assembled they sell raffle tickets and draw out winners for the baskets. We have won 2 years in a row. We usually end up spending about 30$ on raffle tickets but its really fun and the baskets are always really cool! This year we won the Fishing and Gardening baskets. Basket full of seeds and garden tools etc and the fishing one was fishing pole, lures etc. Its just really fun. The kids usually put on a little concert or something for the entertainment and they also do a silent auction of donated items too. Its fun.
 
I don't know about favorite but our school does the Box Tops, store things. But.....only one fundraiser a year. They have a Walk-A-Thon. They get donations for their walking. In the evening, the school sets up a circle for them in walk around at the school and they have cards they get punched for each lap and certain prizes. That way the parents can just donate their money and be done. They have concessions too. Another school does the carnival at Back to School night.
 
For our school, we did a walk-a-thon. The kids collected pledges beforehand, then did the walk on a designated date. Volunteers kept track of how many times they walked, gave them a certificate, and then afterwards students brought in their pledges.

It is refreshing, because it is healthy for the kids, and you don't have to sell anything. Plus, families can contribute a little or a lot, -a flat pledge or say $1 for every lap completed within an hour (or a half hour if they are little ones).
 
Also my favorite is the Raffle! People from the school donate themed items for themed baskets and once all assembled they sell raffle tickets and draw out winners for the baskets. We have won 2 years in a row. We usually end up spending about 30$ on raffle tickets but its really fun and the baskets are always really cool! This year we won the Fishing and Gardening baskets. Basket full of seeds and garden tools etc and the fishing one was fishing pole, lures etc. Its just really fun.
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Our school does this and it's really fun. Each class puts together a basket, so there's usually a lot of different themes. The kids go wild for the ones with Ipods in them!

I like the entertainment books too. I hate anything that they expect my kid (which means me) to sell!
 
I second the Yankee Candle suggestion!!! My sorority does this as a fundraiser each fall so that candles arrive by Thanksgiving and we make a TON on it!! They have a great program. :)

We bought pizza from a Little Caesar's fundraiser recently and that was really good.

Another favorite of mine is discount cards for local stores & restaurants. I think they are $10 and are good for a year. The discounts are specified on the back of the card and they can be used over and over. There are usually 10+ merchants that participate in our small town. :thumbup: Our cheerleaders have done these for the past several years.
 
I agree with Krystal...I hate the ones where the kids have to sell things. My kids don't do it and I have even stopped buying anything too. My favorite one was when they asked for a $50 donation from each family at the beginning of the year so they wouldn't have to do the wrapping paper and cookie dough fundraisers.

I also like doing Box Tops, recycling ink cartridges, recycling plastic grocery bags, Papa John's pizza night, and linking my grocery card so a certain percentage of my purchases goes to the school.
 
HeatherKS said:
Another favorite of mine is discount cards for local stores & restaurants. I think they are $10 and are good for a year. The discounts are specified on the back of the card and they can be used over and over. There are usually 10+ merchants that participate in our small town. :thumbup: Our cheerleaders have done these for the past several years.
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we bought one of these one year and used it tons! we go out to eat quite a bit so it was great for us.
 
I prefer things like collecting box tops, carnivals, car washes & 'spirit night' at local restaurants where the school gets 50% of the sales that night.

I hate selling things. Hate it. I am always disappointed by the quality/amount of the product in the things the school sells. I then feel bad for getting other to buy it, so I just don't do it anymore. The only thing I will actually attempt to sell is when they do restuarant coupon books. Otherwise I send back the packed with a check for $30 because that is far more than they would get from me if I just tried to sell anything.
 
Yankee Candles has been a great fundraiser for us the last two years...right before the holidays - great gift ideas.

We also started doing a Write a Check campaign at the beginning of the year, asking people if they didn't want to fundraise, they could write a check for a suggested amount...several families took advantage of this, even some who wouldn't have sold that much anyway, so it worked out for our PTO.

We also do a carnival in the fall and have gift baskets up for auction - each classroom has a theme (legos, sports, scrapbooking, etc)...and kids from the class bring in an item to fill the basket...also we raffle off "front row tickets for the 3rd grade music program" and other events through the year.
 
Personally, I love it when the school simply asks for donations for specific reasons. 100% profit for the school and little hassle.

I also like walk-a-thons, bike-a-thons, etc.
 
I dislike the fundraisers where the kids get hyped up about selling in an assembly becuase they are promised huge prizes, and then what they have to sell is mostly junk. Ick.

Between my school and my kids' schools, here's what I like:

1. School nights at various restaurants -- Pizza Hut, Cici's and Baskin Robbins all do this for our schools. The school gets 20% of everything sold that night if you turn in a slip with your order.

2. Pickles/Popcorn/Krispy Kreme day -- once a month, the PTO buys a huge bucket of pickles, pops a bunch of popcorn or picks up dozens of Krispy Kremes (using the fund raising cards where they are buy 1, get 1 free). Then they sell them to the kids for 50 cents a pickle/bag of popcorn/doughnut. My current school does the pickles and they sell out every time. The kids love pickle day.

3. My youngest daughter's school makes tons of money with Fun Night. The cake walk is extremely popular, and all the cakes are donated by parents. High school volunteers run the games, lots of the prizes are donated by parents and businesses, and there's a chili cook-off/feed in the cafeteria. It is wall to wall packed on fun night, to the point where we've stopped going because it's so crazy.
 
HeatherKS said:
Another favorite of mine is discount cards for local stores & restaurants. I think they are $10 and are good for a year. The discounts are specified on the back of the card and they can be used over and over. There are usually 10+ merchants that participate in our small town. :thumbup: Our cheerleaders have done these for the past several years.
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Oh we love the discount cards too, they always had lots of great deals but our fave was BOGO blizzards from DQ :thumbup: Our high school sports teams usually sell these every year but all of our younger cousins graduated so we haven't had anyone to buy them from the last year or two. I know around here Papa John's, Sonic, Subway and a few others also have their own discount fundraising cards that you can get for like $5-10.
 
oh, we did do a walkathon this year too - and movie nights are a hugely attended event at our school and good money maker.
 
PM me and I can tell you more about what/how we do ours. Here are a couple of things that we do.

We have a silent auction every OTHER year. We make around 50K after expenses. We also do the gift wrap which brings in 10-15K every fall. We do the Dollar-A-Day at the beginning of the school year, which brings in around $10-15K too.

We do the Entertainment books, but not the whole program--we do not send them home with the kids to sell. We offer them at registration day and actually sell a lot of them! These are really in demand now that people are looking for coupons, etc.

The dinners out, at Chevy's red Robin, Fridays are always good. They are giving us 20-25%. At Red Robin, the teachers and the principal comes and they mingle from table to table and serve drinks for part of the time. Those bring in between $700-1000 per shot. Also, Jamba Juice will sponsor a week where if people bring in the flyer or mention our school, they give 20% to our causes.

Box tops are GREAT--almost free $$ and little effort! You get 10 cents per box top and it really does add up quickly. We have a raffle every month of the contributors and the winner gets a prize--like a gift certificate to Cold Stone or something.

Recycling Program-once a month, we have a recycling day and the $$ go directly to the classrooms that participate.

Scrip--gift cards. we make a good amount of $$ directly to the classes. You have to watch out with this though because of the companies that are going out of business.

Scholastic Book Fairs--brings in about $5K in actual $$ and about half that much in books/materials for our classrooms and library.

Basically, we really try not to nickel and dime our parents. Also, we try to only do a couple of 'fundraisers'--like the auction and the giftwrap. And, we make sure that the end product is something our families actually want(!!). All the other things just generate $$ throughout the year.

I am the PTA president for our school. PM me and I can tell you more about what other things we do. I just got back from our PTA convention and there were a lot of other ideas that we are going to try.
 
Wow girls!! These are great suggestions!! I'm gonna wind up the fundraising chairperson if I tell them all about all of these. LOL I am glad to hear there are better opportunities than the ones they have been talking about. I just might contact some of you for more info. Thanks for every bit of help! :wub:
 
I thought about something else. Do they wear uniforms? We did & once a month, we'd do a casual Friday. We had to pay $5 to wear something besides our uniform & everyone did it!
 
They do wear uniforms and I wish we could do casual friday! I work at a children's clothing store and my kid wears uniforms. LOL...
 
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