I am the new chairperson for fundraising next year at my son's elementary school and need some ideas. The PTO said they are getting tired of doing the catalog type sales and want something different. Any ideas you have would be a great help!!

Have you done a brochure with frozen desserts, pizzas and cookies?

The PTA at the school where I work sells popcicles & popcorn every Friday after school. It isn't a huge amount of money but it is a steady income. I think they make about $600/month. They also do a jog-a-thon which brings in the big bucks. It costs almost nothing to put on so almost all the money brought in is profit.

I tend to like the things that are community building as opposed to just selling stuff. Think Ice cream social, spaghetti feed, etc. What is the community like. . .tight knit, active parents; busy working parents; etc?

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"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm

As far as I know they have not done a brouchure with any food items. My son is in kindergarden so this is my first year with the school. I have suggested a food catalog but they are still resistant.

The community is a mixture....some of the parents are really involved and attend many events the school has to offer. However there are a lot of parents that don't want to do anything, they don't understand that fundraising is paying for the transportation for field trips, activites for families several times a year, teacher wish list items, etc.

Our's does:

- movie night ( not that popular, but fun)

- breakfast with the school mascot

- skate night at the local rink ( we negotiate get a protion of the proceeds)

- McMania ( you can get a portion of the proceeds from a night at McDOnalds, Burger King and some Dunkin Donuts participate)

- garage sale ( 2 ways either ask for people to donate items they don't want and you sell them for the profit or sell booths)

- tricky tray ( but this is TONS of work and you need a lot of help.)

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I'd suggest a garage sale held in the school parking lot on the weekend. People are looking for bargains these days. If parents from the school donate stuff, I suspect it could be pretty profitable. The only problem is getting space to store the donated goods prior to the sale.

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If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition, and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

- Stephen Colbert.

I think the PTO should not dictate to someone volunteering what they are tired of, unless it was in the vein of "it's not working....we need something new" This is a huge project to take on unless you have some prior experience.

Further along, my suspision was confirmed, you said this is your first year, your son is in kindergarten. I think the PTO thinks they have someone new who will now work tirelessly for what they want. Pace yourself and work steady on this.

I have always liked the idea of putting together a $100 value bundle of groceris and holding a raffle. With tips here on saving money, coupons, sales, rebates, clearances, it would be fairly easy to put together $100 easily. You could do several or themed such as "hba", "snacks", :"cereal", "staples" etc. Pair this with a carnival or social event to enhance getting people there and spending money. I think a $1 chance to get $100 worth of groceries (and not have to shop!) could be a winner.

dl

One school around here does something with Yankee Candle. People respect the quality of that product so they know that it won't be over-priced junk like lots of those fund raiser catalogues. Lots of sales around Christmas time since the product is highly giftable

I don't know anything about the details...but you could contact YC

A yard sale is also a huge money maker. Most schools have a room or two that could be used short term for storage of donated items. Pretty easy if you use that school property for the sale...lots of room and a large parking lot ( at least in the schools I know)

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Our best fundraiser was the school carnival. Lots of fun, but needs lots of volunteers. Do 'easy' games and 'hard' games for all the kids.....mystery egg tree for the little ones (watch out for choking hazards tho) and things like 'toss a football thru a tire' for the older ones. We had a cake walk, a raffle, popcorn and snacks. Eventually, we even had a Plinko game. Prizes were cheap stuff or donated larger ones for the raffle. Google kids carnival for more ideas....ours was the best in town for years!!

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When I was an officers, we decided we were tired of catalog sales and just sold $1 candy bars. We made as much money and it was much easier. The difference is, most catalog sales we dealt with had a guaranteed amount you would make and many people we afraid to have a sale that wasn't guaranteed. We always did very well.

I know after I left, they went on to have monthly sock hops that were very successful and other things like market day and yes, they went back to catalog sales.

I know you are new, but please realize that many parents have other children and are selling many, many items at the same time. They may not always sell in every sale. After so many years of selling this and that, its just easier for me to find out how much each child is expected to sell and write a check on the profit of that. I know DD was suppose to sell 10 pizza kits at a profit of $5 each. It was easier for me to write a check for $50 than to have to try and sell all of these kits. DS needed to raise $800 for choir, it was easier for him to get a part-time job to earn the $800 than to earn it selling candles and chocolates.

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MyCoupons is #1 for holiday shopping!

Our school holds a spring carnival each year and makes money on raffling off items that are donated by the community. We have BK night a few times during the school year. They do candy bars sales, collect pop tabs, cake bake raffles.

Our school did a raffle. It is very fun. Each teacher is asked to donate something. Some are worth $ (movie tix, or a webkinz for example) but most donate their time. (play wii with the principal, 1:1 basketball with the gym teacher, picnic lunch with another teacher. .you get the idea. You learn a lot about the faculty too, as some give knitting lessons, a swim in their pool, etc. So, they end up with about 60 things to raffle off. Tix were 50cents each. Not a lot of work for anyone, and lots of kids won prizes and it adds to the community feeling of the school. I would much rather buy $10 worth of tickets for this than overpriced cookie dough or wrapping paper.

I can't remember if this was memtioned earlier in the thread or not - old timers - but does you school do the Box tops for education? They are on a lot of products and you only have to turn in a small square of the packaging for money for the schools. To me it is one of the easiest ways to make money for a school. Just make sure that if you decided on some of the ideas such as a carnival that, yes they do usuallly bring in a good bit of money, but they are a LOT of work. Just make sure to get real commitments for help as SOMETIMES it winds up getting dumped in the lap of a couple of people. You dont want to get burned out the first time.

One they've been doing for a few years at my kids old private school that is ALWAYS a big hit with the kids is the turkey hat contest. We bought a goofy turkey hat from Oriental Trading one year, and then we sold paper feathers (.25 each or 5 for $1). Each teacher has a picture of a turkey (think made out of construction paper) on their door and the kids can buy these feathers and pick which teacher's turkey they want to put it on. At the end of the 2 weeks whichever teacher has the most feathers has to wear the turkey hat all day.

__________________
"No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?"
- George Orwell Animal Farm