School Fundraisers

If you're looking to sell things, Market Day has a really good fundraising program with gifts for Christmas and such (not just the food that we're normally associating with Market Day). My son's school does this one big fundraiser each year with Market Day and the items they have are usually pretty good.

The other fundraiser they do is with Papanicholas Coffee Company (headquartered in Batavia, IL, so it supports a local business, too!!!). There's a sheet with about 10 different coffees and teas and they're all locally roasted and stuff. Personally, I really enjoy Papanicholas Coffee, so this was a double bonus!

I have a year round fund raiser. Folks can do their everyday shopping and the school earns money. Shop at Target, Walmart, etc and earn money for hte school. And the customer earns cash back as well. Win win for everyone. It's a new non profit program. Message me for more details.

Our High School Band does car washes, yard work and baby sitting. They sell ads for the High School year book to individuals and businesses. My two kids earned about $2000 each selling year book ads.

In your area you might explore the possibility of shoveling snow off driveways and walks. We don't shovel snow in southern California where we live, but you might be able to make money doing that.

Good luck to you and yours.

Our school has candy day every Friday. They bring one dollar and can pick any one candy from the candy cart.

There are always bake sales, craft sales...

One year, a local principal did a fundraiser. If the school made so much money, he would shave his head.. another year, he did some kind of silly stunt.

At our high school, one fundraiser we did, was during a school rally, we had a pot bellied pig there. The few weeks prior, kids donated money to vote for which teachers/students would have to kiss the pig. The top 5 teachers had to kiss the pig in front of the whole school. It was a riot. Same thing with a pie in the face and such.

Sorry, but I always suggest having people bring in their cans for recycling. I know it is a hassle to store them, but at least you are not asking people to purchase anything. Almost everyone can help with this too! I think about 90% of people have soda cans in their house.

My daughters elementary school just sold Entertainment books. In preschool, they sold ButterBraids, which were yummy and they seemed to sell a lot of them. They also worked with local restaurants where if you ate there on a certain day and during a certain time frame, the school would get a percentage back from the restaurant. Usually it was like 15% or 20% but one night they had an 80% give back and lots attended that night.

You have some great ideas!

I would suggest Tastefully Simple. When I was a consultant, I would happily do fundraisers (as it helped me reach my quarterly quota) and my 25% of commission went to the cause. I would check that for sure... everyone can use some beer bread :)

Mabel's Labels has a great fundraising program as well.

Box Tops

I would also suggest an event.... bingo, trivia night, etc.

Good luck!

Little Ceasars sells pizza kits or cookie kits as a fund raiser. The pizza's are actually very delicious.

Cinderella Cheesecakes is another great one I buy.

I also love it when the kids sell gift wrap and greeting card box sets.

Another fund raiser I love is Rada. I hope I'm spelling that correctly. They sell knifes, cookbooks, seasoning mixes, etc.

Ask various sports clubs, genres of dance, yoga, exercise, personal trainers to volunteer 1 hour of their time a month and ask if you can use the school gym before school. Have participants donate say 3.00 for every class they attend. The volunteers of course have the rights to the sign in sheet with e-mail addresses and the right to hand out their literature.

Do a biggest loser contest for the year with a "paid" independent recorder/record keeper not from the school. The contestants pay to enter, there are clinics either monthly or weekly depending on who you get to volunteer time for everything from classes for exercise, nutrition and fitness. For each class taken the also pay 1-3 dollars per person attending. Weigh in occurs either weekly or bi-weekly or monthly with a collection of an additional dollar or 3.00. At the end of the year at the last PTO meeting the final percentages are given of weight loss(no actual weights are to be revealed no one would participate then). The prize could either be a donated item like a 6 month membership to a gym or get a spa day donated, or a night out on the town. If no grand prize is donated the prize could be 50 percent of the dues collected over the year. This is a great fund raiser and helps to show the kids it matters to stay healthy. If you have anyone signing up who should really not be losing weight a rule could be set that a persons BMI should not be below or fall below their normal range to participate.

walk a thon - all the money goes to either prizes or the school -- 95% profit is pretty cool!

Travel beCause does school fundraisers. I don't know the info off the top of my head but you could check there website.

The Schools this year are doing Ice Cream Socials and they seem to be a great hit.

A good winter one that garnered my highschool a decent chunk of funds (sent 10 out of 20 girls to DC for nationals for a week) is a Sing/Dance a thon. We got Karaoke Jockeys to donate their time/equipment (3-4hrs) and set up the gym like a school dance with a stage and a dance floor as well as a few smaller rooms with different music focus, a senoir room, kids room etc. We charged diff prices for the dance/singing
Kids were .25/song and dance 20 for unlimited
Teens/Students .50/song and dance 25 for unlimited
Adults 1.00/song and dance 30 for unlimited
We also had the choir(s) all get pledges for how long you could sing with the groups in the theater ... So As a choir member I had someone pledge 5/hr to sing and another pledge 3/hr and 10ppl pledge .50/hr etc and someone keeps track of how long you sing with the group on stage and you go back to collect your pledges as well. If you sing for an hour you just made 13 bucks but most of the group was paid about 50-75/hr to sing and many people would just give you a flat rate all together. One of my friends dad's gave me 100bucks to "go away" lol. So, you can do something along those lines good for winter

We have also done a walkathon where the kids get pledges per quarter mile or section of a mile that is appropriate for their age and someone keeps track of each kid's milage. good for spring

And a Silent Auction is always easy to add to any of these events ... local businesses are typically willing to donate goods for these - we never had a problem getting massage certificates, dinners, day trips to the local zoo etc.

People like fundraisers that they can get stuff for now. Things that were hits for out school.

Bingo night - each Bingo card was $5. Prizes were baked goods, local gift cards and the jackpot was a gift card for 4 to Great Wolf Lodge.

Pizza - Dominos, Pizza Hut, Papa John's all have cards that you sell for $15. Your school gets I think $10 of that, and for 3-4 months people get a free large pizza when they do carryout.

Movie night - Tickets are $10 a family. Sit in the cafeteria, project the movie onto a screen. Sell water, popcorn, boxed candy etc. for $2 - $5 each.

Teacher/Principle karaoke night at the school. - kids send in $$, the top teachers have to perform karaoke for the kids.

I remember when I was in 6th grade (so it's been a while ago) they had the students go out and sell "Pumpkin Clean Up" coupons in October. At the time I really don't remember the price, or exactly how they worked, but it was basically if someone smashed a pumpkin on your yard or house or your home got egged during Halloween the students would go out and clean it up. I lived in a very small town.

Our school also does Campbell's Labels for Education.
http://labelsforeducation.com/

We do original works as well, which I saw another poster suggested.

http://www.originalworks.com/

It's a really cute fundraiser. :) It uses the kids' own artwork.

Not a lot of people know that Tupperware has a fundraiser program. It is a world-wide known name and a trusted product with a life-time guarantee. 40% of the sales goes to the organization. I challenge the organization to hit certain levels and then donate up to an additional 10% for a total of 50% for the organization! It can also be connected online, so that without leaving their homes, the families can email contacts out of state/out of the area to support the fundraiser. We do a kick-off party that can be "themed" in many ways. There are gifts for the sellers and we can even do challenges between the grades. Please feel free to contact me for more information www.my.tupperware.com/jenniferpetricig. Good luck with your fundraising efforts!

poinsettias at christmas net $15 each and sell FAST.

I didn't read all the responses you got, so I'm not sure if someone already said this or not, but I'm a Zumba instructor and I'm doing a fundraiser with the PTO. We are offering a 4-week Zumba session (one class per week) for $20. We split the money 50/50. The PTO wins because there is absolutely NOTHING to risk: no time, money, or resources. I win because I love teaching classes and I get to help out the school. Many people commented on the first day of class how much they liked this fundraiser as opposed to buying something from the kids. :)

Our school had the kids sell coupon booklets with coupons from lots of local businesses including restaurants, recreation centers, etc. There are companies that set all this up for you and produce the booklets. I personally like these because I can use them myself and I buy them as gifts for friends and people like the piano teacher, etc. The booklets seemed to sell well and I know other schools in the area use this fundraiser. You'll need to research how to get this one started.