Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

If your organization or school is looking for a new and exciting way to raise funds, try hosting a carnival with inflatable rentals. With inflatable obstacle courses, inflatable sumo wrestling, inflatable bungee basketball and many other fun inflatable games, setting up and taking down a carnival doesn’t need to be a big production. It’s well within your organization’s reach to net several thousand dollars over a night or a weekend with inflatable rentals and a carnival theme. For an amazing event, start planning early and keep these few tips and ideas in mind:

Delegate tasks: Instead of spending valuable time discussing every decision as a group, assign people tasks to research and manage, then enforce a 5-10 minute time limit to share plans in a group meeting before executing ideas.

Choose and book your inflatable rentals: You can either choose an admission price at the door or sell tickets to spend on various inflatable games and activities. Look for an inflatable rentals vendor with a large selection of equipment and choose a variety of games and activities that appeal to different kinds of guests. Some people prefer low impact, solitary activities like the inflatable human sphere while others prefer to duke it out with games like inflatable gladiator jousting. Below is a list of a few inflatable game choices categorized by activity preference:

Friendly physical competition:

· Inflatable Obstacle Courses: Participants can climb walls, squeeze through tunnels and tubes, and rush down slides along side of a friend in an obstacle course race. Try setting up an amp and playing fun, upbeat music to add another dimension to the race.

· Velcro Wall: Carnival goers wear an entire suit made of Velcro then climb up one side and down the other of a huge inflatable velcro wall.

Head to head games:

· Boxing: Using wildly oversized inflatable gloves, participants attempt to knock over their competitor in a super squishy inflatable boxing ring. Find a volunteer with a great sense of humor narrate the details of the match into a microphone to attract attention.

· Inflatable sumo wrestling: Wearing a huge inflatable sumo suit, 2 competitors try to topple each other over. Have a referee on hand and someone to help players in and out of their suits.

Low impact:

· Barrel Racers: Riders zip around a surfaced course on a motorized barrel. Have a volunteer on hand to start and stop the clock and show users how to operate the cruising barrels.

· Inflatable Slot Machine: Players step inside an enormous slot machine, press the lever and cash and, depending on luck, prizes come raining down. Try stoking tickets to a special raffle as part of the prize loot.

Feeding guests while earning profits:

Next to inflatable rentals, food is always a large source of revenue at any carnival fund raising event. Choose foods that are easy and fast to prepare, like hot dogs and hamburgers. Ask local restaurants and catering trucks to serve at the event for a fee. The Ben and Jerry’s team is always happy to bring their colorful ice cream truck and scoop at events. You can also rent equipment for volunteers to run like a cotton candy machine or a snow cone machine.

Silent auctions: A great fundraising event

While some family members are engaged in an inflatable jousting match or playing a game of inflatable human bowling, other family members can enjoy the very popular silent auction. Secure donations from local businesses for the silent auction such as a luxurious massage, a stay in a hotel, or a dinner at a restaurant. Lay out the gifts on long banquet tables along with a piece of paper for placing bids throughout the night. Make announcements as the clock winds down on the event time so that everyone has a chance to up their bid before someone else takes the item they’ve got their eye on.

Family friendly carnival games:

Carnival games are another fun way to earn large profits for your organization. Make sure to get lots of little prizes for those who don’t win or come close to winning and some really attractive prizes for those who hit the jackpot. Most carnival games are easy to set up without lots of specialized equipment. For real fun, rent a dunk tank and find some willing volunteers.

Carnivals are always popular events that draw members from all around the community. With enormous, bright inflatable rental activities at the center of the fun, your fund raising event will bring traffic to passers by, as well as those who you’ve reached through marketing and pre-ticket sales. The key to a great fundraiser is to draw a large crowd and offer them a way to really have fun. With a lot of planning and a great concept, your organization is sure to earn fantastic revenues from an inflatable fun carnival event.

For additional information for inflatable rentals within the state of California, please visit allforfunrentals.com

Article Source: Ezinearticles.com

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If you have children still attending school, then you probably know all too well the feeling you get when you receive a flyer stating the need for yet another fundraising event! That horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach that says you’re going to have to contribute in some way, either buying something you really don’t need and really can’t afford, or by donating hours of your time, hours that you don’t have either.

But do not despair. Life for fundraising people has got easier because of the Internet, and with computers in general, as you can use the computer to make your life easier in many ways. You can document the jobs needed to be done by volunteers, you can email volunteers to keep them all informed of meetings, jobs and the like, and computers can help you keep track of donors, donations, and so much more.

The trick with fundraisers is to find something that people want to buy from you, either a product or a service, and that you want to sell and promote. And of course, if the event is because you are fundraising for your school, ideally it should be something that will inspire as many students as possible to participate.

That rules out the good old favorite bake sale, as it is hard to devote the time to helping preschoolers bake for a bake sale, but with so many food allergies around, and fear of food contamination, I think those days are over. I remember how awful I felt when I baked for the school fundraiser, only to find that my daughters had bought the goods so they could see what mommy’s baking tasted like! I must admit, baking didn’t happen very often because of a shortage of time, but I didn’t realize my family felt so deprived!

Then there are car washes, and this one I like because the time involved can be limited to one day, or one weekend, and the kids can take part themselves, under adult supervision of course. Kids love to get wet on a nice hot day, so summer car washes often work well, and aside from advanced advertising, there is not a lot of preparation to do in advance, and very few funds need to be spent on supplies.

There are school fairs that can be lots of fun and they can raise significant income, but the level of organization means it is not for everyone. And there are so many more options, too many to list here.

Ok, so how else can computers help you, other than with the organization of your fundraising events? There are websites out there that provide you with a ton of advice and loads of suggestions that you can look at to see what fundraiser best suits your group. They suggest how to go about organizing it, how to advertise and promote it to your best advantage. There’s information about how to target your fundraiser, in other words, lots of information about aspects of fundraising that you may not have even considered in the past.

One of the problems I always encountered with school fundraising, was that I provided some goods to sell, but then was expected to buy some at the event too, so it seemed like a double hit to me. Instead, see if there is a section of the community that you can target. For example, our daughters always did very well when they were collecting donations by standing outside a liquor store. I don’t know whether it was a guilt thing or not, but people entering the liquor store seemed to give more readily than those entering a grocery store! ( Not all municipalities permit this kind of fundraising, so you need to check first.)

You need to consider what your expenses will be especially those needed in advance of your fundraising. Do you have the funds to cover this? Is it worth paying for advertising? Is it worth mailing to companies to ask for donations, or to others to ask for support? Who is likely to support your fundraising cause? Are there others out there that could be reached? Easily?

Yes, it will take a little time to read all this information, but it can be well worth it, as it may save you from having to organize a second event if the first one does not raise the funds you need. It gets you thinking about who you can sell your goods or services to, other than those already involved in your organization, who will benefit from your product or service, and how you can reach them without huge expense and without a huge commitment of time.

So get a coffee, take a deep breath and re-evaluate your school fundraiser!

Article Source: Ezinearticles.com

About the author: Al Jackson takes pride in being a complete non-techie who, despite the challenges of life with her particular husband and daughters, enjoys creating websites intended to inform, entertain, and help, others. Her website practical-fundraising.com is a compilation of many useful ideas for novice fundraising, reflecting her own experience as a teacher and parent and incorporating an entire eBook on the topic.

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“We were looking for a way to involve ourselves in a healthy fundraising initiative. We’re challenging ourselves and we’re challenging the industry to change the fund-raising habits of the schools. I personally purchased DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) for a company I had, to involve two 13-year-olds and I found it a wonderful vehicle for fitness,” said Elena Mildenberger, President of CD Resources and Founder of Digital-Dance-A-Thon.

The YMCA that her fund-raising company was working with had recently raised a lot of money using cookie dough as a fund-raiser to support their healthy kid campaign. They were looking for a healthy alternative for cookie dough.

Working with the YMCA, trying to solve their needs, Mildenberger conceptualized the Digital-Dance-A-Thon which uses the Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) video equipment. She is President and Founder of CD Resources, a 7-year-old fund-raising company. “We originally supplied educational CD ROMs as a supplier to the industry, and the products did not sell well. We then became a distributor. We then sold cookie dough, candles and discount cards. We have been a traditional fund-raising distributor. But I saw a need in the industry for a healthy alternative and Digital-Dance-A-Thon meets that need well.”

There is a patent pending for Digital-Dance-A-Thon. The company started in March 2006 and they are off to a great start. Digital-Dance-A-Thon ran two dance-a-thons in May 2007 and interest has exploded for the coming school year — they are projecting September bookings for over 200 schools.

DDR is Popular With Schools Across the Country As a Great Exercise

Schools are getting excited about Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) as a healthy way for children to exercise. They know that children enjoy the fun and fast-paced thrills of video games. Children can get the benefits of exercise while enjoying the fun of a video game while playing DDR.

The State of Hawaii Education Department has purchased DDR equipment for every Middle and High School, and they are looking for funding for Elementary Schools. West Virginia also equipped nearly all Middle and High Schools and looking to equip Elementary Schools,” said the challenge with funding for Elementary Schools is there are so many more of them.

Mildenberger went to a kickoff event for the fundraiser at two elementary schools. “I got playfully mugged by the kids. One young man about 10 took me by the arms and guided me to the room I had to go to, the kids were excited to see DDR at the school. The volume of excitement was heartwarming. One site had 50 kids, other site had 30 kids. When we heard back from the director we heard that the kids were pestering the parents to buy the DDR for at home,” said Mildenberger.

The Biggest Fund-raising Challenge For Any Fund-raiser: Participation Becomes Easy

“The traditional challenge with a school fundraiser is getting the kids to participate, that’s the biggest challenge, to get the participation rate up. We’ve got a built-in advantage because the kids are so excited about DDR. A walk a thon has the challenge of weather, but with DDR you are inside,” said Mildenberger

“Schools look towards healthy fund-raisers; they then cut out the cookies and candy as fundraisers. There are several healthy fundraiser ideas like bike a thons and walk a thons. The best thing about DDR is that you are introducing the school and the kids to an exciting opportunity that the kids can take home with them,” said Mildenberger.

Mildenberger remembers her own childhood where she would play until the street lights went out outside and she feels that children just don’t do that anymore.  “One of the challenges with the childhood obesity issue is that the kids have a lot of fun stuff to do indoors. When I was growing up there were three channels on the television and it’s certainly not like that anymore with video games and everything,” said Mildenberger.

Introducing students to DDR gives them something to do that has incredible fitness benefits. It brings families together, parents can compete against their kids doing DDR at home.  Mildenberger likes to sign every e-mail she sends out with: Children doing DDR: healthy hilarity; Parents doing DDR just plain funny; The Principal doing DDR: priceless.

Planning Your Digital-Dance-A-Thon Fundraiser

Schools raise money by having children obtain sponsors for their DDR participation. Many schools also consider offering the children prizes based on how much they are able to fund-raise. The prizes offered by CD Resources are all prizes that are based on leading a healthy lifestyle, but of course a school can create their own prizes. Kids always get excited about the idea of winning a prize.

It’s recommended that schools plan their Dance Dance Revolution (DDR) fund-raiser two to three weeks ahead of time for best results. If you plan it too short, they won’t have time to collect as much. If you plan it for too long — they forget about it.

Mildenberger admits that we are early in the life of the Digital-Dance-A-Thon. “Schools are raising an average of $30 per child. So a school with 600 kids would raise $18,000. Now results may vary, it really depends on the school. But we did a cookie dough fund-raiser with one school, and then DDR raised 50% more than the cookie dough for the West Coast, Florida school.”

CD Resources charges a fee for services and licensing of the concept. The fee is a maximum of $1,500. It is 20% of the first $5,000 collected, 10% of the following $5,000 collected and nothing after that amount.

The equipment for running this fund-raiser can cost about $400. A school will need a Sony Playstation 2, Dance Dance Revolution Extreme 2 or Dance Dance Revolution Super NOVA, 8MB memory card, Energy Super Deluxe Foam Pads or Red Octane Ignition 3.0 Foam Dance Pads. You can purchase all of these materials through CD Resources for $405 plus shipping and tax. Another great idea is to simply borrow a Sony PlayStation 2 from someone from your school, and someone may already have the Dance Dance Revolution game as it is a very popular game.

“We are proud of what we’re doing, that’s important when you get up in the morning, we are thrilled to have this opportunity,” said Mildenberger

Digital-Dance-A-Thon can be visited at their website, or contacted at:
1-866-228-8443

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TV game shows have been a huge success for many years. Dating back to the 1970’s and 80’s with The Price is Right, Jeopardy, and Family Feud - more recent crazes include Do You Want To Be A Millionaire, Deal or No Deal, and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader. All of these game shows have a few things in common - contestants, a host, prizes, challenges, anticipation, and humor.

A game show event makes a great fund raiser or simply a school spirit event. Here are some tips to plan an evening where people can laugh out loud with their friends, family, teachers, and principal.

Design your own game or stylize it after a popular game show. Make the game your own by implementing your own set of rules and time limits. Organize the game in a way that several people can participate. For instance, in a Family Feud style game, have two teams of five players each compete against each other. If you have 3 rounds of play, then 6 different teams can play - that’s 30 people! You may want to play two or three different games throughout the evening and have a different host for each (but plan to keep the event to no more than two hours long). At least one of the games should be one where the contestants are randomly chosen from the audience. This will sell tickets and keep the audience interested and entertained at the anticipation of being chosen.

Include a mix of academic and fun questions and competition ideas submitted by both students and teachers. For instance, “Name something a hockey player has to put on before a game”; “Name three types of clouds”; or “Name a punctuation mark on a computer keyboard”.

Although your committee volunteers are the ones to make up the game rules and questions, the game show host is the person responsible for announcing the rules of the game to the audience and contestants and for keeping the game running smoothly and continuously. Remember if the game does not proceed steadily, the audience may get bored. The host of your game show has to be well-spoken, personable, quick-witted, and humorous. A high school aged student may be able to handle this role, but for middle and elementary school, we recommend an adult.

Reserve the school auditorium where the game show will take place. You will need a stage and seating for the audience. If possible have the event in a carpeted auditorium with stadium seating. Avoid a gym or cafeteria as the noise levels will detract from the event if the audience cannot hear the conversations on stage. Utilize microphones whenever possible.

Begin advertising 4 to 6 weeks in advance by distributing flyer’s to parents of all local schools and hanging flyers in visible locations at the school. Offer tickets for sale and request contestant sign-ups. Encourage every student to purchase a ticket, encourage parents to purchase tickets themselves and to sell to family and friends, and set up sale tables at student pick-up and drop-off locations, in the cafeteria during lunch hours, and at school sponsored events.

Sell tickets as an entrance fee to be part of the audience, keeping this cost under $5.00. Since the goal is to have as many audience members as possible, the lower the ticket price, the more likely you will fill the auditorium. Tickets can be sold in advance, but you can count on most of the tickets being sold at the door on the day of the event. Since it is more fun to laugh with the people you know, plan to sell tickets to students, friends, family and school staff.

In addition to ticket sales, sponsors are a key element in reaching your fund raising goal. You’ll want to obtain corporate sponsorships to offset the cost of the prizes, custodial fees, hall fee, food and beverage costs, ticket printing costs, and advertising costs. Recognize the sponsor’s generous donation at your fund raising event by publishing their name in promotional material.

Every game show offers prizes to its winning contestants. This will be one of the draws to selling tickets and filling the audience. Consider gift certificates to local restaurants, grocery stores, toy stores, or movie theaters, pre-paid phone cards, or even a free car wash by a group of students. Prizes should appeal to your audience. Be creative!

As with any event that has generated an audience, complement your event by selling soda, water, candy, pizza, or raffle tickets.

And finally, send thank you notes to sponsors and let your committee members know how much you appreciate their hard work. A letter can also be written to your local newspaper, along with photos, thanking everyone for a successful fund raiser. This will serve as additional publicity for sponsors as well as publicity for your event.

About the author: V. Blazejowski is the publisher of PTO Ideas, the site where parent-teacher organizations share school fund raising and program ideas. For more information on planning a game show and other fund raising events, visit PTO Ideas at http://www.ptoideas.com.

Article Source: Ezinearticles.com

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Used book sales are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways for nonprofits to raise money for their organization. Friends of the Library groups have been doing this for some time, but now groups such as Planned Parenthood and the American Association of University Women hold regular, successful book sales. Of course, behind every successful book sale is a solid marketing campaign.

Keys to planning the marketing strategy for your book sale:

• Create a webpage specifically for your own sale, preferably host it on your organization’s website.
• Market not just the sale, but also for donations.

• In this case, an inch deep and a mile wide is the best strategy – cover all possible markets, do not rely on one place to market your sale.
• Have a cause! If you a part of the Friends of the Library group, add what the funds will go toward (or have went toward in the past). If you are another nonprofit, what program will these funds help?

Places to market your book sale:

Book Sale Scout (http://www.booksalescout.com) – Book Sale Scout is the net’s only searchable book sale directory. It’s professional service and appearance matches your professional needs perfectly. Basic sale listings are free and, for bigger sales, our paid advertisement options are the cheapest out there.

Craigslist (http://www.craigslist.org) – Don’t deny the power of Craigslist to promote ANYTHING.

Freecycle (http://www.freecycle.org) – Freecycle is a great program that is run in a ton of local areas through an email mailing list. Basically you can post things to give away or request free things. The moderation is pretty heavy on these lists, for good reason, but I talked with a few moderators who said a WANTED ad for used books would be permitted. This is a good way to drum up some more books for your book sale. I think book sales underutilize this tool.

Submit a press release (http://www.prweb.com) – PRWeb offers free press releases, which would be perfect for book sales. You’re probably not going to drum up any news stories from their free press releases, but it does help get notification of your sale out on the web.

AdWords (http://adwords.google.com) – Promoting a book sale on Google, using their Cost-per-click system, may not be for every sale, but it definitely would be worthwhile for events with gross sales of $10,000 or more. There are only a few book sales currently promoting on AdWords and they are very large. For most sales, including the large ones, it is most wise to limit your campaign to a local area. Also, you’ll want only to run your campaign on keywords that wouldn’t already bring up your sale webpage or notification.

Post at Upcoming (http://www.upcoming.org) Another free resource for posting and finding events (works best in urban centers)

-Post on the Amazon or other bookseller discussion boards – Booksellers love a good book sale and they are going to be the ones who really drop the money at your sale and, perhaps more importantly, clear out much of your stock.

- Free classifieds – There are a variety of local newspapers who offer free classifieds, if space permits. In Washington, DC, the City Paper does so. A great way to promote book sales in print (off the internet)

- Use organization newsletters and boards – This may be a no-brainer, but I definitely remember stumbling upon a book sale at my own public library, without even knowing it. Don’t forget to get the word out their in your organization’s newsletter, bulletin board, website, wherever!

- Hold your sale during a larger event – This way is the best, because you do not need to do anything extra. If you plan your book sale during a town’s garage sale days or community fair, you automatically get indirect advertising for your sale from this event.

- Get creative! Now, the return on time invested begins to dwindle here, but start Googling things like “post an event” and your city. Or “community calendar” and your city.

About the author: Lucas R Ames is the owner of LRABooks , an independent company providing services to the online bookselling community. Mr. Ames has been in the online bookselling business for 10 years. The company’s latest endeavor, Book Sale Scout, is the net’s first searchable book sale directory. Mr. Ames also is the editor of the Bookselling Online Blog.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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The Community School is looking forward to the day when Richard Russo will come to their school to read from his latest novel, “Bridge of Sighs“. Russo will read from the book two months earlier than its scheduled publication date. The reading by the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Emmy-nominated novelist and screenwriter is a fund-raiser for the Community School in Camden.

But the Community School is especially interested in hearing about a particular character in his latest novel becuase he shares the same name as a resident of the town, Josa A. Ocariz. Last year the school held a raffle that reached across the nation. The prize: the winner’s name would be used in Russo’s latest novel as a character.

The raffle sold 78 tickets and Ocariz purchased two of the tickets. One of those tickets was the winner, and his name was included in Russo’s latest novel. He is included in the novel and his character is a middle school teacher in upstate New York.

The school raised $7,800 from the raffle event. Tickets for the reading are $20. Russo’s book will officially be published on September 25th.

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The Frankfort Christian Academy is using eBay to raise much needed funds for tuition assistance for their students. In return, they help people clear out additional clutter that is in their homes and garages.

Parents asked a number of times over the years if the school would be interested in using eBay for fund-raising purposes. Headmaster Robert Roach spoke with Rob Catron, a full-time eBay seller who attends their church and asked him he he would assist the school with their eBay plan. Catron agreed to help and created a fund-raising plan that was approved of by the school.

“The goal is to have the school not have to do anything,” Catron said. Catron states that computer parts and antiques are probably some of the most popular items at the school’s eBay site. The school accepts a wide variety of items. “We sell generally anything someone has that they think a group of people would be interested in,” Catron said.

Source: The State Journal

The school has created a drop-off system for donations. Anyone can bring a donation for the eBay project during the official drop-off hours to the school. The school gives receipts for charitable donations for a person’s taxes.

Headmaster Roach hopes that the school’s eBay plan will expand beyond the school to reach the entire community. He knows churches that use eBay to raise funds, but has not heard of many schools that use it. One of the things Roach likes about eBay is it is another way to “get the name of the school out” and get some publicity.

The school’s goal is to use eBay to raise $63,000 for the 2007-2008 school year. This will assist between 15 to 20 families with tuition costs. Tuition for the school costs $4,300 each year. Many families have more than one student enrolled.

As a eBay seller, the school is getting a lot of favorable feedback and many in the community have commented positively about the school’s efforts. They are very pleased with their project and hope to continue for quite some time.

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