Your school is not alone in fundraising; you have the support of parents, teachers, staff and school alumnae that are always there to lend a helping hand. Schools are special places and there are often many people that are happy to help support your mission and good works. But there is often another partner that is available to you that some schools don’t even reach out to: local businesses. Local businesses are typically very concerned about schools being successful because good schools mean a strong community. A strong community means that their business will do well. So aside from being a caring person that wants to be active in their community — it just makes good “business sense” to support the local schools.Perhaps you are wondering how a local business can support or get involved with your school. Here are some examples of local businesses that partnered with their schools with successful results. Whether community service or fundraising based, you’ll see that joining hands with local businesses can mean great rewards.

The Parent Teacher Organization of Franklin Elementary School in city, state raised $25,000 to install a new playground for their children. Funds were raised over a two year period through several different fundraisers.

Franklin Elementary School PTO of Sterling, Illinois purchased a 40-by-40-foot structure with four slides, a rock wall, climbers and a bridge. They found their community very supportive of their efforts. The Wal-Mart Distribution Center donated food, McDonald’s and the Candlelight Inn donated coolers, drinks and ice for volunteers that come to install equipment for the day. What a great way for local businesses to support a school!

The Hudson Elementary School of Tempe, Arizona partnered with the Symphony of the Southwest for an entertaining and musical fundraiser to benefit the school this fall. The Hudson Elementary School PTA sells individual tickets to the Symphony of the Southwest concerts. They collect more than 35% of the sale price as a school fundraiser. The tickets are also offered to the public at a reduced price, less than 20% the original price. What a lovely way to support your local school, and have a great evening at the same time!

Cathy Bentley, owner of Capitola Coffee Roasters in Capitola, California has a unique fundraiser for local schools. She has a coffee fundraiser that allows students to raise 50 percent of the price of each bag of coffee they sell. Students at the Mar Vista Elementary School in Aptos and also at the Mountain Elementary School in Soquel have raised funds through this java based fundraising program.

You may be wondering, how can you get your local businesses involved with your schools? Get out in the neighborhood and introduce yourself to your local businesses. Ask local businesses for their partnership with your events. Invite them to your programs, plays, fairs and special events so they can see how wonderful and unique your school truly is. Just like on the playground, in order to make a friend you need to go over to the other person and ask them if they want to be your friend!

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Last year I was elected to my daughter’s school PTO Board as the person in charge of fund raising. My first assignment was to coordinate a candy-gift wrap fund raiser. The program ran for about 7-8 weeks and we were able to raise over $56,000.

The program success is directly related to two factors. The first was time and effort spend planning and soliciting motivational items which served as incentives for the children. The second was a reliable group of volunteers to handle the administrative aspect associated with the weekly recording of students’ individual level of sales and their prize distributions.

The approach and view was this was a program to benefit the community: businesses were asked to make donations. Donations were as varied as the businesses. These donations were packaged into individual gift for the each student in accordance with his weekly sales.

Historically, the sales activity level peaked during the first two and last two weeks of the program. In reviewing the activity level of previous years’ sales that the report showed sales doubling during the time that the vendor offered a double incentive. Hence the conclusion to keep the incentive for the duration of the program.

For every six items sold the student received a prize (all prizes were donated). Initially, we used the small trinket items ( such as a school supply item) and as the program progressed we began using the higher value donations (such as a complimentary large pizza or a menu meal from a local restaurant, or movie tickets). There were no limit on how many prizes a student could earn.

Additionally, there were special rewards and large ticket item prizes at the end of the program for top children in elementary, middle, and upper school. For the duration of the program the sales level remained at a consistently high level.

It was a great way to solicit the businesses support and participation while teaching the children a number of life and business skills. Simple but working as a team it was very effective.

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If you are part of a Christian church, you may know about some of the good causes and charities that people within the church like to support. If you feel like you haven’t done as much as you can to help these causes yourself, then you may like to try Christian fundraising to do your bit and rally up support from others in your church.

This is a great way to raise money for people in need, whilst doing something positive that involves everybody at your church. What’s more, there is no age limit on helping out with Christian fundraising, meaning that children and whole families can be a part of this positive activity.

So you’ve decided to hold a Christian fundraiser to support a certain cause or charity. That’s great! If you want a Christian fundraising solution that is quick and easy to set up, while at the same time is affordable and something that the church can fund, then why not go with one of our Christian products to sell at your event?

Our fundraising products come in all shapes and sizes, and there will likely be something for everybody to get excited about selling.

Whether it’s our Journey of Faith Candle Fundraisers, which offer a beautiful selection of candles with a Bible verse, or our Faith Lollipop Fundraisers, which are great for children and adults with a sweet tooth, you should have no trouble picking something that you like.

Once you’ve decided on the product that you want to sell at your Christian fundraiser, you will want to make sure that it is well promoted. This can be achieved by spending a little time making banners and posters to put up around the church. Or you may like to make an announcement after the next church service to spark everybody’s interest.

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If you are a student taking part in school gymnastics, you will be aware of the many costs that come along with gymnastics, from the cost of new equipment like mats and bars, to the cost of maintaining the school gym, and in some cases completely refurbishing it when it needs a full upgrade. There are also travel expenses to consider when the gymnastics team needs to go take part in regional competitions.

One way to do something positive for your school and bring some extra funding to the school’s gymnastics team is by getting involved in gymnastics fundraising.

But you may initially have a few concerns about holding a gymnastics fundraiser that need to be dealt with before you get started. You might have heard that planning a gymnastics fundraiser requires tens of people to implement, or that you need a huge budget to make your plans work. Fortunately, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

As long as you take the time to plan out your event properly and take a realistic look at what you have to work with, your gymnastics fundraising idea can be tailor suited to you. What’s more, as long as you come up with an idea that is fun and exciting for other students at the school, you can be sure that your fundraising event will be a huge success and will be discussed as one of the best fundraisers that the school has ever seen.

If you have a team of fundraising helpers, you might like to ask them to sell some of our fundraising products at your event that will go toward helping you reach your financial targets.

Our Sports Fundraising Scratch Cards will go down a treat at your gymnastics fundraising event and will help you make sales fast. Just see our product pages to get started with your next event.

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Holding a school fundraiser can be a very effective way to bring some extra funding to your school. It encourages everybody, from the students to teachers to other school staff, to all get together in support of a good cause.

There are many different rolls that people in the school can take on, from helping to develop ideas that will make your fundraiser a success, to making signs and banners to put up around the school to promote the event, to actually going out and selling fundraising products to help you reach your targets.

Regardless of their age, all students can get involved with fundraising, and as long as you keep your ideas fresh and exciting then most students at your school will want to be a part of your plan.

Soccer fundraising ideas can help your school’s soccer team find the money it needs to pay for important upgrades. If you want to hold a soccer fundraiser you may have already considered doing something tradition like a bake sale or lemonade stall. But what will really get the students excited is giving them something that hasn’t done before, and that incorporates a sports theme to go with the cause you are supporting.

If this sounds like a good idea to you then why not go with a sponsored event in support of your soccer fundraising ideas. You could hold a sponsored walk or bike ride, or even hold a sponsored soccer match between faculty members and students. Even those that do not take part will be glad to come and watch, and it will give them something that they don’t usually see on a regular school day. Alternatively, you might choose to sell some fundraising products to help you reach your goals.

For all your fundraising product needs, visit our product pages to see what we have to offer.

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