Would you like to learn more about school carnivals?  Check out Jim Berigan’s “School Carnival Money Making Guide!  It’s 186 pages of advice, suggestions, and ideas that will help your school make the money it needs!

When planning a school Halloween carnival it’s important to include lots of fun games for the kids to play. Playing games, competitions and winning prizes make the event so much fun for the students.

Many times each grade or class will have their own game booth. The game idea that your group picks should be age appropriate. There are a wide variety of game ideas that are good for each age level.

There are some games that students will expect to see each year, such as the bean bag toss. Be sure to include the most popular games that your school carnival had last year. Students also like to find something new and different. So finding a few unique, fun Halloween carnival games will bring some new excitement to your event.

Traditional Games

Just about every carnival should include the traditional, tried and true games that everyone enjoys. Some of these are kids games and others can be for older siblings and adults.

Dunking Booth – Who can resist dunking their teacher, classmate or school principal. You just need to prepare for the logistics of hosting the booth, making sure it works properly and is safe. If you don’t want to build one, check with local rental companies.

Duck pond – This is great for toddlers to grade 1. Fill a galvanized tub with water and colorful plastic ducks. Each duck has a number on the bottom that corresponds to a prize with that same number. The child picks up a duck from the pond and the person working the booth awards the prize. Easy and fun for little ones.

Darts – You cannot have a carnival without the traditional balloon dart game!

High Tech Games

Why not incorporate technology into your Halloween carnival?

Wii games – Have a Wii set up to play one of the sports like bowling. Have a time limit!

Wii tournament – Even better have a Wii tournament.  Each player signs up for a time slot ahead of time, paying an entry fee.  Players come back to play one another in the tournament rounds to determine who the best player is.

Guitar Hero or Garage Band – These are other very popular games that kids enjoy.

Jeopardy – This long standing TV show is available as an interactive game.  Classroom Jeopardy is customizable with your own questions or you can just use one of the Jeopardy software programs for your game system.

Click here to enroll in Jim Berigan’s FREE year-long school fundraising e-Course!

Big Event Games

Draw a crowd — plus media attention and publicity ahead of time — with an unusual game.

Super-sized board games – Take your regular, old fashioned board game and make it BIG.  How about putting together lots of Twister sheets for the “world’s largest Twister game?”  One group found success with a life size checkers game.

Sports tournaments – Hold a tournament at the same location of your school Halloween carnival.  Great for teens who are “too old” for kiddie games and costumes.  You could have several age brackets to make it fair.  Start filling up the entry level brackets and times before the day of the carnival so people know when to be there.

Inflatables – There’s so much more to inflatables than just a simple bounce house!  Now there are activities like obstacle courses, bungee competitions, and slides.  Check with your local party rental place to see what’s available near you.

More Game Ideas

Here are several great websites that have more ideas to help you create fun carnival games:

A to Z Carnival Game List – Long list of many popular carnival games & variations

Muscular Dystrophy Association Carnival Game Ideas – Carnivals are held for MDA fundraisers. They offer some ideas that may be good for your Halloween carnival too.

Carnival Savers – Has a lot of ideas for Halloween carnivals – fast & easy games, build it yourself game booths, popular foods, petting zoos and other fun activities

These school Halloween game ideas should get you started on the right path. With some creativity you can probably come up with many other activities that your kids will love!   Is there an unusual game that’s worked for your school in the past?  Let us know in the comment box below:

Here are two truly unusual fundraising ideas, that raised money — and people’s eyebrows!

1.”Sending the Principal to the Roof”

A school needed to motivate the kids to sell a lot of candy for their school fundraiser. Prize programs are all well and good, but the best motivation is for something to happen that money can’t buy. So the principal said, if all the kids sell 2 boxes each, he would camp on the school roof for the weekend. And this strategy worked, each kid sold an average of 3 boxes each. That Friday after school, no one went home right away, parents showed up to collect the kids – but all eyes were on the school roof. There stood the principal looking down, with a small yellow tent perched on top of the roof. All the parents and kids cheered. Yes the parents had bought a lot of the candy, just to see him keep his part of the bargain.

How to raise money with this unusual fundraising idea: This type of incentive would work with just about any sales fundraiser, and for a variety of organizations, not just schools. Choose a fundraiser, such as scratchcards, candy or brochure sales that will sell best to your supporters. Then set your fundraising goals — the date you would like the sales done by, and the amount of sales needed. Find the perfect person to “send to the roof” for a one night campout.

2. “Cow Bingo”

During the off season – a large football league needed to raise a lot of funds. They had found no luck with pizza, car washes, etc. so they thought of a really unusual fundraiser. They decided to arrange a “cow bet.” This basically involved painting a grid onto the field, with each grid having a number. People bought grids, sat back and waited. Waited for what I hear you ask…..well, a local farmer supplied a cow, very full of food. The winner was chosen by the cow, if you get my meaning, and took half the money.

How to raise more with this unusual fundraising idea: It would be easy to add additional fundraising programs to this type of fundraiser. How about hold multiple raffles, and announce winners every few minutes. If this is for a school sports team, sell spirit items or t-shirts.

Publicize Your Unusual Fundraiser Event

Both of these unusual fundraisers would be great opportunities for publicity for your organization. Be sure to send press releases, and place calls to your local newspaper and television stations. These are the kind of unusual human interest stories that the local TV stations love!

Parents, families and students just go online to order their favorite magazines and 40% goes to the school. These magazines are all offered at discounted prices – up to 95% off newsstand prices – so it’s a great deal for everyone.

Parents or students simply enter email addresses of friends and family into the online system.  A personalized email is then automatically sent out inviting them to order magazines through your group’s customized website. The magazine company processes and sends all the orders.  Your students or parents do not have to handle money or fulfill these orders!

Just be sure to promote your fundraiser with publicity efforts, making sure all the families in the school know about the discount magazine subscription fundraiser.  Remind them several times throughout the year, especially before gift giving holidays, about the program to increase your success.

Find Out More About a Magazine Fundraiser

One of the first things your prom committee will do is to create a prom budget.  This will help you know how much everything will cost and how much money will need to come in to pay for the event.

Many schools also charge a entry ticket for students who go to prom, but that is usually not enough to cover the costs of putting on the event.  So of course that leaves us with fundraisers for prom. Most of the time the students have fundraisers for prom starting a year or more in advance.

There are a lot of ways that high schools raise the money needed.  Usually the prom committee is in charge of planning the event and the fundraisers.  Sometimes parents help with raising money too.

List of Prom Fundraising Ideas

1. Have a prom dress sale to get rid of your old dresses and make some big bucks at the same time!  You can accept any kind of formal wear, weddings too, to attract even more buyers.

2. Speaking of fashion, how about a fashion show fundraiser?

3. Parents could have a night of fun all to themselves with a wine tasting fundraiser.

4. For a more elaborate adult-only fundraiser, a second chance prom could be a lot of fun.

5. Have a talent show at the school carnival (even if your high school doesn’t have a carnival, see if you can do this at a local elementary school!)

6. You can have a sale to raise funds for prom such as a candle fundraiser or cookie dough sale.

7. One school held a volleyball tournamet to raise fund for prom.

8. Have a dress up day at school or a sporting event in dress up – one high school rugby team played a game in prom dresses to raise funds!

9. Another great competition would be a video game tournament like Wii sports
or DDR.

10. Work with a local restaurant which will donate part of the proceeds to your group. Chik-fil-A, Pizza Hut, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Marble Slab, Ci Ci’s Pizza and Sonic are just a few of the ones that offer this.

You can use the cards as prizes for students who bring in the most fundraising results.  On the other hand, you could sell the cards to raise extra funds (based on a $20 suggested retail price).

This prize program is included free of charge to fundraising groups with at least 10 actual sellers participating in any one of the following brochure fundraisers:

• Place-n-Bake Cookie Dough
• Scoop-n-Bake Cookie Dough
• Gourmet Preportioned Cookie Dough
• Premium Collection Gourmet Cookie Dough
• Elite Retreats

Here are three tests that a candle fundraiser must pass for it to even be considered for your fundraiser!

1. Available Scents

First, many people who like candles are very discriminating. They want to have candles with the best scents. Some people have a few favorite scents that they always look for. Other people like a lot of different scents. But when you are looking for a candle fundraiser it is important to offer a wide variety of scents, not just a few. Actually if you can offer 10 or more scents that will cover most of the types of fragrance that most people like.

Now, not all candle companies will do this, but if you can purchase some votives ahead of time to show your buyers this may help. Then they can smell the candles and then decide how many they would like to order based on the fact that they know they like the scent!

2. Brand Names

The name on the candle jar can be really important for some buyers. Especially if you don’t have samples available, then what else can they go by to know if it’s a good quality candle or not?

Easily the most recognizable brand name is Yankee Candles. Yankee are sold in many retail stores and in their own signature boutiques nationwide.  So they are already popular with many people, making it easier for your group to sell them as a fundraiser.

Danielle Hamilton of HumaneFundraising.com comments:

While many catalog brochure sales companies may offer 40% for the fundraising group’s profit, Yankee Candle is one of the few that has a well-known, reputable product with years of backing. Yankee Candles are a respected product complete with their own branding. Your customers will know they are getting a quality item at a great price, while supporting your fundraising cause. Too often our friends and families are asked to purchase overpriced items from a company they’ve never heard of before. Yankee Candles are different! Your volunteers will be proud to sell these highly sought after candles and accessories, while raising money for a cause they love.

It is possible that you could raise a lot of money with other candles than just the big name brands. Just make sure that the terms are good (see below) and that the candles are of a high quality. There are many locally owned candle makers that do fundraisers. You might even find one in your local area!

3. Terms & Conditions

Just as important as the scents and brand is the terms of the fundraiser. You want to make sure that this fundraiser will really produce the funds that your group needs!

The best programs offer free full color brochures and at least 40% profit. Actually if you can get 50% profit that would be even better. So half of all the purchase price goes to your group. The best ones also offer free shipping. (Remember that candles can be heavy and shipping can get expensive!)

1-2-3 Great School Candle Fundraisers/a>

Schools can have a live auction, silent auction, online auction or any combination of all of them. When there is more than one type of auction going on you are more able to reach out to everyone’s interest and price levels.

Have some really high priced, premium items in the live auction. Big vacation packages, a motorcycle or gourmet dinner party are all good ideas for a live auction. Ticket packages for professional sports teams are also great auction items. Even if it’s not a super high priced item, if it will bring in lots of excitement and bids, put it in a live auction.

A silent auction can provide a way to offer many different auction items. The auction items can be valued anywhere from $20 to $500 or even more. With so many auction items, there can be something for everyone. From sports, to kids, gourmet foods, gift baskets, and many other interests can be included in the silent auctions.

Online auctions can happen during the same dinner/auction night or be held over a 1-3 week period. Online auctions are very popular and many parents are already buying items online on eBay. So why not have an online auction for the school?

Auctions can be a fun, great way to raise funds. Consider all of the different auction formats available and how they can fit into your school’s fundraising plans.