If you would like to raise money for your child’s school, but you know you have to be careful not to ask too much from the other parents in the community, this is a great idea for you.

FactoryFunding.com is an established business that can help you raise significant revenue without asking parents to keep chipping in. They do this through an effective recycling program that includes ink jet cartridges, laser toner cartridges, cell phones, MP3 players and all sorts of personal electronics. A complete list of the qualifying items can be seen here.

Here is how FactoryFunding works:

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

When you recycle your used ink cartridges, cell phones, laptops, and small electronics with FundingFactory, your recyclables convert to cash and rewards that can get your school or nonprofit organization the things you need — for free.

Getting Business Supporters for your recycling program makes raising funds even easier. Schools and nonprofits with supporting organizations in their communities report more than 3 times the cash and rewards earned than organizations without Business Supporters.

We inspect every item we receive to determine whether it can be recycled or remanufactured — two states that account for 98% of the materials we process.

Collectively, FundingFactory participants have stopped 21 million pounds of waste from being landfilled.

Here are a few success stories from schools that have signed up for and have used FactoryFunding.com:

This video is from the West Boylston school district in Massachusetts.  They have raised $40,686 from FundingFactory.com

This second video is from Elk County Catholic school system.  They have raised $24,210 from FactoryFunding.com.

No Comments »

We are a society that loves list. Everywhere you turn, there’s a top 10 of this or the top 100 of that. Lists are great because they written to be straight to the point, they’re numbered, which makes them easy to read and digest, and because the reader believes that the information must be useful, if the author took the time to prioritize the individual importance of each point.

A numbered or bulleted list is much better at communicating its message than a long, flowing letter is. People love to scan, because they don’t have time to get bogged down in never-ending paragraphs.

So, I’m wondering if you might consider using such a tool the next time you want to communicate with your school families.

For instance, instead of writing a regular old letter to parents about collecting soup labels or box tops, you could create a list and make an attractive flyer out of it- “5 Easy Ways to Remember to Clip Your Box Tops.” or “10 Ways You Can Help your Child’s School This Year” or “The 3 Best Strategies to Ask Friends and Family to Buy Cookie Dough”

Whatever message you have to send out, craft it in a way that people are going to read, understand, and act upon. In this day and age, that means, short, sweet, and to the point. Give it a splashy (and hopefully catchy headline) in a list format, and you’ll increase the number of people who read your letters and get involved.

Photo by: drcorneilus

No Comments »

One thing I’ve come to suspect, even in the relatively small town I live in, is that many schools, even in the same district, don’t communicate with each other.

Quick, can you name the principal at an elementary school your kids don’t attend? Ok, how about the name of their PTO or PTA chair?

Perhaps you are an amazing social creature and could identify these people, but I’m guessing the chances of that are pretty slim. Even in small towns, we tend to focus only on what is right in front of us. This generally makes sense, as we only have so much time to give, we have to prioritize and take care of the items most immediately important. An elementary school just six blocks away might as well be as far away as the moon.

However, as you prepare for this upcoming school year, I want to suggest that you change your way of thinking about this situation.

Here are eight questions I think you should ask about the other schools in your district. The answers you find could very well add new life and bring greater success to your own efforts in your kids’ school.

1. Who are the people involved on the other schools’ fundraising teams?
2. How long have these fundraising leaders been involved with raising money for their school?
3. Do the other schools have many parents involved or do they struggle to find volunteers for their fundraising events? If they are successful, what are they doing that you might not be to attract busy families?
4. What is each school’s biggest (most successful) fundraising event or sale?
5. If another school has the same kind of fundraising event or sale as your school does, are they more or less successful? Why or why not?
6. Do the other schools stick with one or two annual events for years or are they always looking to implement new approaches and novel ideas?
7. How diverse is their fundraising schedule? (How well do they mix up large events with small events, sales vs. events, passive vs. active strategies, etc?)
8. What is the key piece of advice another school could share with you that explains their success in fundraising?

No Comments »

Ok, yesterday I wrote about how your school principal can really make fundraising hard. Depending on his or her own view of asking parents for money, your job can be made easy or very difficult.

I wrote that there are different ways a principal can be hostile toward fundraising. For instance he or she can feel guilty about asking parents for money. Or, it could be the principal could see fundraising as a “demeaning” activity and below his or her station, so he puts it off on others (subordinates or volunteers) and refuses to get involved. Or, the principal might just settle on one particular fundraising event and never deviate from it again. (The case of the same candy bar sale for 25 years.)

So, here are a few suggestions on how to bring one of these types of principals around to a more productive way of thinking.

Social Proof- If there is a particular fundraiser, like a school carnival, that you would like to add to your school’s fundraising schedule and your principal doesn’t seem interested, you need to go out and find some hard evidence that the activity or sale you like actually works. This can be done by gathering written quotes from other principals who have run that kind of event. However, I would recommend that the proof you get come from other principals or superintendants. Stay away from arguments made by people in a “lower” position than the principal. Also, make sure your proof addresses doubts your principal may have or objections he may raise.

Statistics- Many principals love to read reports. If you can’t back up your hunches or dreams with facts, you’re going to get nowhere with them. Therefore, if you think that one of the fundraisers you’ve been running for years has lost steam and isn’t as effective as other sales or events could be, figure out a way to prove that. Dig through all your revenue records for previous years and make a chart. It doesn’t have to be fancy, even a hand-drawn graph will do, as long as you can show the downward trend.

A collection of news articles about other fun fundraisers- set up a Google Alert to your email that searches for news articles and blog posts about school fundraising. Each day, you’ll get at least ten different articles on this topic. There are usually a few stories in each daily batch about creative fundraisers you might not have though about before. Print these articles out and start a collection of the best of them. Pretty soon, you’ll have a nice selection of unique and profitable fundraising events and sales that might be a great fit for your school. Organize this collection well, make some notes, sketch out a plan, and share it with your principal. Once he or she sees that fundraising doesn’t have to be the “same old, same old” every year, you might start getting somewhere with him or her.

Photo by: falcon1961

No Comments »

One of things that schools struggle with is convincing parents to get involved with their children’s education by volunteering or donating to important school-related causes.

Since I have four school age children myself, I know who tough this can be. We juggle several balls at once, just like everybody else. So, even though it’s sad to admit, if something isn’t mandatory, there is a lot less pressure for me to show up at something. It’s just the way it is.

There are a couple of elementary schools in San Diego, California, that have recognized this situation, and they have taken a very bold step against it.

According to a report in The La Jolla Light,

The La Jolla Elementary School PTO and the Bird Rock Foundation have announced the dates for their Back to School sign-up days for the many programs and required forms for the forthcoming school year.

This marks the first year that Bird Rock Elementary School will host a sign up event.

The sign-up days are mandatory for all new and returning families, and will include information and/or registration for the following activities and events:

• Completing mandatory district and school requirements
• Purchasing products like yearbooks and logo wear
• Signing up for volunteer opportunities and after school programs
• Donating to the Annual Giving Campaign.
• Joining the PTO/Parent Foundation

“We want to provide parents with a convenient, one-stop approach to organize their child’s coming school year,” said Julie MacDonald, La Jolla Elementary PTO President. “By offering forms and information for everything needed to begin and progress through the school year, we free both parents and school staff to focus solely on the start of classes when September 6th arrives.”

Wow! What a novel idea! Make the parents attend by making the sign up event mandatory.

Does your school do this? If so, how has it gone over? Does every family show up? Do the families who do sign up actually follow through on what they commit to? Is there visible resentment from some parents at being forced to attend a school function?

I ask these questions, because this approach is new to me.  I’m fascinated to learn how common this very smart approach is.

In the near future, I will attempt to contact these two elementary schools and see how things have gone for them and what advice they have for other schools considering such a move.

Photo by: Libelul

No Comments »