Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you may know that I used to be the principal and administrator of a private elementary school. Therefore, I have worked with teachers closely and have learned about their struggles, challenges, and obstacles.

I have a great deal of respect for the hard and important work that teachers do. I am still currently involved in working with students, and there are many days I wonder how the teachers cope with so many young people on a daily basis.

I also know that the hours between 8:00 and 3:00 are only a part of the day teachers put in. With staff meetings, extra-curriculars, mentoring, and grading papers, their work day is long.

However, there are many schools that are getting absolutely zero cooperation from their teachers when it comes to fundraising or spirit building activities put on by the parent-teacher group in the school.

This lack of participation, especially when the parents have repeatedly asked for their involvement, can be very discouraging to the parents who are giving their time to the same cause the teachers are working for.

Nobody is accusing the teachers of not working hard. And nobody is asking the parents who are volunteering to give more of their time. But, what is the solution? What is fair to expect from the teachers?

Basically, I think the answer to this problem starts in the principal’s office.

I firmly believe that the principal sets the mood for fundraising at the school. If the principal thinks fundraising is “beneath” the faculty, then the teachers won’t be very helpful. But, if the principal sets an example, by being involved him- or herself, if he or she gets excited by the fundraiser at hand and makes an effort to pump up the students, if he or she verbally affirms the teachers who do get involved, then there will be a much more active participation from the teachers.

Teachers are employees, just like everybody else in the workforce. For the most part, employees tend to value what their boss values. They often reflect the taste of their supervisor. For example, if a principal arrives early to work on a regular basis, then the staff will recognize that punctuality is important at that school. If the principal chooses to be very formal in his or her wardrobe, it’s likely the teachers will follow suit (pun intended!).

So, if you are having a problem in your school with lack of teacher participation in fundraising activities, I suggest you start working on getting your principal to be much more active and enthused about raising the money needed to provide students with the education materials and experiences they need.

Photo by: by dumbledad

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Earlier this week, I wrote about what would be the three most effective fundraisers you could pick for your school during the course of one year. In that piece, I covered the question about what went into the decision making process.

I mentioned things like the popularity of the fundraiser, the amount of profit the school got to keep, the value of the item sold to the school families, the amount of volunteers it required to run the event, and the variety of the entire selection of fundraisers for the year.

I want to pick up the story now by offering some possible 1-2-3 combinations.

First, how about this:

1. School Carnival
2. Passive Campaign (collections of soup labels, grocery receipts, box tops, printer cartridges, returnable soda bottles, etc.)
3. Product sale (any product you sell that profits are split with the company providing the product.)

Or this:

1. Walk-a-thon (or any kind of pledge drive “a-thon”)
2. Scratch card/gift cards/coupon books
3. Letter solicitation (asking for straight out cash donations) continue reading

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This is a question that anyone involved in school fundraising should be asking before the beginning of each school year.

If you are the person or if you are on the team of people that decides which fundraisers your school will be running during the year and you haven’t developed a complete plan by now (late October), you are doing a great disservice to your school.

I say this, because for the most part, parents don’t like having fundraisers just thrown at them without notice. If you are guilty of this, you should know that this kind of a haphazard plan doesn’t inspire much confidence in the minds of the people you are asking to give.

Therefore, you should be planning your fundraising strategy well ahead of when you will spring anything on your community.

But that means making some decisions about what you are going to do months from now.

So, what will they be? You can only pick three.

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

(Why only three? Well, in addition to not liking fundraising surprises, parents also don’t like one fundraiser after another after another after another. If you ask them to donate more than three times in a nine month school year, you are going to risk alienating your audience.)

Well, let’s see. How should we pick ‘em?

• Popularity is a good criteria. After all, we want people to like what we’re asking them to do, so we can raise the most money.
• Keeping a high percentage of the profits for the school is also an important factor. We don’t want to send all our revenue off to some company somewhere, right?
• Value is also critical. Whatever we try to sell or provide to parents has to be a worth their money, right?
• What about volunteers? We can’t keep asking people to give time they don’t have, so we have to be smart in how many times we ask people to volunteer.
• I also think that variety should be considered, as well. We don’t want to do three product sales or three “-thons” or three golf outings. That would be really annoying.

So, here are some possible combinations:

To Read the conclusion of this article, please check back soon!

Photo by: striatic

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

Are you looking for a school fundraiser that is easy to manage, simple to plan, fun to run, sure to make money, and popular with parents?

Do you want to be sure that your new fundraiser has been proven successful by other schools?

Do you want to hear positive feedback from the students’ moms and dads?

Well, here’s a fundraising activity that answers all of these questions.

Ford Motor Company has come up with a terrific fundraising opportunity that your school should be looking to take advantage of.

Here is a description I took from their website that tells you a bit about what they are offering.

The Drive One 4 UR School program was developed as a fun, engaging way to help schools raise money to support their sports and extracurricular activities. Ford and Ford Lincoln Dealerships partner with a local high school to conduct a test-drive fundraising event. For every valid test-drive completed, Ford Motor Company will donate $20 to the participating high school, up to $6,000! So, the more people who test-drive a Ford or Lincoln vehicle at the event, the more money can be raised!

Could your school recruit 300 people over the age of 18 to spend a few minutes to drive around the block and then fill out some simple evaluation forms afterwards?

This is a great idea for those schools who don’t want to rely on product sale fundraisers and would like to do something different than the age-old walk-a-thon.

If you are interested in learning more about this opportunity, please check out the Drive One 4 UR School Facebook Page.

Here are a few news reports about school that have jumped on board this excellent fundraising opportunity.

Test-driving a new fundraiser

By Danielle Portteus

August 03. 2011

In order to get money for a new wrestling room, Bedford Wrestling just needed to get people to test drive cars.

On May 21, the group was able to get 250 people to test drive vehicles provided by Grogan’s Towne Chrysler Jeep Dodge Ram. On Monday, the group received a $5,000 check for their efforts.

The Dodge Corporation provided the funds and Grogan’s Towne supplied the vehicles and sales staff for the fundraising event. Each test drive received a $20 donation from the automaker.

“Anytime you can get funds donated by just giving a little bit of time is a big deal,” said Dennis Brighton, head wrestling coach. “At first, we thought we needed just 100 people, but on the day of the event, we learned we could have 250 people, so we brought in an extra 150 people on the day of the fundraiser.” continue reading

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One of the most difficult things to do in the world of school fundraising is getting people to actually show up to an event. Well, maybe getting them to show to for a planning meeting for the event might be harder. Either way, parent involvement is a challenge.

Therefore, I think you’ve got to come up with creative ideas that will capture the students’ imagination, so that they will badger and pester their parents until they agree to show up.

In this case, I have a few examples of an idea that will definitely get your students’ attention: a Zombie Fundraiser!

This is a perfect idea as Halloween is right around the corner.

Over the past few months, I have come across a few newspaper articles that have reported on different kinds of zombie-themed fundraisers.  These articles haven’t explained exactly how they would raise money, but that’s ok. That really isn’t the point. The point is that however you are going to raise money, you should figure out a way for people to dress up as zombies while doing it.

Planning a walk-a-thon?  Make it a Zombie Walk-a-thon! Car wash? Zombie car wash. (That could be freaky…) How ‘bout a bake sale? Yep, buy your Halloween themed snacks from zombies in front of the grocery store. You get the picture.

Everyone’s going to have fun dressing up and playing dead. Therefore, you’re certain to get more parents and kids to show up for whatever your event it.

Here are some excerpts from the articles I have found… continue reading

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