Lowe’s Charitable and Educational Foundation (LCEF) knows how hard you work for your kids and your community and we’re dedicated to helping your parent-teacher group achieve even more for your school. Apply for our Toolbox for Education Grant now and build on your already impressive parent group success with Lowe’s.

Click here to see if you are eligible!

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.

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:

All you have to do is go to the website www.catalogs.com/teachers and answer the question: “Why does your class deserve to win a gift certificate from eNasco.com and how will you put the school supplies to good use?”

This contest runs through runs through Wednesday, September 30, 2009.  Tell all the teachers you know to sign up for this contest.  They could win some great materials to outfit the class for the school year!

The purchase of these materials will be used to help students go beyond reading at a basic level to achieve comprehension and application proficiency.

From the video, you will see that there is a strong commitment by the teachers and staff at Poinsettia to help children gain a life-long love of reading. There is also a thorough understanding that these early years are critical for a child. As Principal Ahle points out in the video, students who aren’t reading by the end of second grade are likely to be non-readers for their entire school careers.

Take a moment to watch their terrific video application, which is posted below. Thank you Poinsettia Elementary for sharing your needs with Top School Fundraisers. We wish you great success in achieving your very worthy goals!

However, most of the non-profits out there are not as well funded as the Obama campaign, so creative means must be found to underwrite the expense of acquiring such technological tools.

In the first part of this article, I want to identify a handful of the items that are very popular right now in the educational realm, although many of these devices can be adapted for use in other non-profit environments, such as museums, senior centers, or community-based organizations. In the second part, I’ll look at some solutions for finding help funding these rather expensive items.

I saw first-hand how in-demand these items are, when we were going through the applications for the 2009 Top School Fundraiser educational grant program. Schools ranging from pre-kindergarten to twelfth grade, all across the United States and Canada, were invited to share with us a particular need in their school that was related to learning. (To find out more about the grant click here.)

Here are some of the ways we saw computer-based technology being introduced in classrooms. You’ll clearly see why educators would want these items.

Smart Board Interactive White Boards
(Taken from the Smart Board website)

People choose the SMART Board interactive whiteboard because it helps energize presentations and motivate learners. In 1991, it was the world’s first interactive whiteboard. Today, it is the world’s leading interactive whiteboard. Combining the simplicity of a whiteboard with the power of a computer, the SMART Board interactive whiteboard engages students and audiences around the world.

The touch-sensitive display connects to your computer and digital projector to show your computer image. You can then control computer applications directly from the display, write notes in digital ink and save your work to share later.

Best of all, the full-featured SMART Board interactive whiteboard is incredibly easy to use. If you can use a computer, you can use a SMART Board interactive whiteboard.

ELMO Projector
(Taken from the ELMO USA website.)

Even in an increasingly virtual world, reality is often the best teacher. Actual specimens, real three-dimensional objects, authentic documents, and pages directly from a book all make visual presentations more diverse, realistic, and vivid. Make the most of your real-world materials with an ELMO P3OS Visual Presenter. Deliver real-time, true-to-life presentations that catch and keep the attention of everyone in the room. Integrate your resource into data files for easy transfer to a PC or SD card storage. And let the learning begin.

Here is a link to an article I wrote about a school asking for this very item.

Desktop and Laptop Computers
We could never get enough of these in our schools, right? These days, a classroom without access to computers feels as empty as a computer without internet access. It deprives students of the opportunity to reach out into the world, find new information, and discover new ways of seeing and thinking.

Here is a link to a video made by one of the schools who applied for the Top School Fundraiser grant. This school received an honorable mention and their video demonstrated the frustration that many non-profits are coping with on a daily basis.

Conclusion
These are just three examples of recent technological equipment that can improve the services of a school or other non-profit. The next installment of this series will look at the costs of these items and some suggestions for trying to get them donated or purchased at a greatly reduced cost.

Laptop keyboard photo: IainBuchanan

Teacher Nicole Sivilich who applied for the grant said, “Students with these disabilities are more likely to learn using computer technology over the standard lecture classroom teaching. We would like to see more of our students increase their social and learning skills using technolgy.”

Unfortunately this school is severely lacking in working computers.   High school grade students need computers for preparing for state tests, doing research and writing papers. Children in grades K-2 use a reading program called Preventing Academic Failure and practice basic reading concepts like sight words. While this $2000 grant may only provide a few computers, the school is also applying for other grants as well.

Teachers and administrators at Bronx schools have shown resourcefulness in other areas as well. 23% percent of schools in the Bronx are without a gym or safe area to have physical education.   Some schools are doing fundraising on their own to get a gym while others like PS 168 are using other available facilities.

The Sports & Arts in Schools Foundation (SASF), a non-profit based in Queens, which has received funding from the City Council to connect schools with nearby – and often underutilized – community centers. In the 2007-08 school year, the program served 2,000 students from 40 schools in Brooklyn and Queens. And in December, two Bronx schools – PS 168 on Morris Avenue and PS 754 on Jackson Avenue – enrolled. Students are bused to Bronxdale Community Center on Rosedale Avenue in Soundview, where they play basketball and other sports in what is a state of the art gymnasium.

From: Educators Seek New Ways to Put Physical Education on the Menu

Just like with the challenge of providing physical education and play time, Principal Rosa Nieves Greene and her staff are being resourceful to get the technology to aid student learning in the classroom.  Congratulations P.S. 168/M.S. 203; may you be encouraged in the great work you are doing to help children in your community!

1. Be Responsible
2. Be Respectful
3. Be Safe

They are painted on the wall near the main entrance to the school. You can’t miss them when you walk in. Little bumble bees are painted along side of them. (Break these rules and you’ll be stung by a bee? Just kidding, kids!)

I pass by these rules everyday when I go to pick her up. I genuinely like how most of the other rules in the school can be boiled down into one of these three categories- responsibility, respectfulness, and safety.

Since my mind is always thinking about school fundraising, I started to wonder if we could reduce all (or at least a bunch of) the fundraising advice we give on this site into our own “Be Rules”.

For starters, I’ll steal one of the Be Rules from my daughter’s school- “Be Respectful”. Here are some examples of ways you can be respectful in a fundraising context:

• Be respectful of people’s time. Don’t over-expect/demand too much from busy families.
• Be respectful of people’s effort. Thank them sincerely.
• Be respectful of people’s taste. Don’t try to sell them junk they don’t want.
• Be respectful of people’s money. Don’t go with a scheme where you lose most of the profit.
• Be respectful of people’s prior/other commitments. Give them lots of notice and preparation.

The next Be Rule for fundraising would be “Be Creative”. Let’s look at some ways we should be creative in our school fundraisers.

• Be creative with finding and working with partners in the local community to increase revenue and positive exposure.
• Be creative in the kinds of fundraisers you pursue. While it’s good to keep traditions that work, always be on the lookout for new promotions that would excite your audience into a greater participation.
• Be creative in coming up with add-ons to existing fundraisers. If you’ve had a golf-outing for years, do some research to find out new ways to make money at the event.
• Be creative in how you communicate with your target audience. With so many new technological opportunities, you have more access to people than ever before. Does your school have a Facebook page? Why not? It’s an easy way to talk to lots of like-minded people at once.
• Be creative in your own presentation. Let’s face it, selling cookie dough or running an auction year after year can get old. However, the need to raise money is as great as ever, so you can’t afford to let yourself get bored. Do whatever it takes to rejuvenate yourself to be the leader of this very important charge.

The Last Be Rule of school fundraising that I would paint on a wall (if I had a wall) would be “Be Persistent”.

• Be persistent in a tough economy. People are still making donations. You just have to make a great case for your need and make very wise decisions on how to use the money you do raise.
• Be persistent building your volunteer staff. People want to help, they just have to be shown they want to get involved.
• Be persistent in sharpening your school’s public image. You never know what kind of future benefits could come your way as far as volunteers, contributions, and partnerships, just because somebody heard something positive about you out in the community.
• Be persistent with setting high goals. Never be ok with just settling for an “average” fundraiser. The minute you don’t set high goals, you will lose the enthusiasm of your audience. High goals are great motivators.
• Be persistent in finding new ways of raising money for your school that don’t tap your regular supporters over and over. This is called passive fundraising, and you should be looking to set up an entire passive fundraising plan that stretches the entire school year. This is a vital component to your overall fundraising strategy, so don’t give up on it.

The Be Rules of School Fundraising

1. Be Respectful
2. Be Creative
3. Be Persistent

Three simple rules that contain a lot of wisdom. Feel free to paint them on your wall, too.

Photo By: MarilynJane

First of all, here is a creative waythat two schools in Boca Raton, Florida, have raised thousands of dollars, but now city officials have something to say about it. From the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Next up, I found this article in the Bellingham (WA) Herald about how religious private schools are faring better in raising money than non-religious private schools or public ones, for that matter.  Very interesting.

Here’s a short and funny article about admitting your grown-up fundraising fears and how to overcome them for the sake of your child.

This is a topic I’ve talked about before. Make sure your school’s PTO/PTA has adequate safeguards in place to protect the group’s financial assets from embezzlement. From KHSL-TV in California.

This article’s title speaks for itself- “10 Reasons I Hate School Fundraisers”. It’s from the blog Thrifty Mommy and brings up some good points, although I think each one of her points are solvable. Hmmm… Maybe some future blog posts…

His name is Michael Gibbons, and if there is a more enthusiastic guy about his own cause out there, I haven’t met him. Michael is the founder and president of a new company called Buttons of Hope. He lives with his wife and children in Charlotte, North Carolina.

I caught up with Michael on the phone just a few days ago.

Before we spoke, however, I took a few minutes to read over all the great information posted on his website, buttonsofhope.com. I learned that the company motto is “Putting a Face on Fundraising” and that is exactly what they do.

Basically, the idea behind Buttons of Hope is very simple. Let’s say a cheerleading squad needs to raise money for equipment. Somebody, like their coach or a parent volunteer, would take individual head shot photos of each cheerleader on a digital camera. Then the photographer would email the raw, unedited photos to Michael at Buttons of Hope. Michael would crop the pictures, add whatever text was desired to the photos, and then turn them into 2.25 inch buttons that can be pinned on shirts, jackets, or backpacks, for instance.

Once the pictures are properly edited (which he does at no extra charge!), Michael creates an online gallery where anyone interested in buying a button can go to view the finished product and make a purchase. Michael ships the buttons directly to the buyer, so the cheerleading team doesn’t have to assume any organizational responsibilities, like handling money or making deliveries. This also means that the cheerleading team doesn’t have to sit on any inventory that goes unsold. This could potentially save the team lots of money.

Buttons of Hope charges $4 for each button. The cheerleading group can decide how much it wants to charge above this, which is all profit at that point. So, let’s say the cheerleaders want to charge $10 total. Buttons of Hope would get $4 for their effort, and the school would get $6 for the team. Compared to many fundraising product sales, this is an excellent split. Of course, the group can decide how much or how little to charge.

Since all purchases are made online, Michael keeps track of the sales and sends a check to the team for their portion of the sale. Shipping costs are added onto the cost of each purchase, but this doesn’t cut into the school’s profit at all. I was impressed to learn that Michael doesn’t hide any mysterious “handling” fees that often sting you at check out time. If a package of buttons costs $1.75 to mail, that’s how much the customer will be charged. I like that.

The biggest responsibility that the cheerleaders have is getting people excited to visit the Buttons of Hope website, so they can log in and view the buttons. Fortunately, with so many easy ways to get online these days, that shouldn’t be too difficult a task. Word of mouth will also be an effective tool. Once people see these buttons popping up like dandelions all over the school and town, the buttons will sell themselves!

One of the other things I really like about this kind of a sale is that it can be ongoing throughout the year. With many kinds of product sales, there is a definite start and end date, which can be limiting. Suppose the sale falls at a time when there is a large flu outbreak (as there is now in my children’s school!) That could really hurt the bottom line. With the open-ended button sales online, your group is flu-proof.

I asked Michael when we spoke on the phone to tell me why I would want to use this fundraiser over a traditional product sale event. He responded, “I think the real advantage of Buttons of Hope is that we’re asking people to invest in a person they love, and that love is symbolized by an actual photograph. With a food sale, for example, they eat the food and the food is gone. With a photo button, they have a keepsake from a moment in time that can last forever. That’s a pretty good deal for $10.”

Once people are wearing their photo buttons, they make great conversation-starters, as well. Whether it’s at the Friday night football game, at the salon, or in the supermarket, people are always very curious about the unique pictures on the buttons. This kind of personal connection can actually strengthen the bond between the person wearing the button and the person who’s featured on it.

Overall, I am very impressed by Michael and his company, Buttons of Hope. I think that with the proper amount of promotion and excitement behind this fundraiser it could be a nice little addition to your fundraiser’s toolbox. While I don’t think a team or group will get rich off of a photo button fundraiser, I think the results could be as helpful as many other kinds of product sales. The real selling point are all the intangible benefits that you will realize from this unique approach.

In addition, I’d like to point out that Michael runs a related blog called “Behind the Button”. In his posts, he shares all the inspirational stories he has heard from schools and other groups who have used his product. Besides just helping non-profit groups, Buttons of Hope have also been very helpful in the fight to locate and rescue missing and exploited children. You should really check it out.