Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

As I have written in the past, one sure-fire way to increase your fundraising results is to boost the level of your school spirit.  The more people love and identify with their school, the more likely they will be to open their wallets for it. 

Here are a few links to articles that tackle the issue of school spirit from a number of different angles.  Enjoy!

The website My Clay Sun, has a fun article about building school spirit in a school-wide dodge ball tournament.

From the Education World web site, here is a great collection of ideas from principals on how to use year-long themes to boost school spirit.

The blog Cheer4Life, posts a number of school spirit week activity ideas. From a young person’s perspective. Totally.

Here is an interesting article by Chris Ellis posted on the Business Ideas blog about the importance of branding your school.

Here is a sarcastic view of school spirit from the perspective of a student on his blog. Good for a quick laugh. The title of the post is “You Are Now Required to Show School Spirit”.

This is another list of school spirit activity ideas. This one is from the Teens page of Lovetoknow.com

From Christy Forhan at the PTO Today website, here is a terrific, in-depth article on building school spirit.

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If you have spent any time around a school, you have been exposed to many different kinds of product sale fundraisers. In my time running a summer camp and an elementary school, I have seen my fair share of sales: candles, soup mixes, popcorn, candy, you name it.

Sometimes these products are terrific, and I feel satisfied that parents are getting a high-quality product in return for their financial support. Other times, unfortunately, I do not feel this way.

However, with Chippery Cookie Dough, I truly believe we have an all-around great product, and I also believe that you will agree. continue reading

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Here’s a quick idea that I have seen work on more than one occasion. For your next group-gathering fundraiser, like a school carnival, ice cream social, or book fair, see if you can recruit some of your local high school athletes to work the event.

Imagine: football players scooping ice cream, cheerleaders doing face painting, basketball players running a free throw competition. Of course, all the players should be dressed in their team’s uniform.

It is amazing how much elementary or middle school kids look up to high-schoolers. And, if the high-schooler is the starting quarterback, captain of the cheer squad, or point guard for the hoops team, you’ve got a bona-fide celebrity on your hands.

You can include this celebrity attendance/participation in all of your marketing materials. It’s sure to draw a crowd.

I would also add that there is an additional revenue opportunity with the athletes there, as well. As long as it is very clear that the revenue generated goes to the school, think about charging for photographs or autographs from the players. This can be done in good fun and as long as the high-schoolers don’t get an inflated ego because of it, I know they’ll have a good time.

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Today, I’d like to tell you all about a great way to make money for your school.  Product sales have traditionally been very effective in many school settings.  Among the leaders in this industry is Hebert Chocolate. Founded in 1917, Hebert is one of the oldest brands in fundraising today. I recently received a small sampler box of Hebert Chocolate. While I love chocolate myself, my family is wildly enthusiastic about anything at all deriving from the sweetest bean on Earth: the coco bean. continue reading

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Cookie dough fundraisers with frozen cookie dough can be a good choice for a school, youth or other group fundraiser. These fundraisers Cookie dough fundraising programs involve selling large tubs or boxes of cookie dough, which can be refrigerated or frozen for later use. The organization takes advance orders and/or prebuys a certain number of cases of the cookie dough and then sells it.

There are many ways to boost the sales of your cookie dough fundraising program. Here are just a few of them:

1. Let your sellers and supporters know ahead of time about the sale. Make sure they know how much their support is appreciated.
2. Create specific goals for the fundraiser. How much money needs to be raised? How many tubs does this equal? How many tubs per person will need to be sold?
3. Set a reasonable time limit for getting all the orders in from participants.
4. Offer prizes for participants who sell the mimimum amount.
5. Create a group challenge or prize program to motivate your sellers.
6. Take the catalogs to work.
7. If your organization is short the minimum order, the organization can fund the difference and sell them later.
8. Use extra cookie dough supply or buy extra to make cookies. Sell cookies at a bake sale, sports game, at school, or anywhere there are people! If your baking oven is near your selling table it’s even better — people can’t resist when they smell the warm aroma of cookies baking.

The cookie dough fundraising program provides full color catalogs to sell from. The group uses catalogs to take orders of the cookie dough, which comes in several varieties.

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There are many brands of chocolate bars that offer fundraisers for schools and other groups. You can find Hershey’s, M&M’s and Snickers just to name a few.

However, most of the time you can only fundraise with their basic bar. There are a dozen different varieties of M&M’s but you can only fundraise with plain or peanut. Not so with Hebert Chocolate! This chocolate bar provider has quite a few interesting flavors included in their fundraising variety packs.

This variety pack includes 52 bars, with 5 different flavors. You’ll get Caramel Bars, Almond Bars, Crisp Rice Bars, Dark Chocolate & Raspberry Bars, and Double Chocolate Bars. Your supporters will love the assortment featured in this pack especially since it includes a dark chocolate bar!

Each bar is sold to your supporters for $1 each and your group makes 40-45% profit.  There are two other variety packs available with different assortments and price points.

Find out more about Hebert Chocolate

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Many school groups over the years have used the “world’s greatest” chocolate bars from the World’s Finest Chocolate company to raise funds. These chocolate bars have been a staple for many school PTA groups, marching bands and other school groups.There are so many different varieties available - milk chocolate, chocolate with almonds, chocolate crispy, and so much more. There are bars of several sizes too. Your group sells these bars to supporters for $1, $2 and $5.

The greatest bars to raise funds with are the $2 King Size bars since your group earns more profit on each bar and you don’t have to sell as many bars to make the same profit. World’s Finest Chocolate also makes great $5 bars and boxed chocolates which are also great.

No matter which one you choose you will sure to be creating a winning fundraiser when you choose the bar that has been made famous simply because of its great taste and its great fundraising potential.

> Find out more about World’s Finest Chocolate

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