Connecting Schools With Great Fundraising Ideas.

One of the best ways to raise money for schools is to do as little work as possible. In my estimation, the best money is the easiest money, because it saves you that priceless commodity- time.

Here is a very simple way to raise money at your school without much effort- My Coke Rewards from Coca-Cola.

The idea is simple. You sign up for a “My Coke Rewards” account. You become the account manager. You will have access to check your account and trade in your “points” for items for your school.

Then, let everyone in your school community know that if they drink a participating Coke product (Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite, Dasani water, Fanta, Mr. Pibb’s, Fresca, Minute Maid Lemonade, Vault, Powerade, and Barq’s Root Beer) they should donate the bottle cap (with the code printed on the underside of it ) to your school. Also, be sure to remind them that they cannot enter the code in themselves prior to giving it to you. It must be un-entered for it to have value to the school. (No double-dipping!)

As the account manager, you will receive a catalog with all sorts of great items that will benefit your school, such as sporting goods, creative supplies, and textbooks, to name just a few.

It would be wise to find a volunteer (or you can do it yourself, I suppose) to do the work of entering in all the codes to the Coke website.  Other than that, the work required is very minimal.

This whole process is very similar to Box Tops and Campbell Soup Labels. The key is to promote the program within your community and get as many people participating as possible. Since people drink a lot of soda, this shouldn’t be that hard.

This is a program that can run twelve months, non-stop. Make a big splash at the beginning of the school year to get people thinking about it, and you can collect this points all year round, including the summer, when soft drinks are flying off the shelves.

As I have written before, there are many people who never participate in any of your school fundraisers. Of this group, some may just feel they don’t have the extra money to donate. But, these folks most likely are buying products with redeemable labels. Convince them that they CAN make a real difference by staying vigilant with turning in their labels each month. This will let them feel as though they are contributing in a meaningful way and may ultimately lead to them take a larger role at school.

For those of you who live in states that have bottle deposit laws (California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon, and Vermont), the Coke Rewards program is doubly terrific, because if the families give you both the cap and the bottle, you can return the bottle for cash (five or ten cents , depending on the state) and the cap for prizes! But, of course, families can elect to just give you the cap and save the return deposit for themselves. However, if you live in any of these states, you should definitely make a play for both.

Photo By: Dominic’s Pics

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