Any Mommies Out There Responsible for Fundraising in Their Children's Schools?

In the Pleasanton/Dublin area, I've organized the following dine-outs this year (or plan to do some of these dineouts soon)...Rigatoni's in Dublin, Baja Fresh, Sweet Tomatoes, Panda Express, Dickey's Barbeque Pit, Elephant Bar, Chipotle, Amici's, Armadillo Willy's. They give 15-20%. Hope this helps.

Two ideas: Partylite candles sponsors fundraisers. Not only do they have the absolute best candles on the market, they have a generous fundraising program. Call or email Claire Hawley ###-###-####. ____@____.com

Scrip programs are also an easy way for parents to participate on a daily basis.

We have a local candle maker who makes soy candles and she provides a 30% "profit" to the school.

Innisbrook is who we use for gifts/wrapping paper--google them.

We've also used a local Tastefully Simple consultant to offer select variety of dips only toward our fundraisers.

Check with a local pizza shop. Sometimes the private-owned Pizza Huts will help with donations, but it depends on the owner.

Before you take the position, look into how much money you'll need to raise and if there's a set number of fundraisers you need to do. My daughters preschool moved away from having millions of fundraisers (bake sales, selling candles, selling coffee mugs, etc.) and now has only one fundraiser - a raffle. We make $20,000 on that one fundraiser alone. And it's pretty easy to run. We solicit donations from local businesses, then create six raffle packages. One was a spa gift basket, one was an opera gift basket, one full of lottery tickets, one a cooking package, etc. Tickets are sold for $20 each.

Each of the baskets has a value of about $2,000. For example, the spa basket had gift certificates for a couples massage at a local Japanese style spa, a hair cut and color at a fancy salon, a pedicure from a hotel spa, a couple hundred dollars worth of bath products from a fourth place, and a gift certificate for lunch at a healthy restaurant.

Our fundraising committee used to spend hours and hours and hours running all the little fundraisers. Now I think there are maybe six people that spend a few hours each getting donations, someone spends a few hours getting raffle tickets printed and distributed to each family, and then there's the hour spent after school on the actual raffle. That's it!

we do a zillion fundraisers. family fun night is one of the best, we get tons of donations from local businesses, make up baskets, and do a Chinese auction along with bingo. its a ton of fun, everyone comes out, and we raise lots of money. the bake sale does well too, we have ours on election day, starting as soon as the polls open. i dont know if your preschool is a voting spot, probably not, just find a way to get as many people in there as you can. movie nights do well also, show a movie and sell snacks. maybe you could combine the bake sale with a movie night. pie sales before the holidays do well also. also, i dont know if you can register a preschool, you can find out, but target, stop & shop, box tops for education, etc have programs where all people have to do is register and the school gets a percentage automatically. we do well with our plant sale, i run that one, right before mothers day along with a mothers day boutique. everyone buys the big planters to bring with them for mothers day, pre-ordering is key, i can give you more details if you want, we are planning ours right now for this year. our 5th grade does tons of family eat out nights, local businesses offer a percentage back to the school on certain nights, you send home fliers, and everyone goes out to eat that night. lots of fast food places do it, which might not be healthy but it does well because the drive through makes it easy for busy families. our fall festival does well too, fun activities, a hay ride, and selling pumpkins/corn stalk things/ hay bales etc, face painting, pumpkin decorating, etc.... we do plenty of selling fundraisers also, yankee candle, smencils, wrapping paper, school spiritwear, etc ... make up an art book, a recipe book, something like that with artwork from the kids, and sell them to the parents....... if you think you can get some help, its not bad. the best thing to do for these fundraisers is to make up a great letter to business owners, give copies to the participating parents to bring in to businesses in their travels. moms keep them in their car and as they go about their errands they ask local businesses to donate to whatever fundraiser you are doing at the time. most businesses will donate if you just ask, especially if they know they are going to get a plug at the school and a nice letter to put on their wall. making it as effortless as possible will get the most people involved in helping out. the key to fundraising is to get donations - ask ask ask....

Look at last year's income statements to see which fundraisers were most profitable. Find out if the school does "traditional" fundraisers that happen every year. You'll need help - find a good bunch of people to help you...
A pencil machine has some outlay at the beginning, but turns into all profit in a very short order. If your school doesn't have one, you might want to get one.
We've discovered that mulch in the spring is a pretty decent money maker. Ask around to see if anyone has done it and how it has turned out.
We are going to try to do an American Idol type thing at our school.
We've done candy sales, afterschool snacks, spaghetti suppers, cookie dough, boxtops, and more.
You'll find that the elementary schools have no trouble fundraising, but as the kids get older and move on to middle and high schools, the fundraising peters off to almost nothing. The parents are tired and they become very apathetic. The kids need more in the upper grades, but we just can't fundraise enough to get it for them. The 200 parents you had helping in elementary school become 10 in high school.
YMMV
LBC

I have 1 child in school he is now in 1st grade I have been on the PTO board since the first meeting & have the joy of getting the fundraises ready.I have yet to fail...We don't like to do anything that you have to keep frozen or in the fridge,high priced junk such as the wrapping paper they don't sell well & I don't feel good about offering these items to our students families knowing I will not purchase myself.Right now the 5th graders are selling Smencils they are smelly pencils (made out of recycled newspaper)we sell them for $1.00 they are a huge hit we ordered 2 buckets sold out in 2 days,now we ordered 4 buckets & doing great,in combination to that we are selling lollipops for .50 they are selling well.
Begining in April we will hold our second fundraiser with
Tom Wat the catalog name is Spring Time Delights all we do is send out the catalogs order forms & money collection packet to the kids they take orders (if they want to particiapte)then we take the carbon copy for our records send in the order forms they will fill orders pack thenm per child send an invoice free shipping & then when we get them we will send a note home telling the parents they can come pick up their orders or send them home with child.
At Christmas time we did the Celebrtating Homes fundraiser formerly known as Home Interiors so if yiour fimilar with the Home Interiors they have great smelling candles in combination with their food items we have typically sold over 300 items =$3500 then we will get back 40-50% depending on how much we have sold.
We held a Pancake feed March 5th the turn out was great we amde more than we couold of expected in combination to that we offered an art walk where anyone can purchase the students art work displayed in the halls for a small donation to help their classrooms with art supplies huge success...
There is PTO books your school might be receiving ask into them they have all the websites for fundraising &n give a good accurate description on their companies,plus you'll be able to pull direct info to call tehm or get on their mailing list to receive free samples catalogs & other information.Iwould really like to sell these (bar lotions)from Jordan Essentials (HOP) I have a few & love them they are $7.50 to start with or you can set your own price above the recommended selling price I think moms will love these
Our school as a whole the students/parents just don't sell much we have 210 sellers & we get back between 20-25 students who have participated in selling out of those we have 3 top sellers that sell over 15-20 items.You can search school fundraisers & you'll get loads of sites to visit it is then up to you to get on their mailing list or not once you recive the information packets you can present them to the school PTO board go over your options or if they know of the company or products they are wanting go from there...There really isn't that much time involved your home on the computer researching,viewing the infomation,going to the PTO meetings,ordering the kits,submitting the orders,counting the monies to amtch the orders, receiving the orders sorting them out per student

I do fundraisers with a lot of non profit organizations. They must have a 501C and no cap. If this is the case I may be able to help you out. It's an amazing fundraiser. Your school can get commissions in the form of a donation from parents shopping for the things they shop for everyday. From Walmart, Target, Old Navy, etc.
Let me know if you want more info.
:)

Have you spoken to the person who previously held the position? That would be a good place to start as well as speaking with whoever is in charge at the preschool to determine their expectations and fundraising goal. Good-luck.

Hi E.

I do fundraising at my dd's school.

Bake Sales - We make good money. We have them twice a year with alternate classes bringing baked goods in.

Family Fun Night - We hold this at a local community centre. We have a disco, raffle with local business donations, snack shop which also sell glo-sticks, rings and fake tattoos. A lot of organising for this one, you will need lots of help.

Thrift Shop - Once a year, donations of books, toys, clothes etc being brought in for 2 months before the event and it lasts for 1 week. We always need moms who don't work or who work shifts to help run this as it is during the day.

Bag-Packing at local supermarket.

We also alternate each year with a school calender and a great hessian bag with the school logo on or let the kids have a go at designing it which we sell at all events and are also available from the school office.

Our biggest profit makers are always the thrift shop & Bake sales.

Most people are always willing to spare an odd hour to help.

Good Luck.

Hi E.---I did fundraising at my children's preschool. It was a long time ago however and frankly I don't remember many specifics. I do remember this.

I tried to do many different types of activities so that everyone might be able to participate in one or two that appealed to them. One of the most popular was one where the kids drew pictures on transfer paper and then the pictures were then transferred to melamine plates. Great for the kids and great gifts for grandparents.

We also did window clings, called Stik-ees. Really popular. Just 'googled' them, it looks like they're still in business, http://www.stik-ees.com/page/fund_raising.

If I were doing fundraising now, I'd most likely stay away from most food items as they are not very healthy. But, maybe you can find healthy food fundraisers. For example, most cookie dough still contain fully and partially hydrogenated trans fats, and no amount of these is safe for health.

Our local grocery stores offer fundraising days. I think now they do that by attaching the fundraising to loyalty cards. So that would be easy because you'd only have to 'announce' and remind everyone of that option for the school.

You could have tupperware parties, or some sort of business expo, and the independent distributors could donate a portion of their profits to the school. Something like this could be advertised and promoted to the general public. Be sure to invite 'graduates' of the preschool as well, you know, like alumni support.

I always told everyone that it never hurt to ask and share the fundraisers with family and friends. I would sort of apologize for asking but explain that they could always say no. If I don't ever ask, the answer is no before I begin. I again stressed that the number of fundraisers I organized was to give individuals the best opportunity to find ONE that they'd like to share.

This is a pretty big job, but it is very satisfying when you are able to help the school in this way. Hope this helps. Good luck.

We did the Yankee Candle fundraiser this year and that went well for us. You get back 40% of the profit. There is not much time involved and when the candles come in they are all packaged by person so you don't have to do any sorting.