Ideas for Fundraising? - Murrieta,CA

We have done "no-uniform" days at school where the kids pay $1 to get a wristband that lets them be out of uniform for the day. We have raised a few hundred dollars each time that we do this and it is very little work. We are a Title 1 school and the $1 is not a huge impact to anyone's budget.

Some public schools, at least in my area, they have a community liaison who works in the school office, and that person (among all the other things they do), they may network with businesses in the said community... and per certain events like "fundraising"... the local business will donate whatever funds they choose to, and it is their own choice and dollar amount. And it is also a tax write off for the businesses. And the school then recognizes the businesses, via school newsletters or small gift, and/or the Students write thank-you letters to the Donors. And by doing this, some of the schools that I know of, have had successful "donations."

Instead of thinking "selling stuff" to raise monies, there are other approaches. And, as a Grade Level, whatever donations is received, throughout the year... it is budgeted FOR that Grade Level... per field trips, supplies, needed materials etc.

have you thought of going to a car dealership and asking them to sponsor your class? Or even a business that might sponsor your class??

How motivated are the kids to want to go on this field trip? Are you the only one motivated?? If you are the only one who wants this - it will show in efforts to raise money.

When is the field trip?
How much money do you need to raise?
When do you need to commit to the bus service?
Why won't the school district match the funds you've already raised?

Chipotle, Chik-fil-A and Flippin' Pizza will donate 50% of proceeds if you have a "fund raising" event on a specific date. I know our orchestra raised almost $750 in one night.

Murrieta is NOT bad area. There is money there...people live there and commute to LA or San Diego. You have Lake Elsinore right by you. Start thinking outside the box....have you asked the place (Are you talking about Riley's Farm in Oak Glen??) if they sponsor classes???

Have you tried a GoFundMe facebook fund raiser?? I think you MIGHT be able to add that here to your SWH so if people from here want to donate, they can.

I would ask the school if you can do a sidewalk sale and have families donate stuff to sell and all the proceeds go to your class??

What about selling art work that the kids have done?
What about an auction for art work the kids have done???

Good luck!! There are a lot of avenues you can go down!! YOU CAN DO IT!!

Check with local restaurants. Twice a year my kids' school has a fundraiser at a locally owned pizza place. If you come in and order the special (a large piece of pizza and a drink) the school gets 10% of the purchase. Next month they are doing one at Chipotle. Wendy's and Brueggers Bagels also do them. Our PTSA will have someone standing at the door to welcome anyone who comes in and will ask them to please mention the school when they order. Most of the time it us 10% that the school gets back.

Also check with your local Target I think you can apply for field trip funds.

Local civic organizations like the Elks or Kiwanis groups may be willing to donate if kids come to a meeting and do a presentation on what the field trip is, what they hope to learn, and how it will benefit them in the future.

Could the kids write letters asking local businesses to sponsor their trip? Do a car wash (if your weather is warm enough)? Sell candy? Silent auction with items donated by the classes or community? Do any local branches of companies like Chipoltle and Chuck E Cheese donate profits for a night to schools? We've done both. My SD's theatre group (older kids) helped serve tables at a local diner for a part of the profits.

ETA: Our school is also a Title 1 school and even if not all the parents come out, the kids can go home with a flyer to pass along and the teachers can go to the venue and ask normal random people in line if they would simply state they were there for the ES fundraiser and hand them a flyer. They're there anyway...most are happy to also support the kids. Chuck E Cheese gives our kids a few tokens, but they count anyone at the venue, school related or not, in their profit sharing. We got more than $1K one night. Even if they cannot afford to be there, letting the community know to GO can be an easy way to fundraise. I believe Chick Fil A sometimes does such nights, too.

Has anyone asked the place where you want to go, the reenactment place, if they offer any sliding scale entry fees for schools that are in financial straits? Some sites do offer reduced entry to schools that, for instance qualify for certain aid (in our area, the yardstick is how many free lunches the school gives - that is the official indicator of the income levels in the school).

Do not overlook asking the field trip venue about this if you haven't yet! Do it tomorrow. It cannot hurt to ask and you might find out that they either offer discounts to low-income schools or can direct you to corporate sponsors of theirs who will help pick up the tab IF you approach those sponsors.

Meanwhile a school with the issues yours seems to have should hunt for companies that could "adopt" the school officially. It really makes a difference if a local business, especially a large one, establishes a formal relationship with your school. It does happen! One school here was basically adopted by a very large oil company that has done everything from provide tutors weekly after school, to sponsoring an annual event where kids do special "outside the box" learning activities, to running an annual art contest just for this one school's kids. I don't know if money comes to the school from this firm but it might. Just for future reference, your school could use a relationship like that. Some large companies now give employees time off just for volunteering -- try to get on that train!

Regarding immediate fundraising: I agree with the person who posted that many of the ideas below, though they'd be great fundraisers for a school with a parent population that turned up for events and did things like bid on silent auctions or buy hoagies....those are not going to work at your school. You can try advertising these events to the community -- that would be the only way to get money back out of these types of fundraisers, to get people from outside the school to come and bid on items at a silent auction, etc.

Probably the best idea below that would attract the community might be a huge yard sale. I would suggest you not gather stuff to sell yourselves. Instead, invite the public to come sell at the school and you sell table space -- $15 for half a table in the gym, $30 for a whole table, and people can come in and sell their yard sale items and/or crafts after they pay you for table space. They make money on the items they sell but the school makes money right up front for the table rental. That is a lot easier than having kids and teachers gather huge amounts of yard sale stuff themselves and try to sell it -- because if it doesn't sell, your effort is wasted AND you're stuck with junk to get rid of afterward. If you sell table space to others to sell their wares, then they must take away their own unsold stuff at the end.

I really hope you manage to get this trip. You'll need to think beyond selling items to the school families and at school events. And meanwhile, do ask the field trip venue about discounts or other help for a low-income school.

The parents and students in your school simply cannot afford to pay for this. That's something the mom's on here aren't taking into consideration.

This is a LOW INCOME SCHOOL which means that a lot of these families are on welfare or disability or working for minimum wages and struggling to just pay their own bills.

Fundraisers that solicit at the school won't work. They have no money.

Can I suggest you consider some things we've done in the community in the past that were successful.

1. We got free spots on the radio and in the newspaper and asked for donations for garage sale items for a couple of weeks. We had a local car dealer let us use one of his back buildings to store it all in until the sale. Teachers and parents gathered the items as we got calls for donations. We had volunteers get together a few days before the sale and we priced everything with stickers. The prices were reasonable so everyone that can could find something.

We advertised on those same radio stations and the paper did a story on the fundraiser so that was free publicity too. Since it's for a school and not for profit the radio stations should give the ads for it freely.

We raised over $1200 in that one sale alone. The community came out like crazy. We covered the back parking lot of the dealership too. It was a huge success. All leftover items went to a local thrift store that had good prices and worked to have affordable items for those who shopped there.

2. Go to gofundme.com and do one. Then have every single parent share it on FB, tell them to have their friends share it too. I did one last year and I raised my goal in less than 12 hours. It was extended family that donated but still, this need was met. In my goal I included gasoline, the cost of the event, food allowance, and a keepsake item. They do keep a small portion of the income so you need to make sure the goal will completely cover it.

If it's not shared over and over and over it won't do well. Even if a family can only donate a dollar they should know that will help. Make the goal more than you need. Just to cover their lunches or something extra.

There are several other sites that do this sort of thing. They contacted me after I did mine and told me they would have charged me less or even nothing. I hadn't heard of any of them.

3. There is a site where schools can go to apply for grants for particular activities. Call your admin office and find out if they know of any that are in your area. Getting a grant can be time consuming but it's free money and even a portion of the goal would help.

4. Have the kids sign up to go work the doors at Walmart for donations. All they have to do is be non-profit and Walmart lets them have time. We did both doors every year for BMX. BMX supports the Leukemia/lymphoma society and has a yearly fund raiser for them. We took the kids in full BMX gear and they would go up to the shoppers coming out and ask them if they'd like to make a donation to the Leukemia/Lymphoma society to help them find cures.

We had people giving $5s, $10s, and $20s. Of course they were donating to a well known charity and felt safe the money would be helping vast amounts of people. I would think even if shoppers donated a dollar each you'd get a bunch of money.

Do this on the 1st or the 1st Saturday of the month. This way you'll get all the people in town that only get paid once per month. If those Saturdays are all taken then do this on the Saturday close to the 15th for those who get paid twice per month.

5. Can you have parents volunteer to stand in intersections to collect donations from people stopped at the light? I know our fire department does this a couple of times per year to raise money for items. They use their firemans boots to hold up for money.

6. Do a door to door sales thing. I know, I hate them too but if you target neighborhoods outside of your school they might be able to sell candy bars at the parents jobs, church friends, club friends, etc....

Those are some that we've done that were successful, well, I have never stood in an intersection with a fireman's boot but I have put money in that boot.

I think you need to think outside the box on this one. I've helped raise thousands of dollars and it takes planning and volunteers. I hope you can find something that works for your kiddos.

You might want to do a little on-line digging. For instance, Target will provide grants to support educational field trips. There are particular criteria and deadlines so this may not work for you, but give it a shot: https://corporate.target.com/corporate-responsibility/edu...

Other consumer-oriented businesses are equally generous. Think about businesses in your area and contact them for help. Local banks or large banks that have branches in your area are a good place to explore as well.

Good luck! And good for you for stepping up and trying to help the kids!

This may not help you for your short term immediate need, but consider collecting Box Tops for future fundraising. My school does this. Myself and another mom counts the box tops turned in each week (uff da). Our school raises an average of $8,000 per year on these little 10 cent coupon clippings. We are putting them towards tablets for the kids' in school use.

You would have to promote the idea, make sure the parents know via whatever channels your school communicates with parents, and take the time to collect, count and turn them in.

This is a great fundraiser because parents really don't buy anything extra to participate - Box Tops are on many products we use anyway. If your school does not do this, they are missing out on thousands.

A boy scout troop at our school hosted an open house night at the school. It was a few hours. It cost $5 to get in. The kids had a chance to buy snacks during the event (water, soda, popcorn, other snacks etc). A movie was shown (Home Alone - it was right before the holidays). Other than that they mostly make the athletic equipment available. I think they had a dance room as well with music. Mostly, the kids loved having (mostly) free run of the school and time to socialize with friends (without parents around). The parents enjoyed a few hours of free time for dinner out or just chilling.

Our best fundraiser recently is a purse auction. We get a bunch of purses donated that are in New or very very good condition. We put a surprise inside each one valued at $25 or more (these items are also donated gift cards, tickets, cash etc). We had 20 purses last year. A bunch of ladies in our group brought appetizers. We provided iced tea and lemonade. We charged $5 per person to get in. This gave them munchies, drinks and a paddle to bid. Purses were raffled off starting at $25 each. Some went for $50 and some went as high as $250. We raised more than $2000 at the first auction.

I did one a year ago for 2 families who lost their home in a duplex fire. You can do a facebook event page and get it shared by everyone. We raised about $1000.00. Myself and a neighbor put this together in about a week. If you can plan longer and you may raise more money.
To do the fundraiser:
Have the school donate the gym, ask home business people Avon - Tupperware - Mary Kay - etc to set up a booth (no charge for the booth) but they need to donate 10 - 20% of sales generated from fundraiser and a basket of items for silent auction. Go to local businesses and ask for donations for silent auction, if small items they can be combined in a basket, Goodwill donated baskets to us.
You will need a few moms helping to collect donations and to contact local radio and TV stations to air PSA's (no charge ads)
I will PM my phone number -- I am having computer issues to the point my hard disk could fail anytime. Call me after 5 PM CST or over the weekend I will explain more to you.

Our schools do a lot with silent auctions or "shoebox" auctions. They take a ton of work and volunteers, but they don't cost much. Everyone who attends has a good chance to win something, and it's a fun night. So that tends to bring out the participation by the parents.

If you aren't familiar with these, silent auctions have bidding sheets where people write their names & bids, with the last person winning at the close of the evening. Shoebox auctions literally have shoeboxes (or other small box, or a paper lunch bag even) in front of each item. People buy raffle tickets for $1 each (or 6 for $5, whatever you want - it costs you nothing to give a quantity discount), and place their tickets only in the boxes in front of the items they really want. At the close of the evening, a random ticket pull determines the winner. This might be better for low income people because a $1 ticket could be the winner just as easily as 20 tickets from someone with more money. If this interests you, PM me and I'll tell you more about how these events are set up around here.

Donations are solicited from area businesses. It helps if you have a letter from the principal or the parent organization legitimizing your request. Restaurants, coffee shops, children's clothing shops, car washes and oil change places, hair and nail salons, and supermarkets are some of the key places that donate. Gift certificates are very common but sometimes car care products or beauty products are also given. Make sure some of the donations are going to be popular with the kids too.

For the event, you just need a ton of tables to display each item or a little flyer detailing what's included (security is an issue so don't leave gift cards out there!), and put a bid sheet or a shoebox in front of each one.

Our auctions have often had an ice cream social night at the same time.

Other fundraisers are can & bottle drives - you work directly with the recycling company so you aren't standing at the redemption machines feeding bottles in individually. A lot of low income people drink soda instead of more costly drinks, so sometimes you can get them to turn in their empties, and kids can solicit from neighbors who might be thrilled to donate their returnables, either to the kids or at a school drop off.

Good luck!

ETA - a lot of organizations sell supermarket scrip - gift cards that parents purchase for face value, and the school makes a commission. Look into that because it doesn't cost the parents anything.

Like Erica suggested, ChiK-Fil-A does these types of fundraisers for our local schools regularly, and for other charitable organizations.

Silent auctions work well here.

The elementary school has one each spring. Last spring, they brought in over $17,000 K-5.

Since you are a specific grade level, how about sponsorships from local businesses?

Write a check campaign is big here as well.

Sell spirit wear.

The band at Senior high school has a holiday bazaar every November and people are on wait lists to be vendors. Brings in a lot of money for the band and vendors get their name out in the marketplace and make money.

As past booster president for cheer, our biggest fundraiser was the football programs where we sold advertising for spots in the program. It was published about 3 times during the season . Good money. Our senior high PTA had about $250,000 raised for scholarships, after prom party and project graduation as well as smaller things... Teacher casserole day where every member of the staff had a dinner and dessert to take home.

Good luck!! I hope someone ( many someone's) step up and help you keep your field trip

We do a jog-a-thon to raise funds for the school every year in elementary school. That is our biggest fundraiser of the year. We also have a cultural night, where people set up booths from their country of origin, cook foods native to that culture, and sell it for $1 each. You could try to set up something similar at your school. Our school does give each booth/country some money to help cover their expenses and we still profit from it.

My daughter's preschool is holding a garage sale, with all proceeds going to the school. They also do a shoe drive through a group called Angel Bins, which pays for used shoes by the pound. Families bring in old shoes and we earn money that way. Kids can reach out to neighbors and extended family/friends for additional shoes to contribute. http://angelbins.com/fundraising/shoe-drive/

We do restaurant nights at local restaurants, where families go eat there and a portion of the night's proceeds go back to the school. Most schools average 15-25%. Chipotle gives 50%. It's an easy way to make a lot of money quickly.

Hold a boutique at your school. Let people with local and home-based businesses (Tupperware, Mary Kay, Stella & Dot, etc) set up at school and sell their goods. They can pay a table fee to have a booth (don't make it too high, maybe $25-30 max) and/or give a portion of their sales back to the school.

Ask local businesses for sponsorships. We are currently doing this for the jog-a-thon and have collected a lot of money this way. Car dealerships, doctors and dentists, local educational services (Kumon, etc) are great places to ask.

Box Tops for Education pays 10 cents per box top. Our school typically earns $###-###-#### per year this way.

Many stores have community programs where you register your reward/credit card and every time you use the card, they donate a percentage of your purchase back to the school. I am currently registered at Ralph's, Target, and Amazon (smile.amazon.com) for this. There is a website called iGive, where you link through their site to other shopping sites and then money goes back to the school (so instead of going directly to macy's.com, you could link to Macy's through iGive). Communities for Cause is a phone app that allows you to show your phone at certain restaurants and local businesses to get money donated back to the school.

I've cream at lunch time?
Hot chocolate?
Granola bars?
Change week: O. day bring in pennies, O. day nickels, O. day dimes, quarters, dollars?
Hoagie sale? You could make $3/hoagie.
Chinese auction? Ask the community for donations.

My kids' preschool hosted a poker night one time, not really knowing how this would go over as a fundraiser. We had a potluck, where parents of the preschool donated snacks and drinks (including wine/beer, because believe me, that is important if you're trying to get people to gamble!). Anyway, it was a HUGE success. We sold all 80 seats (10 tables of 8) at a $50 buy-in with two $40 re-buys. Most people re-bought at least once. We offered $500 for first place, $200 for second place, and $100 for third place. Good news - when we went to award the prizes at the end of the night, all three winners graciously donated their winnings back to the preschool! So we made over $5K from that one fundraiser. We were lucky to have a dad who was a professional poker player, and he provided the expertise we needed to run it successfully, but my husband's rugby team has had poker fundraisers run by a local card house (which takes a cut of the money, but you still make 80% or so).

Long story short, the fundraiser was so successful that we began having them every few months. They always sold out, and that was the only fundraiser we ever had to do. No cookie dough, no Mixed Bag, no wrapping paper, no pain-in-the-rear crab feeds. It was great, because it was the sort of fundraiser that the dads got really excited about (and uncles, neighbors, and grandpas). They looked at it as a fun night out with good food and an open bar, and the preschool did really well financially off of the whole deal. Now, several years later, the preschool just bought their own property and built a new building on it, debt free. Granted, we live in an area where people can afford to spend $150 on a night out - and if your area couldn't support that, you could lower the buy-in to make it easier for people to afford.

Anyway, that was the best fundraiser idea I've ever come across, and it worked fabulously well. Best of luck! I hope your kiddos are able to raise the money they need!