Ideas for PTFA fundraising

gooismeid

I'm the chair of our primary school PTA (only 300 pupils but we spent about 5 grand on school improvements and treats for the kids last year!) and I find that the NCPTA (national council of parent-teacher associations) is valuable for information and advice on all kinds of things. For the membership subscription of up to £85 - depends on size of school roll - you get liability insurance for all events, which is worth the money straight off, but they have loads of information on fundraising stuff you can do. Our school fairs raise about £1500 a time (one in summer, one at christmas) and it's about the only time that some parents get involved. We also do "non-uniform days" and school discos which are incredibly popular. Look at http://www.ncpta.org.uk/ for more ideas. I did find when I joined the PTA that the overrriding attitude was "well we tried that x years ago and it didn't work", so you have to push through that and say it's time you tried it again!

applecharlotte

Thanks gooismeid!

I can already feel that "we've tried everything already" attitude. But i will persevere. The school has 1500, spends £1100 on the christmas fair and makes £1500 so they say it's not worth it for all the effort that goes into it. They are members of the ncpta so i'm off to look at their website now
Thanks very much

Poppy9

You might find some useful info on this previous thread: Fundraising

I am on PTA of a small primary school, less than 200 kids. Hard work getting in raffle prizes so we buy raffle ticket prizes (spend about £200) except for the M&S hamper and Booze hampers. We ask parents to donate a food item from M&S for one hamper and a have a bring a bottle non uniform day to make up booze hampers. Each raffle raises £1000.

We also put on a parents Panto each year. This raises about £700 through ticket and drinks sales.

A musical evening where the children who enjoy free instrument hire and lessons from the school perform. Entry is £2 per adult with all proceeds to the music dept. Gets the music teachers on board. You could also ask the Drama teacher to put on a show with her dept. keeping the proceeds.
You could also ask the sports teachers to organise a mini olympic games and combine it with a BBQ and beer tent for watching parents.

Savvy_Sue

fairylights wrote:

You could do a Shopping evening - charge stallholders £10 per table and a raffle prize and sell off raffle tickets at £1 a strip. I've been to a fair few of these now and there are lots of interesting stalls ... basically lots of work from homers (cards, jewellery, art, toys, books) grabbing the chance to make some pennies!

Or a 'ladies night' for the mums to come and have head massage, pedicures, manicures etc. Plus all those cards, jewellery, tupperware etc people.

Bookfairs - my lads bring home catalogues from The Book People and I think there are books physically on sale in school as well. Hard to tell, at secondary school you just don't get the same contact!

Peakma

Our school parents commitee does a bingo night in the local pub a couple of times a year,they leave boxes in the schools, which parents are encouraged to donate a prize to, it is usually themed for Easter or Christmas, so you can contribute anything from gift tags to champagne.Then the commitee provide a few more expensive prizes, put a good selection of things together presented nicely in big hampers.And they do several rounds of bingo with a prize for first line and full house.I've never been to "real" bingo, but they do it quite well with proper bingo papers(£1. a game) and a proffessional looking machine for the number selections.it's always a laugh, and it's quite nice to let your hair down, get drunk and get to know the other parents, who you wouldn't usually socialise with.the pubs always packed out and for the amount of effort put in, it raises a fortune, but does rely on the support of the parents.A couple of other things that go on in our village are a plastic duck race,in the brook( which they dam) with litteraly 100s of numbered ducks ,£1. tickets, and £100 1st prize, this is ridiculously popular and it's just silly how much excitement it causes( are you getting a picture of what a boring little village I inhabit!) its held in summer with a street fair afterwards,one year it was so dryed up the fire brigade came and hosed them along to get them started. and on boxing day, as an annual ritual when the waters usualy fast, and the kids are dying to tell each other all about their pressies.They also do a similar thing , a ping pong ball race down one of the quiet back streets.
Jumble sales can raise a fortune again if you have willing helpers to put up signs, collect larger goods, sort them out, collect money on door etc.You can get someone to take away the left overs, which I think they pay you for rather than the other way round, and if you charge for refreshments- hot dogs are an easy one the money rolls in.
( just wondering if anyone else lives here , whos reading this , pm if you do, I'm sure you'll recognise where I'm talking about!, I do like to stay annon on here though, I don't like the thought of fellow villagers reading my posts and knowing it's me!)

In_for_a_Bargain

Hi We did a Christmas Fair doing simple games like, how many sweets in jar, guess weight of cake, Santa's treasure hunt, all 20 or 30p a go and raised over a £1000 (was only on for 2 hours). Also recently done a race night initial lay out quite a bit, but got a lot more back(especially after the wine!) Other ideas Fashion show(companies come and do it for you, you supply the models).Christmas Bingo (get prizes donated by parents), could go o forever.

applecharlotte

Thanks for all your posts. I don't often post on this board, but it's nice to see that people take the time to write long posts just to help somebody out!

I quite fancy the bingo idea, i'll mention that one next time. A jumble sale is in the pipeline, as is a fashion show, although i don't think i'll be participating because i can't afford the designer names they're bringing in! And a race night looks like it's going to go ahead aswell. I think a CHRISTMAS FAIR WOULD BE GREAT BUT THEY DON'T WAnt TO DO ANOTHER ONE (Sorry for shouting)

I've seen a duck race at Dunsop Bridge Peakma, you're not from there are you????lol

Thanks again for all ideas.

They have definitely been useful, and will hopefully raise plenty!

Poppy9

Go along to the fashion show you won't have to buy. We had a very expensive ladies retailer put on a show in the school. I don't know if she could see us sniggering at the "lovely velour tracksuits, perfect for the early morning school run" A snip at £250:eek: . The clothes were naff and expensive but she wasn't selling on the night just displaying her wares. We had a good laugh and had lovely goodie bags on our chairs with free samples from most Cosmetic companies, discount vouchers for the shop.

funky-footprints

my old primary school of only 47 pupils had a promise auction last month, to raise some desperate funds, they have been preparing for it for months, they raised £5500 !! they wrote to a lot of local business' , one ex pupil has married a prof footballer and another a prof rugby player, some of the successful prizes were your ironing done for a month (donated by a mum, huge bidding war on that one !!!) a months baking (another mum) a trip in a helicopter, a free taxi for a night ( a dad) meal for 4 in local restuarant, your lawn mowed etc, there were over 60 prizes, they held the night in the local golf club and it was a huge success.

jellyhead

an extra way of raising funds is to do a raffle at each event that's put on. if there are no prizes available our pta does a 50/50 raffle where half of the money raised is used as prize money and they keep the other half.

we had a pta meeting tonight and one of the points raised was lack of childcare. there was an aromatherapy evening organised for tomorrow but only one ticket was sold so it's getting cancelled. in future when organising 'girly' events we're going to have a creche room where children can watch videos etc. under the supervision of a teacher from the pta. they'll be able to go to their mums etc. but the idea of the creche room is that they aren't as bored as they'd be listening to demonstrations etc.

some of us were discussing how xmas fetes aren't as much fun nowadays because they're just about buying things, and seeing santa. we all remember fondly the fetes we went to as kids, with games such as guess how many sweets are in the jar etc. so this time around i'm going to do a sweetie jar (the prize will be the jar of sweets, people will write down the amount they guess at and the nearest guess wins. i haven't thought of what to do if someone guesses one less and someone else guesses one more). i've got a 'beat the bleep' game too, one of those twisty metal wires. you have a circle on a stick and have to try to guide it around the metal shape without touching it, touching makes a bleeping noise. i'm also thinking of hunting down a cheap large teddy and having a guess the name with a list of names, people pay to put their name next to one of the names on the list and the person who guesses correctly wins the toy. i might be old fashioned but i think those kind of things make a fete more interesting.