PTA Fundraising Ideas please help.......

gooismeid

I'm chair of the PTA at a primary school with 300 pupils and we get five parents and one teacher at our meetings, max! We know that most pupils' families are not well off so we concentrate on "cheap and cheerful" stuff for fundraising, and we also try to build in some fun things such as an in-school disco or a family social evening each term, just to prove we're not just money-grubbing. And yes, we don't raise that much money but what we do raise is useful to the school. My beef at the moment is that the PTA is very much a parents' organisation because we only get the head teacher, at best, attending some of the meetings. My idea of the PTA was of a talking-shop where general issues could be discussed, to improve communications between parents and school. Sadly it seems that there are only five families who think this is worthwhile, and that doesn't include any of the teachers. Having said that, it's a great school with a great atmosphere, but it could be so much better. Our best fundraisers have always been raffles, where we beg prizes off local businesses, and school fairs (summer and winter), where we have the usual home-made cakes, Santa in winter, spin-the-wheel or beat the goalie or hook-a-duck games, and facepainting is always a huge moneyspinner. Just as long as you can get volunteers to help you with the facepainting... Oh, and we're just about to try this - https://www.bag2school.co.uk/index.php - where you ask pupils for old clothing, bedding and soft toys for recycling. It doesn't require much organisation other than sending out the bags, so it's a relatively easy win for not much outlay. Good luck, and remember - just because nobody else wants to do it, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile!

shykins

another idea is the fones3 schools campaign.. we tried this but it was a flop but we are a very small school for larger schools it might work better

just thought when we do fetes we send out a paper plate with each child and ask them to fill itwith cakes/biscuits that helps our home made stall no end

also we do class competitions for the tombolas the class that collects the most wins a prize (usually some sweets) and we get all our tombola prizes

at our last fete our costs were really low so nearly everything was profit... the main costs were for the kitchen but that makes a fortune.. we do our fetes early evening and everyones hungry so we sell loads of burgers,. hotdogs etc

hope thats given u some more ideas
x

melancholly

most ideas i had are covered in the posts above, the only extra one i remember from my school is a boot sale they organised on school grounds. charged every car a set amount of money - not sure if it was free or something like 20p to get in. it was pretty handy for me to get rid of junk and make money too!

kelloggs36

The problem we have is that there is one member who runs the PTA who moans that nobody wants to help, and then when help is offered, she rejects it as she didn't think of the idea herself and won't accept anything anybody else suggests. Therefore nobody bothers!! The other week, my neighbour was at a meeting and it was suggested that some sort of catering was done for a quiz night. My neighbour knows me very well and suggested that I would do something - even though I wasn't there. That idea was dismissed out of hand in favour of this person' s idea which will cost more money. She didn't even consider the idea. They can't win with her around.

achtunglady

How about small craft items to sell for Mothers Day? Say a small spider plant in a cheap white ceramic plant holder (from Ikea) with "Mum" painted on the side in ceramic paint? Or if some one has an electric engraver, the type you get to engrave stuff to identify it,get some cheap glasses and engrave "mum" on them.

Or if someone has a portable photoprinter,take piccy of little one and put in ikea picture frame( they do plain pinetype ones 3 for about £1) and put some letraset lettering on the bottom e.g worlds best mum, i love you mum,etc. They choose the frame and then put their picture in.

nikiyoung

A while ago there was this post HTH

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=266207

Niki

aeuerby

gooismeid wrote:

Oh, and we're just about to try this - www.bag2school.co.uk/index.php - where you ask pupils for old clothing, bedding and soft toys for recycling. It doesn't require much organisation other than sending out the bags, so it's a relatively easy win for not much outlay. Good luck, and remember - just because nobody else wants to do it, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile!

Our school does bags 2 school about every 3 months and usually raise a fair amount of money from it. I like it as my children usually have a few clothes to get rid of and it makes it easier knowing there will be another bags 2 school very soon! It really is an excellent idea - and doesn't require much effort on a parents part! :D:D

shykins

kellogs everything should go to vote ... i am chair of ours and whether i agree or not i put everything to the vote and the majority wins

if your committee isnt being run like this it is not being run properly and i am sure the charity commissioners would have something to say about that...the problem is it needs someone to stand up to this woman or at least bring it out in the open at a meeting

we make a lot of money re food at fetes etc .. all we do is burgers, hotdogs, sausage rolls and cakes and drinks but it certainly brings people in and makes them hang around and spend more

for the present stalls we scour market stalls and good old poundland.. i just bought a load of xmas reduced items in superdrug for 29p that we can sell there

some great ideas on this thread for all ptas i think keep them coming

xx

BargainBabe_3

:T Thankyou all who replied to my post you have some great ideas. I have just had a really good buy in jolly old TESCO this morning for next Xmas fair! Yes I said xmas fair nothing like forward planning thanks to shykins for the lokking now for cheap idea. I got 60 silver snowman and father xmas frames ready for the fair at just 24p each and beacuse they are still on 3 for 2 it cost just £9.40 for 60 little frames that we can sell in the Secret Pressie Room. Thankyou all so much and good luck with your fundraising efforts. Keep the ideas coming and sharing the plans we can all benefit together. Thankyou so much everyone. BBx

inkie

Why don't you ask your local supermarket if the PTA and some older responsible pupils can do a bag packing day? Our guides did this and riased over £600 - not bad for a days work!