I also posted on Facebook;

Paper chain by selling links for 0.25 or 0.50 each! Can be used for class competitions, math games, decorating halls at holidays to see what grade gets the most...etc!
Our elementary raised over $1000 last year just by selling links!
You can buy the links from places like Oriental trading company or make them yourself out of scrapbook paper, construction paper, neons, or even school colors. Consider different colors for different classes or grades! Good luck! You've come to a great place for advice!

Box tops, giant eagle rewards, target rewards. Doesn't cost the parent anything and school makes money each month. Also market day is a once a month grocery shopping. Not sure if its in your area. You can call 1877mdapple to find out. If it is in your area the school will get 10% of the sales. Hope this helps!

Try to get some local businesses to come in as business partners. For a certain amount of $$ they can send home flyers promoting their business, hang a banner, etc. We make a good deal of $ through business partners. Also really push things like Shoparoo, Amazon smile and targets take charge of education programs that give back to the school for people doing their regular household spending.

your school sounds a lot like our school we are also a very low income school with a very high ESL population. One of the things that we do for a fundraiser it's a dad's cake break dads get really involved with baking we choose a fun seem like heroes or sport and the families provide the cakesf or an auction. we try to plan the auction in the beginning of the month when will survie families will have the funds to provide a cake and bid on the cakes. The only thing that cost us money is a ribbons for first prize 2nd prize 3rd prize and some honorable mentions but you can get creative and have kids make the ribbons or come up with a really fun DIY trophy

A family directory is a great idea. We charge $5 per family, have families listed alphabetically as well as divide people up by class that want to be included. We also get businesses to sponsor it to defray our printing costs. We didn't make a lot of money with this, but it is something families want and might be willing to pay ore than $5 for.

Coupon books work great too. Kidstuff is the company used by schools in our area. THey sell for $25 and you keep 50% of the ones you sell. The great selling point is that if you use a few coupons it pays for the book!

You can also start with a direct donation campaign and also try to get corporate sponsors (give them a little publicity at school events or on website, facebook page)

Look for local grants that can help support enrichment programs or field trips or technology for classrooms.

Hook up with restaurants who will have a school night, and give back a % of sales to the school for families that eat there and hand in a flyer. Papa Ginos, Not Your Average Joe's, Uno's, and 99 Restaurant all do them.

Out PTO has really scaled back on product/merchandise type fundraisers because we only get a small percentage back and people are tired of feeling pressure to buy something they don't really want or need.

WE have found that if you fundraise, making it for something specific like STEM programs or enrichment programs or the library does better than if you keep it "general PTO".

We are in the middle of fundraising for a new playground and for the first time doing a Fun Run and after 4 days, it has worked out really well. WE have also done a simple read-a-thon and have received $2000 without a lot of work. Not every child will bring in money, but if you have 200 students and they each bring in $10...it's still pretty clear money except for a small incentive. We just offer the top three readers (in minutes not dollars) the opportunity to pick out a new book for the library.

Good luck..not an easy task you have at all.