Weare also a small school in NJ. In May we had a Designer Bag Bingo (Coach, Michael Kors and Vear Bradley) and made a profit of anout $7,500.00. It was so much fun! We are having another on Nov 8th.
For the past two years our major fundraiser has been Red Apple Resources. We averaged $8,000 both years; which equals around 55% profit. There is only one book and only a small amount of sweets. The company has every sorted by grade, each teacher and by student. We do not have to put anything together. It is already done! We just send it home. If you would like I can get their number. Also, we did a football raffle last year. Two different businesses donated one football a piece. We had the high school varsity team all sign it and raffled during half-time. We did pre-sell tickets as well. They were both home games-one was homecoming. Minus supplies we made around $500. You could also do a dinner in conjunction with a school event and make a 40% profit(depending on what you go with). My school has about 400 students. I almost forgot-pto has snack sales every Friday that the students are in school. All you need is a tax i.d. number, approval from your principal, snacks and volunteers. We average $100-150 each week. Last year we profited $1,400-this amount already has supplies taken out. We get our supplies at Sam's. By the way-what is a Scrip? And how successful are the carnivals?
Good luck! and Thanks!
Would you ever try to have a raffle for a computer that the pto would buy out of there funds and then parents and students would sell raffle tickets it would make big bucks considering it would help with learning for the student or person who won and it wouldn't be aother roll of wrapping paper or cookbook to buy any opinions ons this wouk=ld be greatly appreciated.
Last year our school had its first Silent Auction in conjunction with our carnival. It was an awesome success and as someone already mentioned, pure profit, because the items were all donated by local businesses, etc. I would really recommend this as a fundraising option.
As far as fundraisers go - one of the best ones Ive ever seen for growth was the "residual" fundraiser. The school registers for an ID, then the students sell catalogs. (generally for about $2 per catalog, with a $1 per catalog profit each - the cheaper stuff sells more imho) Then, the school earns about a 25-35% commission on all sales from that catalog. So, you have the upfront catalog monies, then the "residual" sales that could go on for years. As you need it, you could have the catalog sales again. Since they are so cheap, students usually sell many more. You can usually count on an average of 7-10 catalogs per student (more if you live in a more densely populated area than my tiny town). Record keeping is also easy since the catalogs are given as they are paid for, and the company publishing the catalog handles all orders, collections, and deliveries. After selling the catalogs the school only has to collect their monthly commission check. So, its quick, painless, and fairly profitable. If you have any questions about this, please private mail me. Just my 2 cents.. Danielle Bailey - Mom of Grayson and Nicholas...
