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Some of the events we held to actually raise money:
Penny/Coin drive -raised about $1500, the gimmick was to fill the bed of a pick-up truck
Soldparts with kids names on it -bricks in a sidewalk might be the easiestthing at a school. Parents love to put their kids name on somethingpermanent. We sold bricks for $100, but only paid around $15 for themengraved. So that leaves you a lot of room to reduce the price of yourbricks if it suits your school better. Remember to budget for acontractor to install them, though.
Something called "flocking"involving individuals paying to have a friend, relative or neighbor'sfront yard filled with pink, plastic flamingos over night. It was ariot, raised about $1500. If that sounds interesting, email me I'lltell you the details of how it worked.
McDonalds will notoutright give money to this kind of thing. Most, however, will let youhave a fundraiser at a restaurant. I suppose it might vary betweenfranchises, but our allowed to have a "Voucher Night." We distributedvouchers to be turned in during specific hours of a given date. Acertain percentage of the sales with vouchers came back to our cause.We even got the local paper to print a voucher in the paper for thatweek. If you play your cards right, you might be able to get your localMcD's to schedule Ronald for that night. If not, maybe you can get amagician or clown to donate his/her time for entertainment. At the sametime, you might be able to get a local business to donate at item forraffle. We did all those things at our "Voucher Nights" to increasetraffic into the event and to increase sales. I mean, given a choice, alot of people get their food to go. If there is entertainment for thekids, they stick around, order dessert, sales go up. Every little bithelps.
Then of course, the traditional raffles and bake sales.I like these things because there is little or no cost involved. Unlikethe candy sales or other gift sales fundraising companies get schoolsto do. They can be good fundraisers, but also require a lot ofvolunteer time and the biggest profit is made by the company. Thehardest part of a raffle is getting the prizes donated. But, if you goto businesses to sponsor a component and they tell you "we can't" thenyou can pull the prize card, they might be more able to give an itemthan cash. You could have a dinner and involve the students by havingmusical groups perform, or having them help with serving and clean up.
Whateveryou do, don't forget to invite the local paper or even news channel. Alot of times, they have bigger stories, but call them every single timeand they might show up once or twice. A little press coverage goes along way. They prefer events involving kids, it gets better ratings Iguess.
Ask your core group of parents for help. It's amazingonce you starts asking people for things, what resources are out there.Somebody might have done a silent auction before, get them to do onefor this cause. Or a golf tournement. List out a bunch of ideas forfundraisers, knowing that you can't do all of them, and see who stepsup to chair what. You might find some hidden talent in someone youthought had none :o)
Things to get the kids involved withoutselling, any -a-thon. Walk, bowl, how about a swing a thon at anotherplayground? Pet wash, car wash. The best washes that I've seen sell"advance tickets." OMG, what a genious who came up with this! The kidssold the advance tickets, to neighbors or whatever, to come a coupleweeks later and get your car washed. Though on that date, you couldstill drive up and pay for a wash. But they had to have sold hundredsof those advance tickets, and I bet half of them were never redeemed. Iwould always forget to redeem mine! At $5 each, that is just plainprofit!! I still want to shake the hand of the person who thought thatup!
