KaBOOM! Forums

Hello Friends!

My name is Michelle and I am a Client Services Coordinator at KaBOOM!.  I know that fundraising can be time consuming and at times difficult but it can also be loads of fun!  Fundraising is a great way to engage members of your community and a way to get them involved in the planning process early on! 

Prior to working at KaBOOM!, I had the privelege of working with a number of grassroots organizations across the country.  Here are some fundraising ideas that I have seen work that might be a good option for your community, too!

1. Host a Talent Show Fundraiser!  Have kids in the community come together to show you what they're made of and ask for a $5-10 donation at the door.

2. Make a cookbook -ask parents from the community to contribute their favorite recipes to be purchased as a way to earn funds. 

There are also a ton of ideas all over the web.  Google, "fundraiser ideas" and you will find yourself in a library of options. 

Also, in my experience, where ther is food, there is interest.  Contacting local restaurants to donate a percentage of their earnings for an evening or asking them to provide food for an event at a low cost are great ways to engage businesses in civic events and establish relationships with them for the future. 

If you are a non-profit, use your status to your advantage!  Many corporations are looking to share the wealth with their community, they just don't know where the need lies.  Don't be shy, inquire away!

Good luck! 

Here's another great idea I just stumbled across.  How about holding an evening of your town's own "Dancing with the Stars," starring local celebrities, politicians, etc.?  A town in NH is giving it a try; read more about this creative fundraiser at http://www.seacoastonline.com/news/exeter/03202007/nhnews-enl-x-str-playground0320.html

HI MICHELLE,

YOUR IDEAS FOR FUNDRAISING ARE GREAT, GOOD INFORMATION!  OUR PLAYGROUND COMMITTEE JUST WRAPPED UP A FUNDRAISER WITH OUR LOCAL WENDY'S RESTAURANT.  WE WERE ABLE TO RAISE $416 DOLLARS BY HAVING 10% OF THEIR SALES, 5-8 PM, TUESDAYS IN MARCH, GO TOWARDS OUR PROJECT. 

WE PROMOTED IT IN NEWSLETTERS AND WITH FREE ARTICLES IN THE PAPER.  WE WORE SIGNS WHEN SCHOOL WAS BEING RELEASED ON TUESDAYS, "HONK IF YOUR EATING AT WENDY'S", THE KIDS LOVED THAT!  THEY ALSO LIKED HANGING OUT WITH THEIR FRIENDS AT WENDY'S.  WE ALSO HELD A "DRAW YOUR DREAM PLAYGROUND" CONTEST, WITH ENTRIES SUBMITTED AT WENDY'S ON TUESDAYS.  THEY LET US PLASTER THEIR WALLS WITH ALL OUR PICTURES, IT LOOKED FANTASTIC!!!  EACH TUESDAY WAS BUSIER AND WE PICKED UP MORE BUILD DAY VOLUNTEERS, WE HAD SIGN UP SHEETS NEXT TO THE COLORING CONTEST MATERIALS.  WENDY'S ALSO PROVIDED FREE BALLOONS.  WE MADE SURE TO PERSONALLY THANK EVERYONE THAT CAME IN.

WE OFFERED TO DO THIS FUNDRAISER ON WENDY'S  SLOWEST NIGHT, SO WE LIKE TO THINK WE HELPED THEM TOO, BUT HAVING THEM ON BOARD REALLY HELPED GAIN THE SUPPORT OF OTHERS, THEY REALLY DID US A BIG FAVOR! 

THIS WAS A GREAT FUNDRAISER AND IT ALSO INCREASED AWARENESS OF OUR PROJECT!

We are currently doing a Coin Drive.  We decided to go for 6 weeks, which included spring vacation, so it is really 5 weeks of actual coin collecting.  I think what helped kick it off, was that I printed off the kick-off handout to go home in the student backpacks on a half-sheet, but then I folded them and put them in sandwich-size ziploc bags.  Yes, it was a bear for us to stuff over 450 of those but on day 1, we had over 97 pounds of coins come back... I had set the whole drive goal at $2,000 dollars, but by Day 4, the kids had made that much, and by Day 9, the kids had brought in over $3,000 dollars worth of coins. 

This isn't including the Matching Grants that we got, too-- we were able to utilize parent contacts through major employers and get them to contribute a per-class amount, i.e. I told them that the matching grant is going to be an incentive for the kids--if you pledge 25 dollars, then they have to bring in that much money, in order to earn their grant from you... so I got 3 different businesses to do either 10 dollar or 25 dollar per classroom, grants... this gives us an additional 1300 dollars... Parents were sent home a flyer explaining the grants, and that they could do individual grants for their child's own classroom... I'm sure we have over 800 dollars in parent matching grant monies, not included in that 3,000 dollar figure above.

Each week, I send home another backpack stuffer in the ziploc baggies, which again is a pain, however, it really has paid off.

So my advice would be to consider doing a coin drive at your school, and just know that depending on how well you promote it, you may not even have to go a full month... the bulk of the money will probably be raised in a week or two.

Other things that helped were:  finding a bank to count the coins for us without charging us (other than the membership fee to join the bank).  -- so that it would not impact the school office staff or teachers very much, we provided dollar store buckets for each classroom, and told teachers to just make it a part of their morning attendance and lunch count routine--ask at that time, does anyone have any coins for the bucket?  AFter collecting, then send a student down to the office with it.  So that it would not impact the busy office staff, I got a volunteer mom to be in the office for approx 20 minutes at the start of each school day, to handle this-- taking the bucket, dumping it into a ziploc bag with the teacher's name, and then giving the bucket back to the student to return to class.  This way, the office staff are happy because they aren't juggling their usual morning jobs with this job.  I also stop by at the end of the school day to collect any late stragglers or the afternoon kindergarten money bags in the office--the office handles those as they come, and it is only a few per day for them to handle.  THe majority of the teachers bags make it down first thing in the morning. 

We also did a newspaper story on our coin drive, which anyone can read at

www.centralkitsapreporter.com

Scroll down till you see our story about A New Playground One Coin at a Time

It may be that you have to hit the "next page" in order to find it.  But the newspaper story alone, helped motivate people, friends and neighbors, to donate their coins to our schoolchildren to bring in.

HTH,

Mary

Another fairly "easy" fundraiser was to host a huge rummage sale.  We had about 20 to 24 families donate their goods, and we held it in the school gym.  How we pulled it off, I don't know... we had planned to have an entire day to set up, i.e. there was no school on Friday, so that would be our setup day, however, the school calendar changed due to the need to make up some snow days, and so we had to begin drop off and set up of the items at 3:30 in the afternoon... people drove up after school, we unloaded, and there was a small army of volunteers helping to sort the items.  We laid out all of the lunchroom tables that we had, end to end, and I hung signs as to where things needed to be sorted to.  This worked very well.  Then I had pre-printed price tags on file folder labels and people walked around pricing things.  Books were sold at a basic price-- 3 for a buck, or 50 cents a hardback, and toys were "all unmarked toys 25 cents" because there were SO many toys... for those, we laid out the gym mats at the back of the gym and just set all the toys on the mats.  We also sold baked goods "by donation", and had a box for people to "donate your change" to the playground fund.  We raised over $3,000 doing this rummage sale...we did newspaper advertising and lots of signage. 

What is nice about this type of fundraiser is, even though it is a lot of prep work, I call it "easy" because it is easy money--it's stuff that people want to get rid of from their homes, and that way, you are not trying to sell something to families at your school.