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After Prom-fundraising or any ideas

13 years ago

Just went to a parent after prom meeting for my youngest DD. We need to raise money as well as could use some innovative ideas.
There are so many creative, smart people here....I would appreciate any ideas whatsoever!
Thanks guys!

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Comments (17)

terilyn
13 years ago
Our senior classes always sold heavy duty trash/yard bags. Always sold out, always made plenty of money.
jmc01
13 years ago
Car Washes.
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Wow! I'm glad I still have a few years to deal with this! I have 2 boys and a girl, so it will be interesting. Artmom, I think it's wonderful that you encouraged your son to go to the prom. I did not go to mine, and I have ALWAYS regretted it (22 years ago...). My DH didn't go to his, either, and has regretted it. Turns out we went to the same high school (didn't know each other) and we met a year later. We still talk about how much fun we would have had if we had met a bit earlier and had gone to our proms together!!! I hope all 3 of my children go to their proms...expenses and all.
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I have a little experience with this kind of project. Acutally, a lot of experience, but that is another story. First some marketing suggestions. Having even a rough sketch or schematic of the playground will help in your efforts. It is a great marketing tool, show it sponsors and post it to keep a visual reminder in parents' faces everyday. From that, make a list of the major and semi-major components. Swing bays, slides, monkey bars, you get the idea. Set a price for each component, round up. Then break up your fundraising efforts into one component at a time. Then take that schematic to local businesses and community service organizations (Kiawanis, Rotary Club, etc.) Ask each group to "adopt" a part of the playground. You'll get a lot of "no" but even a couple "yes" are worth the rejections. You will need to set a way in which each group will be recognized for the donation. Remind them that a school is a 501(c)3 and the donation is tax deductable. That is what they want out of it: tax write off and local publicity. If you already have some funds, that will help convince them of your committment. If/when you get some sponsors be sure to have some kids color and write a real cute thank you not to the sponsor, the love to post that sort of thing in a business where customers see it. If you do that approach, have yourself together before going into with a written request and a list of the components available to sponsor, and any other sponsors already on board. Parents of students in your school who have family businesses might like to get involved with this one if they get even a little recogniztion for it. Then make fundraisers that will raise funds for one or two components at a time. That way you can publicize "proceeds will purchase the monkey bars" or whatever. When the fundraiser is over, it will raise morale more when you can say "YEAH! It was a success we raised enough to purchase the monkey bars" instead of "We are getting closer to the playground total." Also post a graphic of the funds raised somewhere very visual in the school. You could do a thermometer thing, or a complete picture of the playground next to one of only the components funded, adding them as they are funded. Final marketing tip, get the students really excited about it. The more they talk about the new playground, the more the parents hear about it, the more they pay attention (and contribute). It has to be put in front of them constantly. 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 Sold parts with kids names on it -bricks in a sidewalk might be the easiest thing at a school. Parents love to put their kids name on something permanent. We sold bricks for $100, but only paid around $15 for them engraved. So that leaves you a lot of room to reduce the price of your bricks if it suits your school better. Remember to budget for a contractor to install them, though. Something called "flocking" involving individuals paying to have a friend, relative or neighbor's front yard filled with pink, plastic flamingos over night. It was a riot, raised about $1500. If that sounds interesting, email me I'll tell you the details of how it worked. McDonalds will not outright give money to this kind of thing. Most, however, will let you have a fundraiser at a restaurant. I suppose it might vary between franchises, but our allowed to have a "Voucher Night." We distributed vouchers to be turned in during specific hours of a given date. A certain 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 that week. If you play your cards right, you might be able to get your local McD's to schedule Ronald for that night. If not, maybe you can get a magician or clown to donate his/her time for entertainment. At the same time, you might be able to get a local business to donate at item for raffle. We did all those things at our "Voucher Nights" to increase traffic into the event and to increase sales. I mean, given a choice, a lot of people get their food to go. If there is entertainment for the kids, they stick around, order dessert, sales go up. Every little bit helps. Then of course, the traditional raffles and bake sales. I like these things because there is little or no cost involved. Unlike the candy sales or other gift sales fundraising companies get schools to do. They can be good fundraisers, but also require a lot of volunteer time and the biggest profit is made by the company. The hardest part of a raffle is getting the prizes donated. But, if you go to businesses to sponsor a component and they tell you "we can't" then you can pull the prize card, they might be more able to give an item than cash. You could have a dinner and involve the students by having musical groups perform, or having them help with serving and clean up. Whatever you do, don't forget to invite the local paper or even news channel. A lot of times, they have bigger stories, but call them every single time and they might show up once or twice. A little press coverage goes a long way. They prefer events involving kids, it gets better ratings I guess. Ask your core group of parents for help. It's amazing once you starts asking people for things, what resources are out there. Somebody might have done a silent auction before, get them to do one for this cause. Or a golf tournement. List out a bunch of ideas for fundraisers, knowing that you can't do all of them, and see who steps up to chair what. You might find some hidden talent in someone you thought had none :o) Things to get the kids involved without selling, any -a-thon. Walk, bowl, how about a swing a thon at another playground? Pet wash, car wash. The best washes that I've seen sell "advance tickets." OMG, what a genious who came up with this! The kids sold the advance tickets, to neighbors or whatever, to come a couple weeks later and get your car washed. Though on that date, you could still drive up and pay for a wash. But they had to have sold hundreds of those advance tickets, and I bet half of them were never redeemed. I would always forget to redeem mine! At $5 each, that is just plain profit!! I still want to shake the hand of the person who thought that up! I'll stop there for now. The playground I led was a community playground, we raised over $250,000, it took about two years, then we had to get almost 10,000 volunteer hours to build it. It was hard work, but turned out very successful. Probably a different kind of project from what you're talking about right now. But I hope some what I said can be adapted to help you build your school's playground. Email me if I can be of further help.
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susanjf_gw
13 years ago
what exactly are you funding? it really can make a huge difference in what you want...

and what state? any chances of car washes? at one we had donation, no set price one sunny day we cleared over $500...we were on a main street parking lot, strip mall with plenty of traffic...

i agree with the garbage bags..my grand have "hit" up on entertainment coupon books but at $20 pricey and there it sits...another was some sort of purse co, again made a donation and said no thanks..

.if your area allows, we've had great turn out with a bingo tent (at the city faire) and a "vegas nite" with card games, ect..( both sometimes frowned on because of gambling)

if you have a grocery store, we collected pop cans for deposit...(hard work though) the last that has drawn in $$ is to have band members asking for donations at city business' (in uniform) and in return a band concert ticket...

along with the "biggies" we used the school's popcorn machine and sold bags after school...

last? donations...i "hit" every business in town with a form letter (school letterhead) asking for donations, including 3 different banks!
YogaLady1948
13 years ago
Car washes are very big here~~I went to one last week end, it was at LA Fitness to make $$ to cover funeral cost~they did another one, at the same time not sure where in the town over and that night they had a pizza parlor donating 20% of their take that night. They made $3,800~~WOW! It was heart warming.

I know our HS kids do car washes almost every week one is going on, they do it at a local fast food place and it is always hopping.

My DH and I love to buy frozen cookie dough~~~when I can get that I buy it for all of my kids also;)
marie_ndcal
13 years ago
Not sure, but here in ND I think that the merchants help out with donations due to weather, and kids being so active. I think they are also locked in all night after a certain time. Yes the kids do earn part of the cost by doing a variety of things thru out the year. One way was to sell lunch, sandwitches, soup & desserts at the craft sale in Nov. Because the prom is held at the gym I think that cuts expenses. Not sure of any because GD graduated about 5 years ago. I know it was pretty casual and not expensive and lots of fun.
kayjones
13 years ago
Hold a garage and bake sale in the gym. Here in my area, church youth groups hold these sales in their activity rooms and people flock to them - they make a lot of money and have few expenses. Pass out flyers asking for donations of items to sell.
User
13 years ago
Can you sell cool t-shirts? When I was in high school, there was a t-shirt for everything. If it represented the whole school and really neat looking, I would have bought it.
iowagirl2006
13 years ago
Guilt. Call the parents and solicit donations. Most will give something.

Merchants usually are willing to contribute.

We also charge a small admission to come to the party.

Concession stands (I never want to see another Walking Taco).
lydia1959
13 years ago
Trivia nights are big here. $15. to $20. per person, tables of 8. Price usually includes soda, snacks and sometimes draft beer. There are usually silent auctions for donated items too at the same time. The last one I went to had about 250 people... so a lot of money was generated in one night.

Edited to fix misspelled word.

This post was edited by lydia1959 on Fri, Feb 22, 13 at 12:01
User
13 years ago
I just had a random thought. The purpose of the after prom activities is to keep the kids out of trouble. If you have a non-profit 501 3(c) status (hope I got I the numbers right), you could possibly solicit parents for money and ask them to get matching funds from their employers. Many of the larger employers are set up to do this. We sometimes donate in this manner for organizations that we would like to help.
susanjf_gw
13 years ago
ok..after prom, all nighter? we had casino with parents dealing...they had (from the local preschool) those funny almost on the ground scooters with seat, races in the hall..local sandwich shop donated sub sandwiches...scrounged up boxes (fridge size, to smaller) painted black with windows for a city scape decor....fortune teller (don't know if real or parent) rented a throw yourself at a plastic velcro stick thingy...picture booth (school computer and printer) dancing (free) one gpa MADE a "bi-plane" as backdrop it was awesome!

they opened the school (indoor) pool (dd1 lifeguarded, she was ymca)

will ask dh (he was a dealer) what they paid out in...

it was all in the gym...kids did have to pay for tickets...
joyfulguy
13 years ago
Over 30 years ago, one of my famer parishioners raised turnips. When they were harvesting, their marketer wanted only smallish ones, and they hadn't been able to get into the field at the right time, due to ongoing rain, so were sorting them, throwing the oversized ones into a pile on a wagon.

When I asked what they planned to do with them, they told me that they were going to pull the wagon back to the bush and dump them.(That's "bush" as in agglomeration of trees - not as a surname).

I was connected with a couple of Parents Without Partners groups at that time and they needed some funds for their projects, plus a number of the members were rather pushed for funds, and I asked the farmer whether I could have some of the oversized turnips that the PWP groups could use either as a fundraiser, or for the members to use at home.

They were happy to let me take as many as I could handle.

The PWP groups were pleased, as there wasn't any concern as to what to do with the residue: just cook 'em, and eat 'em! In which situation ... the only residue was the peelings ... which were useful, for folks who had composters.

ole joyfuelled ... who won't turn-ip his nose at turnip
ILoveRed
13 years ago
Find a family owned restaurant...hopefully with kids in your school, (pizza/pasta, place etc) and convince them to participate in the following:

Have the restaraunt pick their slowest night of the week and you advertise the following post-prom fund raiser. Convince the radio and paper to do it free of course. Put up flyers. Encourage families of prom goers to eat there that night. Owner will donate 20% of all dine-in, carry out, and delivery from 3-10pm ---20% of all sales will be donated to the school. Win/win for business and school.
teresava
13 years ago
Around here, they ask a local restaurant to have a "Dining Out" night. They donate 10% (or something) of the profits to the school, and the school highly publicizes going to that restaurant on that certain night (and in general).

Here's a funny one too. For $25, you can buy a flock of flamingos for someone. They will go to their house at 5 or 6am and put 100 flamingos on their yard. Usually people do as a joke, happy birthday or congrats for something.

Sell donuts at sporting events or after church on Sundays.

Then the usual car washes, bake sales. I have found when you say "Donations" you get more then pricing.
lisa_fla
13 years ago
In middle school we sell pizza, candy, chips, and cold drinks every Friday right outside the doors at dismissal time. I wonder if you could organize a community rummage sale in the gym and rent tables out.
cate52
13 years ago
We've bought frozen pizzas being sold as a fundraiser.. I don't know where you live, but in the midwest, I've seen hog roasts, fish frys, roasted chicken and pulled pork all sold for fundraisers. I do think that you could ask local merchants for donations of $ or product... We're a fairly rural area, but have always had a good response. You could also make up raffle baskets [check state laws about gambling]... and use local donations/products .. and sell the tickets..
cate52
13 years ago
PS One of the favorite things I've seen at a post-prom party was a photo booth with all sorts of dress up costumey stuff ...

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