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[S146]School Fund Raising Ideas

by Silvana Clark, Sil

Every parent has experienced the dread that comes with their child announcing a school or sports team fund raiser. Parents find themselves helping their child hawk containers of high-caloric cookie dough'or skimpy rolls of wrapping paper'or calendars they'll never use'or magazine subscriptions to Bee Keeper Gazette. How about suggesting the school or team try a few innovative fund raising ideas? The following ideas are creative ways to raise money for your specific program.

Teachers Lip Sync Extravaganza: Teachers are often hesitant to perform in traditional talent shows. Performing in a lip sync act requires only exaggerated, outlandish stage presence, not talent. Charge admission for families to come watch teachers and staff as they display their talents playing air guitars and prancing around in swimsuits, carrying surfboards and lip syncing to songs such as California Girls.

Many cities have businesses pay to decorate life size cows or pigs, which are then displayed throughout the community. Why settle for decorating a traditional animal statue? Encourage businesses to pay to be corporate sponsors for the chance to get a toilet destined for the dump. Each business receives a clean, yet used toilet,(available from most recycling centers) which they decorate. On a designated day, collect the artistically decorated toilets and set up makeshift bowling lanes. Community members pay to view the toilets and pay extra to roll a bowling ball down the lane and smash the toilets. Just think. Your organization gets money when businesses buy a toilet and then additional money as people pay to destroy the toilet with a bowling ball!

300 million children around the world are without a pair of shoes. Teach your children how to help others while also raising money for your organization. Soles4Souls, a non-profit agency, has distribute over 3 million pairs of shoes around the world. Students simply take orders for clogs or flip flops, which Soles4Souls distributes free of charge to people in need. For every $5.00 flip flops or $10.00 clogs students sell, your organization receives 40% of the proceeds. More important, your student's efforts help put a pair of shoes on the feet of someone in an impoverished or disaster-stricken area of the world.

Contact www.soles4souls.org or 615-391-5723

Americans are spending billions of dollars on jeweled collars and personalized raincoats for their pets. Sponsor a pet fashion show where pet owners pay you to participate. For added interest get the mayor of your community or a local celebrity to "model" along with their pet. Any pet store would be glad for the publicity that comes with paying to be a "corporate sponsor" and promote their products. Planning is simple: Pet stores pay to be a sponsor, people pay to walk the runway with their adorable dog, cat, ferret, miniature horse, etc, and people pay admission to attend the event. All you need is a gym with a runway and a few pooper scoopers on hand!

Some of the best fund raising ideas for schools are those which involve the pupils in some kind of creative activity. I'll bet if you asked most young children what they enjoy most at school the answers would include drawing or painting. Combining the talents of our children with parents and grandparents willingness to spend money is a winning combination.

And how do you get all that creativity on to something that displays our children's artistic skills to as wide an audience as possible? You print it on gift wrapping paper. Possibilities for themes are endless, but parent's pockets aren't, so selling the gift wrap at a couple of events a year should be just right. The most obvious are the Summer Fete or Fair and at Christmas.

Get the children to create their works of art on A4 paper sheets. They can be on white paper, or for an interesting effect spread a few different coloured papers among the pupils. A standard sheet of Gift Wrap is 500mm x 700mm or similar. When the children's illustrations are reduced down in size, you can fit any number from about 72 up to 288 images on to a sheet. It depends on the effect you want to achieve. The white background tends to work better with the lower numbers and the multi-coloured papers with higher numbers. Duplicate images as desired or necessary to make up the numbers.

The children's images are scanned and montaged using design software and printing should be carried out by a printing company. How much of the work of creating the gift wrap is carried out by the school will depend on the school's own capabilities. However, it is recommended that the assembly of images and final printing is carried out by professionals. The minimum quantity for printing gift wrap of this kind is 1000 sheets. The profit on this amount should be at least 100% after printing costs are taken out. For larger quantities, the amount raised by the school would be even higher.

At Christmas time, an additional fund raiser is to have greetings cards printed with images from the gift wrap. The advantage with these fund raising projects is that they can be repeated annually with different sets of children taking part. As well as the money raised, the expressions on the children's faces when they see their work in print is priceless.

Article Source : How to Raise Capital

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Both Silvana Clark & Richard Leeds are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Silvana Clark has sinced written about articles on various topics from Customer Service, Raising Capital and Stress Management. Silvana is the author of 11 books and over 300 articles. After buying countless containers of cookie dough and candy bars, she's come up with no-calorie school fund raising ideas.. Silvana Clark's top article generates over 201000 views. to your Favourites.

Richard Leeds has sinced written about articles on various topics from Corporate Identity and Branding, About Branding and Raising Capital. . Richard Leeds's top article generates over 201000 views. to your Favourites.