Schools often look for ways to make money. Sometimes, new playground equipment is needed, or perhaps band equipment and uniforms, it might be that the football team is in need of uniforms, or that the debate team needs money to travel to a meet. Fundraising is quite common and an excellent way to make the money required while teaching students about good sales and marketing, as well as money management. You will also see schools using fundraising to help other people. For example, during the Tsunami, schools all around the country joined efforts to raise money that could be used for medicine, food, clothing, and other needs. As you will discover in this article, there are many innovative ways of making money.

Discount Cards

With discount cards, you can offer one particular type or a book that consists of several different cards. For example, three of the favorites are shopping cards, pizza cards, and prepaid phone cards. With the shopping card, you would choose from local and national merchants that provide nice savings at retail shops, grocery stores, florists, etc. For the pizza card, this is just what it sounds, a card that would offer a discount off the price of food sold at major chain pizza restaurants. Many of these cards offer limited use but for a mere $10, the person might receive a discount 20 times, making this a real bargain. Finally, prepaid phone cards are always a great fundraising option, used by families that live across the country from one another or for college students. For this type of card, you can choose from a number of denominations of $10, $20, $24, and even $30.

Sweet Candy

The second school fundraising idea is something just about everyone loves – candy. Most often, candy sales are associated with school clubs, sports groups, music departments, and church youth groups. Because this is a small dollar item, they sell well but a good marketing plan to increase sales must also be developed and implemented. Ideally, find low-priced candy suppliers, ones that support school fundraising projects, choose the type or types of candy you want to sell, determine your price, and then get started selling.

Rubber Ducky

Next on the list of school fundraising ideas is the rubber duck derby. In the past few years, this has become a very popular school fundraising idea. Not only is the rubber duck derby fun, but also a great way to involve the community while earning money. You could work with your local grocery stores to sell rubber ducks for $1, which gives the buyers a chance to win a valuable donated prize. Then on a specified date, the ducks are taken to a local park with a lake. All of the rubber ducks are emptied into the water at once and the first one to cross the finish line wins.

Car Washes

Next for successful school fundraising ideas is the car wash. Many companies will donate the water for car washes so all you have to do is bring garden hoses, towels, Windex and paper towels, and signs leading people in the right direction. You can set the price at $1 to $5 per car or establish the car wash fundraiser as a donation basis. Either way, you will find that you make quite a bit of money in exchange for some hard work and fun.

Bake Sales

Finally, one of the most popular and most successful school fundraising ideas is a good, old-fashioned bake sale. For this, students (and probably parents) would donate baked goodies to include brownies, cookies, cake, pie, and miscellaneous items. Then, the students would work outside a strip mall or grocery store, encouraging people to buy. Usually, people are very supportive of a bake sale and if the food is good the money is too.