Living in a rural part of my state (believe it or not there is more to Maryland than Baltimore!), we have relatively small schools as well. Reading through the posts, I can see that a lot of the things we are beginning to do are being done elsewhere, so I won't duplicate. I will, however, say this. As a small school, you aren't limited by the number of students or families, or the population of your town. You are only limited by your own lack of ambition to go beyond the "norm". And as a small school you have an advantage that a lot of larger, more urban schools don't have - a sense of community surrounding your school - the kind of involvement it takes to pull almost anything off, by pulling everyone together.
If your school isn't used to doing very much, start out small (no pun intended), and build slowly. rwood was right in being sure to outline what each fundraising event will sponsor, then show proof of your success and be sure to thank everyone - ten times. Just be sure to avoid the image of being solely a fundraising group.
I will throw this in: there is a fundraiser where kids design greeting cards and the parents buy packs of them. This is a great "make & take" kind of event, where the kids & parents design the cards together & the parents place their orders right there; everyone has fun and you make money too. I can't think of the name of it right off hand, but I'll look it up and get back to you. Good luck. And for more info on small schools, visit smallschoolsworkshop.org, or the Rural Schools and Community Trust website at ruraledu.org
Our school has 100 families (approx 140 students). We are a private school and not wealthy by any means. Our fundraising is to 'help' keep tuition low and subsidize utilities, teacher salaries, etc. We always hope there's a little extra to do fun things for the children. We've consistently raised approximately $70,000 each year. We fundraise sometimes once or twice/month. Our largest fundraisers are our calendar party, candy sales, enjoy (entertainment) books, wrapping paper.
Since taking over we've implemented Family Fun Nights. We charge $1 child, $2 adults. Feed hot dogs, chips, pop. Have a free chinese auction ... some donated, some purchased by PSO. We usually have an airbrush tattoo artist, a DJ and recently we've contacted the local division of Radio Disney and they've come and offered to entertain kids for FREE for approx. an hour. They had trivia contests with the kids, brought prizes, played games and danced with the kids. They had such a great time, they stayed over 2 hours just dancing with the kids. Even the parents were up there dancing! Everyone from K-8th plus parents now look forward to them every year!
I posted something on your other forum about small schools. I will try to make this one shorter. We are a small private school with around 180 students pre-k through 8th grade. We sell Entertainment Passbooks $4,000 last year, participate with other schools in Grand Tour, a bike-a-thon, $8,000 last year and do a Silent Auction, $17,000 last year. We also do fun events not meant to raise money, only to break even. That includes a fall festival and three family game nights per year. We also do three teacher appreciation breakfasts per year and a teachers appreciation dinner at the beginning of the school year. If your folks have a negative attitude I would start small and build. Do one fundraiser and do it well. Make it fun and make sure you accept credit cards for payment. That made a huge difference for us at our auction. Before credit cards we made $9,000 which went up to $17,000. Then make your other events "fun" raisers as I like to call them. Use them to build a sense of community and family with the people that go to the school. When you do raise money make sure you know where it will be spent so parents know what they are donating to, and when that project is finished or an item purchased make it a big deal so people have visible proof that your group is making a difference in their child's life. The best way to get parents involved is to give them visible proof that their involvement is benefiting their child. Hope that helps.
We are a very small school, Preschool-12th grade 150+ students. We usually have one big fundraiser, a carnival with a silent auction. Next year we are adding a book fair. We host 4 teacher appreciation events a year and each level (PreK-2nd, 3-5th, Middle School, High School) hosts one per year. We host parties for each holiday throughout the year. We made substantial donations this year to National Honor Society, NJuniorHS, STUCO and also to each of the school levels. We donated to the Yearbook via an ad in their book. We bought gift baskets for each of our drivers. And so on. Our budget really isn't that large compared to other schools who post here, but we don't charge much for our activities. Most of the expatriates make about the same amount of money, but a third of our school are local students who are on scholarships. We make up the difference by asking for donations of food, desserts and such instead of money and most people can afford that.
Hi Heathr,
I don't know if we qualify as a small school--we're pre-K-5 with 625 students. One of the things we do for the kids are dances. All students are invited and they aren't boy/girl type dances that may copme to mind when you hear the word "dance". Mostly, they're an outlet for the kids to burn off some energy. They are extremely well attended from all grade levels. Parents are required to stay and are not charged admission. It's a fun time for all--line dancing, the parents can talk while the kids blow off steam. We do a Fall, Valentine, and end of the year Farewell to 5th grade dances. We normally charge $2 admission, have food( pizza or hotdogs)at nominal cost. We also have the art teacher make a special backdrop and sell Polaroid photos.( we used our Campbell's Labels to get the camera) The kids LOVE that. They can squeeze as many friends into one picture as they can. We don't consider them a fundraiser, but they usually make more than we expect to cover our expenses for doing them.Sometimes we'll have a door prize if we get a donation or we'll purchase something.( something that was a popular item was a digital camera for $20 from WalMart and a singing(karaoke) machine that we got with Campbell's) We have teacher support for these--time to have fun with the kids out of the classroom.( We also have a door prize drawing for any teachers who are present).
For teacher appreciation, before we had accumulated any money in our coffers, we put out the call to parents to provide baked goods--not just cakes/cookies, but also hors d'oerves.These were available all day in the break room.A big hit.There are a lot of things that can be done without spending a lot of money that will be appreciated more than some trinket that will get stuck in drawer and forgotten.
We too are small school (450) in an even smaller town (600). We literally only have a handful of businesses, but I shop and SPEND MY MONEY in a nearby town. I remind these businesses of this when I solicit donations. I also remind parents that they have $ clout with the businesses they spend money with.
I hit up 200+ businesses last year for donations. I bet I got less than 10 no's. Most of them were from major chain restaurants. The mom and pop places are the most helpful. We use everything for our fall carnival. We had a Chinese restaurant donate a case of fortune cookies. We gave those a consolation prizes on our Cookie Walk. A few years ago we go a donation of pickles from a local pickle plant, hence the Pickle Walk was born. Everything we get either becomes a bingo prize or a silent auction item.
We thank the people that help every chance we get. We have a very pretty thank you board up the night of our carnival and we send out thank you's from the students and the PTO. I got 3 thank-you's for the thank-you's we sent.
We purchased a LED sign, a walking track, awnings, computers, and TV's. We sponser family literacy nights, Accelerated Reader, afterschool music programs, character ed lunches, teacher appreciation, and support local elections.
I have been involved with this PTO for 20 years (I started as a mere child!). Our teachers and administators are huge part of our success. Parents come and go, but they are there for the duration.
Long post, but I am a big advocate of small schools and districts. AR (not AZ) is currently looking at consolidating every district with less than 1500 (this includes us). I will fight do my last breath to keep this from happening.
Hope this helps. I think small schools in small towns have the benefit of people knowing everyone else and that makes it easier to work together.
