We just switched from Innisbrook to Jaxco (
JAXCO Industries - Field Day T-Shirts, Screenprinting, Fundraising Programs, Embroidery & Promotional Products
) and made a tremendous amount more than last year. Jaxco is a catalog sale that has the wrapping paper and the little knic-knac items in it. Really great and much better customer service than Innisbrook. Not to mention their product is a heck of a lot better. - That is our fall fundraiser.
Now our spring fundraiser we do a fun run. It is simple and easy to do. There are a lot of great ideas on here about how to do one. I do not mind sharing our way of doing a fun run - just email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Fundraisers are so much fun, aren't they? We just did Entertainment coupon books. They sold for $20, and we get 50% of each book sold. Not too bad. We are in the same kind of area you describe, as far as income goes, and this was pretty well received. We did tag a longs of cheese and sausage, and Auntie Anne's pretzel kits. Good Luck!!
How big is your school and how big is the town you are in? Some of the typical fundraisers really saturate an area. Is it a public or private school and what ages?
My daughter's preschool is doing KidStuff coupon books. The books sell for $25 each and you get a 50% profit off of them. They seem to be popular, especially when you remind the people purchasing them that they would earn their money back in savings. I see you are in Baltimore and some of the coupons that we have in our York, PA book are for the aquarium, port discover and a few other places in B-More. And they have different coupon books for different locations so it is catered to what is in your area.
We do Snacks to You (I chose pizzas, pretzels, funnel cakes and cookies) in the fall and Gifts N Things (Winter Wonderland variety gift book) in time for Christmas at my two schools. We also do Santa's Secret Shop for the kids which is with Gifts N Things and almost everything costs less than $10. We have a little less than 800 kids in both schools and make a great amount of money with those!
I am looking into doing a Chuck E Cheese fundraiser for the spring or winter (have to figure out the sporting events and all). With that fundraiser the school earns 15% of the sales for the night and teachers with their IDs get a free pizza or salad.
We will also be doing a similar fundraiser with a local restaurant where they donate a percentage of that nights profits to the school. That was successful last year!
Try signing up for UPromise (the school earns cash back from members shopping) or a grocery rewards program. We have Giant Foods and if you sign up your school you can earn cash back from members using their bonus cards. We chose to give that money to the teachers but I think you can do what you want with the money.
We ahve done a couple that require little or no upfront cash. Do you have restrauants that will donate a portion of their profits on a particular night - like Monday night from 4-8:00 pm? Are you familiar with pocket peelers? They are peel off coupons that fit in a credit card size folder. We make a $800 on a simple 2 week sale.
We have doone all sorts of fundraisers through the years; some good some bad. Our Old standbys are cookie dough, book fairs, and auction nights. The one thing I would say is to try and have one fundraisers that targets the community as opposed to the parents. We find that by April our parents are tapped out so that is when we do a big community yard sale or craft fair.
