We are going to use
Mixed Bag Designs
in the fall. I think I found them on a post here on PTO. They offer reusable bags in six or seven sizes and tons of patterns. I ordered the sample kit and am quite impressed with the quality. I am testing them for durability. The one thing I like about their program is the school sets its own retail price. Mixed Bag offers a suggested price, but you can raise or lower it depending on your demographics. If you know you will sell more with a lower price, you have that option. You can make up the difference in volume. And, it is nice to offer something parents may actually use. The only downfall, many parents (myself included) already have a ton of reusable grocery bags. We're hoping the variety of sizes will make the fundraiser successful.
We did the School supply kits. We go through Staples: School Kitz. They are well organized and supply everything each child needed. We added a $1 per kit and made a few $.
We have done our Fun Run for the last 3 yrs and that has worked out well. The kids run 1/4 mile and we had music, Bounces, water, fruit, etc. We ask each child to get 5 people to sponsor at $10 or 10 people at $ 5. Most parents liked giving only once, instead of all the candy, wrapping paper, etc.
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LHPTO Pres - if you're looking for something out of the box and are new to fundraising, I recommend looking into an online game contest. you can easily organize one at www.playtogive.com. The good thing about online fundraising is that the profit margins are high and there are no upfront costs.
Our school did two new things this year. Instead of selling products, we created a program called "Easy Street" where we make it easy to raise funds by simply donating what you might have bought in products. We run this throughout the year. It was a first year and has been successful, we raised just as much as we would have selling products.
Our second event was a "Spelling Challenge" this incorporates both education and fundraising. Each child solicits monetary pledges for a 30 word spelling test. There are a week or two of activities around the event through homework, classwork assignments, etc. Then they take the test and collect the pledges for each word they spell correctly. We raised $5000 in one week with a school of almost 300 kids.
I was wondering if anyone has heard of a "Cash Bash". It was brought to my attention tonite at our meeting for a new and different fundraising idea.
The premise is this: Sell an allotted amount of tickets, ie. 300 for $50 per couple to include all you can eat dinner and soda/tea/water. Then every 5 minutes you draw for $100.00, every hour, half hour and quarter, you draw for $200 and the Grand Prize at eh end of the nite is $2000.00. The one that I was told about included a 50/50 drawing and those rip-off tickets that you buy separately. It was helpd over a 3 hour period and there was a total of 37 drawings. This was done in a small community and they raised $8000.00.
I am looking for advice if anyone else has done this, either good or bad. I am a new president and am looking for uique ideas beside selling Joe Corbi again like we did in the fall, which was a great fundraiser but since we just did it 6 months ago, wanted to think outside the box for spring.
