I was looking for a unique fundraising event. After so many years, I am tired from the regular ones!!!
Lately I was recommended by a friend to use a company that comes to the school with very large colorful kick spin tops - they set and run Interactive workshop with the kids. I was told the kids loved it.
The best part is the school keeps 50% of the money raised. You can find them at www.spin-tops.com
I will let you know how did it go!
There is a cool website that we ordered some products for our kids on their birthdays. They just started doing fundraisers. My kids and my nephews and nieces love the products. It is personalized folders, notebooks, doodlebooks, etc. with their name on it. I talked to my kids schools about this and i think they are going to run fundraisers with this product soon. They were interested b/c the products were unique and it's shipped directly to the homes. no pickup day. Good luck! It's called inkyzebra
Try main street fair the online auctions website, they will donate money to any school in the U.S. public or private. No door-to-door sales just go on their website and shop or sell any unwanted item, once your item/s sell your school will get money!
I am President of our PTSO, we are a small private school K3 - 12 with about 450 students. Last May our PTO hosted a gold party. This was by far the best fundraiser our PTO has had. We originally planned the party for 1 day during school hours, and sent flyers only to the elementary teachers. When people found out how much money the teachers were receiving for their old unwanted and broken gold word spread like wildfire. By the end of the day we had parents coming in too, so our consultant agreed to come in again the following day. This fundraiser netted us over $3,000! I can't imagine what we may have made had we invited all the teachers and parents too. The best part about this fundraiser was everyone walked away with money in their pocket and there was no overhead for us. One of our teachers walked away with a little over $1,000.
You may want to check out this art fundraising site that allows PTOs/PTAs, rec groups and other non profits to raise money all year with an affiliate site or just do a short term fundraiser. Instead of trying to sell thing to parents they might not necessarily want OR need parents can choose from a variety of useful items available and put their kids original artwork onto the item. They have everything from mugs, to T-shirts, to magnets and the nonprofit can set their own profit margin on the items. There are no costs to get involved and if you choose an on-line fundraiser you can streamline ordering. You can even just customize products with your groups logo or art and sell those items.
I just learned of a new site called PlayToGive. They help you set-up online game contests where your students play a crossword puzzle or other fun/stimulating games and ask their friends and family to sponsor them with donations. Think of it as a game-a-thon, I think it would be very much out of the box and creative.
The best part is the school keeps 85% of the money raised and there are no up front costs!! Setting up the event does not require much time either. I think it's worth trying them out!
Good luck, please share back what new fundraiser you decide on!