Thanks for the great ideas! We actually partnered with a local bowling alley who is giving us a certficate for four free games of bowling ($17 value) to give to each student who turns in an order ("The Power of One') is what we are thinking - get everyone to bring in at least one order.
We then surveyed the students and we use Jeanine Fundraising and they do give us a pretty substantial amount for the student prizes (cash wheel, mystery money box and cash booth). We will do an early bird turn in award of $25.
Our big issue now is what incentives can we give the teachers to keep the drive "alive" for the kids? We would love to commit to grade level prizes (6th, 7th and 8th) based on participation or meeting a grade goal but we hate to commit and not achieve the sales and have disappointment. We know parents tend to do more if they know their child's classroom would benefit! We were thinking classroom books, supplies that teachers tend to buy out of their pocket, etc. I like the magazine reward idea. We do give the teachers their magazines at cost but this would be free!
Ideas?
Thanks for all the input!

I guess we are lucky in that the company that we use ( www.gntinc.com ) provides quite a bit of incentives to our students.
Their program gives some type of basic gift to everyone who sells 1 item. (this coming year they are giving a scented eraser PLUS a digital cookbook for the families). Then the levels go up by increments of 5 items and they get more and more items. If they sell 30 items, the student also receives a $50 Restaurant.com gift card plus a bunch of smaller items.
In addition, every class that has 50% participation gets a Magazine reward for the teacher PLUS an ice cream party (due to the wellness policy in our district, we simply have to purchase these treates through our cafeteria).

This upcoming year, though, we want to increase participation (currently about 12% of our students participate). Our student population typically sees a larger participation in the 5th grade and 6th grade and very minimal participation in the 7th and 8th grade. We are going to try a few things in addition to the rewards from our supplying company that will hopefully yied a larger participation rate.
We will be trying:
-sell one item get a pass to the front of the lunch line for one day. (this is big deal in our school because the students must enter the cafeteria, sit at their assigned seat, and wait to be called when their entire row is quiet)
-sell 5 items get a pass to eat with your favorite teacher for the day. (date will be determined at a future time)

Some other ideas could include: no homework pass, funky dress day, popcorn for the playground. There are lots of ideas with this one.

You could also auction off a "principal of the day" to participants who sell "x" number of items. Or what about reading of the morning announcements, kicking off a pep rally?

While gift certificates and cash are always king to this demographic, that eats into your profits if you can't get the company to foot the bill. You could ask local companies in your area to donate products/services that you could raffle. It's a tax write off for them, and helps build community involvement. Our local bowling alley, mini golf, pizza shops, movie theaters are usually more than willing to help out when asked.

Agree- in middle school cash and gifts cards are king. We usually ask our vendors for a minimum of $125. We give $25 gift card to the top seller ( if there is a tie the names go into a hat ). For those who sell a minimum of 2 of whatever we are selling their name goes into a random drawing for 1 of (10) $ 10 gift cards. We end up giving out 11 gift cards total. We usually gift cards to places like Subway, Dunkin Donuts, Game Stop, Wal- Mart and Target. The kids like these choices. We also had on vendor come in with a money booth- the type where the cash blows the money around in a booth and the kid in the booth grabs as much money as he can( usually ones are blowing around - $100- top winner grabbed $60). We have also had kids who sold two of whatever was being sold draw from a mystery box- inside are $5, 10, 20 & 50 dollars bills- always sponsored by the vendor.

Hi,
What does your middle school (grades 6 to 8) do for prize incentive levels for their major fundraiser? Also what have you done to involve the teachers and gain their support for promoting the fundraiser as well as keeping the fundraiser "on the top of" everyone's minds during the fundraiser period, generally two weeks.
In other words what have you found to work and just as importantly what didn't work?
Thanks!
Anne