Top 10 Fundraising Ideas
1 Prom fair
Contact local businesses that are involved with proms. You could ask the local limo firm, dress shops, menswear shops, hairdressers and beauticians to come and display their wares to the people who will be going to the prom. Just like a wedding fayre, businesses are keen to meet potential customers and demonstrate how wonderful their services are, whilst the students get lots of ideas, and perhaps book services or buy gowns on the night, saving the hassle of shopping at other times. You could ask the hair dressers and make up artists to do demonstrations, and the local menswear company could take measurements for hired suits to get it out of the way for the lads.
Raise money at the prom fair by charging a low ticket price (only a couple of pounds) and sell tea and coffee at a profit. You could ask the businesses if they would be willing to donate anything for a raffle in return for special mentions in your promotional materials. Don’t forget to advertise well in advance, and set it at a time that parents can attend too; they are likely to be the ones paying! A mid-week evening won’t clash with weddings and means that everyone can attend.
2 Breakfast sale
Buy bagels, muffins, croissants, tea and coffee and set up a breakfast stall for those who have skipped breakfast to get to school on time. This takes effort, but if you price well (i.e. with a little bit of profit on everything sold) the pennies add up fast, and this is something you could do once a week on a regular basis.
3 Cake sale
Cake sales have worked for churches and charities for decades, and who knows, you may find lots of parents and grandparents are more than happy to bake a cake to sell on a stand. This could be combined with a prom fair for extra trade and convenience!
4 Pet parade
This is something that the whole community could be involved in, and the students lower down in the school in particular will love the opportunity to show off their pets. It requires a lot of promotion, an open space (playing field is fine) and willing judges, but a tiny fee to enter pets into competitions, and a small ticket price to attend will soon make money. If you have lots of competitions, for example; fluffiest pet, prettiest pet etc, some pet owners may enter more than one contest, thereby increasing the amount raised.
5 Prom fashion show
Contact the local formal dress shops and see if any of them would be interested in loaning gowns for a fashion show. If well organised, this is a great opportunity for them to showcase what they have on offer, and gives the audience lots of ideas for looking fabulous on the night. Formal gown shops are much more likely to get involved if there is a teacher there to manage the backstage on the night, reassuring the shop that the gowns will be well cared for.
6 Teachers vs students match
It doesn’t matter whether it’s football, cricket, basketball, netball or rugby, as long as there is a team made up of teachers and a team made up of students with a small ticket price to watch, this will be hugely popular and raise money for the prom.
7 Mufti Day
This is always popular and easy to organise if your school has a uniform. Get permission to charge students £2 each to wear their own clothes for a day.
8 Toy and book sale
Write a letter to parents and contact the local paper announcing that you are having a ‘bring and buy’ sale for children’s toys and books. Parents of younger children always end up with toys and books that their child has grown out of, so being able to bring them to a place where other parents may well find a use for them will appeal. Raise money by either asking for a percentage of profits taken (if you are letting parents run their own stalls), entrance fees and a refreshments stand on the day. You could also just call for donations and run the sale yourselves for the highest profit.
9 Talent show
Talent shows are hot right now, and you can bet that there are lots of people in your school with hidden talents. The entrance fee can be low and still make a lot of money if you think about how many people can sit in your school hall. Why not have a qualifying round held in school hours (ticketed) with the finalists having the final contest in an evening slot that parents can come too as well? Then you can sell two rounds of tickets to different audiences, and build some drama into it too!
10 Gaming tournament
All you need are a couple of loaned consoles (or more if you want to get really ambitious) and projectors. Find a popular game that can be played in short segments, then have people take turns to play in front of a crowd and show off their skills. A small fee to enter and to watch should leave you enough money to buy a small gift for the winner and still make a profit. Low tech versions can be chess tournaments, and board game tournaments too. All you need is a system in place to make sure that winners from each round play each other to whittle down to a final winner (like a tennis tournament). Whilst there are no audience ticket sales for this version, it is less dependent on technology which can be a bit of a headache depending on your school’s resources. Each player can be charged a nominal entrance fee, and spread out over several lunchtimes can bring in a bit more money for the Prom fund.
