School Fundraising Ideas & Resources

Many teachers, school administrators, and parent groups are looking for school fundraising ideas, especially with the downturn in the economy and budget crunches. Creative school fundraising ideas are needed to set your school or school group apart from the crowd and meet your fundraising goals. Whether you are raising funds for a new computer lab or library, or enhancing student programs, we can help with creative school fundraising ideas for your school or educational organization.

Fundraising is an educational opportunity. With every school fundraising campaign, you are teaching your children about community service and being a part of something larger than themselves. Students learn skills such as public speaking, leadership, and time management. Using technology such as our crowdfunding software will get your students to customize their personal fundraising pages. They are not only helping to raise much-needed funds but learning that helping out can be fun and rewarding.

Whether you are a PTA parent, Development office staff, or art teacher, these free resources will help support your school fundraising campaigns. Our school fundraising resources were developed from hands-on experience helping hundreds of schools across the US and Canada raise money online. If your school is looking for fundraising solutions that work, check out our fundraising software platform. We’re here to help YOU succeed.

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Top School Fundraising Ideas

The type of fundraising event your school chooses to run will be a big factor in your overall success. You need something that your community can get excited about and creative school fundraising ideas are often needed to set your school or school group apart from the crowd. Here are the best, most popular school fundraisers that clients run on our platform:

School Fun Runs & Walks: This fundraiser is very popular and successful for many schools. Walk-a-thons bring the community together – encouraging parents, students, faculty, and local businesses to participate. A walk-a-thon also offers a healthy way to raise money for your school by combining exercise with the cause. Adding a Fun Run theme to the event makes it more fun.

Color Run Fundraisers: Color Runs also work well for kids and make great elementary school fundraisers. Just be sure to use non-toxic color power which is not hard to find or make. When used as a school fundraiser, it’s also a great idea to add an obstacle course and after-party.

School Serve-a-thons: Another interesting school fundraising idea to consider is to host a student “serve-a-thon”. A serve-a-thon not only provides fundraising dollars to contribute to your school’s operating budget but also makes a positive impact on the community as students donate hours to helping the community.

School Auction Fundraisers: Charity auctions can be great school fundraisers. Not only do they bring in a lot of dollars for your school but they are also a great community builder by involving people from your school and community in a meaningful way (i.e. those who donate time, talent and items to auction, volunteers, parents, students and school administrators)

Reading Fundraisers: Reading challenges encourage students to raise money by reading. Students and classrooms get personal fundraising pages and compete for the most pages read and funds raised. Now that’s a nice mission-based fundraising strategy that any school or library can get behind.

Sales Contests: Product sales are a great way to get students involved in raising funds for your school by selling candy, branded school merchandise, magazines, holiday items, and gift or discount cards. Sales contests can be run online with our Simple Stores to keep things organized and donations secure. Create pages for students or classrooms and compete for top fundraising honors and awards.

See 40 more great fundraisers for schools.

DoJiggy’s Fundraising Software Platform Makes School Fundraisers Easy

Selecting the Right School Fundraiser

Different school fundraisers require different fundraising budgets, resources, volunteers, and time commitments. The following considerations should help you decide on the right school fundraising campaign and help you create a successful fundraising plan.

• How much volunteer time will the project take? Do you currently have committed parents or other volunteers to assist in your planning process? How will your school recruit more?
• How will students be involved? What roles can students play? Will students be required to fundraise online and if so, what tools can you provide to make it easy?
• What are the upfront costs and how will your organization cover these?
• How can you raise community awareness of your school or school group while raising funds?
• What are you teaching your children through your fundraising campaign?
• What kind of prizes are you offering to the top fundraisers? Anything that makes the event more fun for kids, means that your event will be more successful and raise more money.

More School Fundraising Resources

Crowdfunding for Schools

DoJiggy offers crowdfunding software for the best school fundraising events – including School Fun Runs, walk-a-thons, readathons, and community service projects – in which students and classrooms collect and track donations for their school. Use our peer-to-peer software platform to engage your students to get excited and raise money for your school – without handing over a hefty percentage of funds raised. Many schools report raising twice as much by taking their fundraising events online with us.

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School Fun Runs & Walkathons

We are all interested in teaching children about how a healthy lifestyle can contribute to overall self-esteem, productivity, and enjoyment of life. For that reason, we encourage educators and parents to continue to look for opportunities that send the message of the importance of building an overall healthy lifestyle and School Walks and Fun Runs are just the thing. Fun Runs get your students engaged in fundraising and provide a healthy alternative to candy sales.

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Elementary School Fundraising

Elementary school fundraising is a great way to raise extra dollars to support the development of educational and extracurricular programs, sports, music, arts, and more. But this is not the only goal – elementary school fundraising is also a great way to teach children about teamwork and working to accomplish a goal. With hard work and cooperation, anything is possible. Find out more about fundraising with young children.

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High School Band Fundraising

Marching bands, choirs, and other school music groups are often in need of financial support to sustain musical programs, fund competitions and concerts, cover travel costs for band trips, and pay for instruments, uniforms, and training tools. This article is intended to help your school music group plan a successful fundraiser by providing planning tips and creative fundraising ideas for high school and marching bands.

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PTA Fundraising & PTO Fundraising

When schools experience budget shortfalls, they often turn to parents to help raise money and reach out to the local community for support. After all, parents are often more than willing to help support their child’s education, making PTA fundraising and PTO fundraising campaigns a very common way to supplement funding. DoJiggy has helped hundreds of PTO and PTA fundraising campaigns and we’re here for you!

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Motivate Parents for PTO Fundraising Campaigns

The most treasured volunteers in a school are the parents volunteering in the Parent Teacher Organization or Parent Teacher Association (PTO or PTA). They give the gift of their time, talent and leadership yet one of the most vital roles they play is to be the driving force behind PTO fundraising campaigns for a school. Learn how to motivate your parents and get your fundraising efforts going.

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Golf Tournament Fundraisers for Schools

Golf tournament fundraisers work well for many schools and school groups. In this blog, we follow our client, The New Frontiers School Board, as golfers from each of their 15 schools step onto the green and pick up the clubs to raise money and for their schools and show their commitment as educators, parents and community members. Learn more about the ins and outs of successful golf tournament fundraisers and see if this is the right fundraiser for your school.

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Miniature Golf Tournaments

Golf tournaments are popular for many different reasons. They are a great way to raise awareness for your cause, fundraise, and network with clients and sponsors, among other things. But not everyone is a golfer. Miniature golf is a great school fundraising idea since students of all ages and their entire families can play. Add in games, contests, and more to make your miniature golf event a lucrative fundraiser for your school.

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University & College Fundraising

University students have unique talents and needs in relation to fundraising. With our University Fundraising Resource Center, we strive to provide the best collection of resources to make your University fundraising campaigns more successful. Used with our fundraising software, you will find that these resources will save your organization valuable time and allow you to raise more money for your cause with less hassle.

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40 Best Fundraisers for Schools

These 40 school fundraising ideas can be used by Parent Teacher Organizations, Student Councils, sports teams, service groups and clubs of all kinds, and more. So don’t just settle for the cookie dough fundraiser for your school this year, we’ve provided the inspiration here for the best and most lucrative school fundraising ideas at all levels of education from elementary through the high school years.

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School Flyers

Marketing your school’s fundraising activity is an important part of the planning and promotion process. Good visibility raises participation, and in turn, helps bring more dollars to support school programs. We’ve created these guidelines to help you effectively organize the information for your school fundraising event, and provided sample templates that can easily be customized for your school or group.

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High School Fundraising

When students reach high school, fundraising is a whole new game. Students have passions for sports or arts programs they are involved in, they join clubs with people sharing common interests, and they also begin to develop a strong belief system. They are eager to make a difference, support a cause, and therefore are more likely to embrace a fundraising initiative that supports their passions and beliefs.

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Student Serve-a-thons

A serve-a-thon not only provides fundraising dollars to contribute to your school’s operating budget but also makes a positive impact on the community. It works very similarly to a walkathon fundraiser. Students raise money by reaching out to family and friends and asking for pledges or donations to help their school. In turn, the student will provide the community with a type of community service.

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Raffle Fundraising

Raffle fundraising can be an easy and very successful way for students to help raise fundraising dollars for your school. A school raffle can produce high-profit margins with little effort or upfront costs. The costs are generally minimal, especially if you get the raffle prizes donated. Raffles are also a great option for a group of any size and our software allows your students to sell for you via their own raffle sales page.

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Reading Fundraisers

A readathon fundraiser is a peer to peer fundraising event where students commit to reading as a means of raising money for your school or Parent Teacher Organization. Each student gets a personal fundraising page to track their fundraising progress. Reading Fundraisers promote literacy and a love of reading for children; they offer an academic challenge and competition which kids will enjoy.

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School Auction Fundraisers

Not only have school auctions proven to have tremendous fundraising potential, but they are also a great community builder involving people from your school in a meaningful way. Auctions are often combined with another school fundraising event to ensure success. Whether live, silent, or online, school auctions provide a nice incentive for parents and community members to support your school.

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School Sales Contests

Product sales are a great way to get students involved in raising funds for your school, PTO, or school group. Many schools sell candy, magazines, holiday items, and gift or discount cards. Adding incentives for top fundraisers allows your school or school group to score an A+ in fun and raise more money for school programs. Check out what we have to offer for school fundraising sales contests.

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