one more thing... our local Best Buys will have a school night where a percentage of sales will be given to your school.

check them out!

diem

Honesty is the best policy. Hold a town hall meeting with the parents discussing the need for a new play structure. You may get some great ideas from bake sales to corporate sponsorships.

Here in our town, many large corporations sponsor those electronic sign marquee for the high schools ranging from Frontier Airlines to local News Channel to local cable companies (Comcast).

Start with a letter to your parents asking for donations specifically for the play structure. Tell them the monies you raise during the year are already earmarked for supplies, field trips etc.... If you use the monies for the play structure, then something else will have to be cut.

At the end of our PTO year, if we have any extra money, we sometimes put it toward a school gift. Last year, our PTO gave $800 for our school rock wall.

You may get some parents working for large companies that can donate a couple hundred dollars.

You'd be surprised how much change adds up, we did a "quarters for Katrina" after the hurricane and raised $2600, we did "get a grip" (for the rock wall) asking for quarters and raised some money (I don't know how much, it was before my time). This year we did "pennies for patients" for leukemia and also raised a few hundred.

Try something small like that....or.... something large like corporate sponsorhip.

Another thing that we make "free money" on is:

box tops ($600, but other schools raise over 2K)
Grocery cards (local Albertsons, Safeway, even Target) we receive about $900 a year from each of them). E-Scrips and credit cards are now doing this.

apply for Grants throught Lowes, Home Depot and Hamburger Helper, yes, Hamburger helper. go to my home town on hamburger helper and fill out the info.

ask Outback steakhouse to sponsor your next bbq and charge for it. (there is a separate message board for this already)

we make about $400 a month doing "restaurant nights". you can do "McTeacher nights at McDonalds", Chick fil A, Chipolte, Subways, Baskin Robins etc.... many will give you 10-15% of the sales.

do a movie night and raise an easy $500!

I hope some of this helps you. There are many many websites that offer grants, local grants, goverment grants, school grants, you just have to find them.

Diem

Thank you for your ideas! Keep 'em comin' please!

We do participate in Box Tops, but it has never given us a big return. As simple as it is to clip them and send them in, very few parents do. A contest using them sounds like a great idea.

Does anyone do coin wars?

Check into applying for a Lowe's Grant. They accept applications twice per year.

You could also do a walk-a-thon. There's a company called Race for Education. We are actually checking into it now for our school. They help you through the entire process of planning your event, and they ask for a 15% commission on the total money you raise. Some schools make over $50,000 for their walk-a-thon.

You could also have raffles or silent auctions. Good luck to you.

I don't know if you do "Box Tops" or not-- but the return can be fairly large-- have challenges and contests in classroom to get the kids involved. Small prizes given out, like coupons from McDonalds-- a PJ day for the winning class, ect.. is good incentive-- You could also put large empty water jugs out in the main office and at local businesses to help get funds for a much needed playground-- there's nothing wrong with asking the community to step up and help out with their spare change-- and it adds up quick with no outlay of funds.
Good luck!

If you know of any companies that have large returns or companies that donate funds to schools could you please let me know? We are considering an "engraved buy a brick" type fundraiser and I am working on a letter to be sent to companies that donate funds to schools.

Here is our situation:

We are an elementary school (one of ten in the school district) that is in desperate need of a new playground. Some parts have been removed for safety reasons and other parts have been removed because they are broken. We are losing our play structure piece by piece. It is 17 years old and it is definitely time for a new one especially when you take into consideration that all the children in the neighborhood play on it in addition to the students.

As fundraising chair I hold at least three big fundraisers a year to support assemblies, field trips, classroom supplies, etc. If we use that money for the playground we won't have enough funds left over for the students' needs. I want to hold a separate fundraiser that is for the playground specifically in addition to the others that we have. I would like it to have as big a return as possible.

If you can help me in any way with this, please respond here. Thanks so much for your help and time!