| Want to do something to help raise money for the Foundation but need some help getting started? Use the information in this Fund Raising Tool-Kit to get started. This page contains everything you need to create, plan and execute a successful fundraising event at your school or in the community. |
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| Click on each step below to jump to the information. |
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Starting suggestions for a fundraiser. Feel free to use one of these or make up something new |
Tips for things to consider as you plan a fund raiser. |
Ideas, templates and sample announcements to publicize your event. |
Suggestions for monitoring progress to your plan, and for the actual event itself. |
| Important advice regarding thanking your volunteers and sponsors, and about getting final publicity for your event. |
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| If you need help or have any questions about how to maximize the success of your event, please email Mary Puskas, LO Foundation Director, or call (503) 534-2106. |
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| Below is a list of event suggestions, but feel free to be creative or ask around for successful ideas. |
| Wine Tasting for Dummies—Join with a local wine maker or distributor for an evening of learning about and tasting wine. The event can be scaled up based on the sophistication of your guests. |
| Morning Coffee—Sell a cup of coffee & a home-baked treat to parents at the morning drop-off. |
| Themed Bake Sales— Pick a clever theme - hot pretzels if your principal is from NYC, crazy cupcakes or chocolate only. |
| Spaghetti or Pancake Feed—Provide a simple-to-make meal for a small fee. |
| Yard Work Raffle—Raffle off 3 hours of yard work by a crew of students or parents School cookbook Sell recipes from the school community for easy dinners, cookies or potluck dishes inexpensively copied and bound. |
| Student Art Show— Display student art work in the school and invite parents and community members to admire the work. Ask teachers to help and allow students to create art specifically for the show. |
| Movie Night—Show a popular movie, serve popcorn and soda |
| Family Dance— Turn the school gym into a sock hop for the family |
| Walk-a-thon / Read-a-thon / Math-a-thon—Donors sponsor student walkers/readers /mathematicians per lap/page/problem. Hold a public walking, reading, math problem event. |
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| No Starbucks for a Week—Get a no-coffee pledge from parents (and high-school students) and a donation of the amount they would have spent. |
| Neighborhood Garage Sale—Organize a day of garage sales in your neighborhood Can & bottle recycling drive Gather a crew of students, and with parent chaperones, collect bottles and cans door to door and turn them in for deposit. |
| Can & Bottle Recycling Drive—Gather a crew of students, and with parent chaperones, collect bottles and cans door to door and turn them in for deposit. |
| Rainy Day Fund—Ask for a pledge of a dollar for every day it rains in the month of March |
| Native Plant Sale—Enlist a local nursery or supplier to provide a select set of native plants at wholesale prices. Create order forms and get collect money prior to distribution. Especially good for Mother's Day. |
Donate your professional services like landscaping, dog sitting, hairstyling to the Foundation. We will advertise the service and proceeds from the sale go to the Foundation
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Organize a team to plan the event. Take into consideration time needed for each step, facilities, supplies, student involvement, volunteers, and funding needed for event purchases. Assign tasks and create a timeline. Some things to consider:
- Space – where can a fundraiser be held?
- Staffing – who can help plan or volunteer at this event? Do you have interested parents, teachers and community members?
- Student Contribution – can the students act as organizers and/or volunteers?
- Scheduling – how long will this take to plan and implement? What other upcoming events are scheduled by the school (e.g. parent-teacher conferences, science fairs, etc)? Should the event coincide with the date/time of another event or be scheduled for another time?
- Audience – who will be attending this event? Can we promote this event enough to ensure there will be good attendance?
- Budget – is there any cost to this event? How much money do you have for up front costs? Are you willing to solicit local businesses to provide materials or services at a discount?
- Permissions - are there permissions needed for using schools spaces, communications channels and student participation? A heads up is a good idea in any case.
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Create a project plan with steps, due dates, and owners and share it with your event team, plus anyone else who’s participation or cooperation is needed to make this event successful. Use it to get feedback and uncover potential “gotcha’s” or problems with the plan.
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| Get the word out about your event! You can never over-publicize an event – most people need to see or hear about it at least three times in order to register or internalize the activity and date. |
Use the sample flyer in the yellow sidebar on the right or create your own!
- Hang them in your school— especially at the school entrance and at the pick-up and drop-off lines
- Hang them in businesses—See if the proprietor of your local dry cleaners, gym, grocery store or other local place of business will post them in their shop
- Put them in the school newsletter—Ask your school secretary or principal to include them in the weekly newsletter or email too.
- And finally, email a copy to Mary Puskas, in the LO Foundation office, to include in a ListServ email.
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| It is easy to get good publicity if you plan ahead. Use the Pre Event Information Form to capture the most important information about your event (e.g., who, what, when, where, why, how) and email it to the Foundation's Director, Mary Puskas, at least three weeks ahead of time. She will work to ensure your event gets maximum publicity, including possible placement in the LO Review and LOSD ListServ emails. |
| You may wish to use above information to create a brief paragraph announcement about the event. Such a paragraph can easily be inserted into school newsletters or ListServ emails, etc. The more you can do to make it easy for others to publish your story, the better! |
| Here’s a sample announcement that can easily be submitted to any of the above venues. |
Elementary Schools Planning a District-Wide
Read-a-Thon Fund Raiser
On Friday, May 21st, students in all LO elementary schools will be participating in a two hour district-wide “Elementary School Read-a-Thon,” designed to raise money for the LOSD Foundation, a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to raise money to hire teachers. Between May 1-20, students will be asked to obtain pledges from family members and the community for every page they read during the two hour Read-a-Thon on May 21st. Teachers and librarians will ensure students are reading age-appropriate books and will be monitoring their reading during the Read-a-Thon. The elementary schools hope to raise at least $20 per student, or over $40,000 with this event. For more information, contact Mary Puskas of the LO Foundation at (503) 534-2106 or email puskasm@loswego.k12.or.us.
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Download Foundation logos in the yellow sidebar on the right.
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Click on one of the logos below. A larger version will open in a new window on your computer. To download the image, "right click" on the image and "Save Image As" to your computer.
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| Monitor progress to your event plan. It’s important to stay in touch with your volunteer team – either via email or periodic meetings if needed. Keep everyone involved and informed. |
| On the day of the event, arrive early with your team to deal with last minute questions. Make yourself available during the event, and be at least one of your volunteers is assigned to take photos. |
Don’t forget to have fun!
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| It’s really important to thank everyone who helped make your event a success. For those in the district, email is an easy way to do this, and you can also include “thank you’s” in your school’s newsletter or principal’s email (as appropriate). If you had outside sponsors, a hand written note is best; think about whether you can get a few students to express their thanks in a short note too, as notes from the students typically carry more meaning for sponsors and others who helped. Whatever you do, don’t forget this critical step! |
| Let everyone know how the event went! People like to read about themselves, their school, or their community— especially if they played a role in a particular activity’s success. |
| Within 1 week of your event, complete the Post Event Information Form to capture highlights from your event. Email both the Pre- and Post-Event Information forms to Mary Puskas as soon as you can after the event. Time is of the essence – the press won’t print old news. |
| You should also write a brief summary of the event and submit it to your school's weekly newsletter and/or principal’s email, and to the school and parent club websites. Here’s a sample announcement: |
Elementary Read-a-Thon a Huge Success
On Friday, May 21st, students in all LO elementary schools participated in a two hour district-wide “Elementary School Read-a-Thon,” to raise money for the LOSD Foundation, a non-profit organization whose sole purpose is to raise money to hire teachers. Students came to the Read-a-Thon with pledges from families and friends for the number of age-appropriate pages of material they could read during the two hour Read-a-Thon. “Younger children typically were able to read three or four story books, while the older ones seemed to easily consume 50-75 pages,” said Scott Lane, principal at Westridge Elementary. While it wasn’t a competition, Forest Hills Elementary school raised the most money per student, averaging about $35 in pledges per student. “This event far exceeded our expectations,” said Mary Puskas, Director of the LO Foundation. “Our goal was $40,000 across all elementary schools and the students were able to beat that by almost 20%, raising almost $48,000. It is a phenomenal accomplishment for such young students.
Photo: Students at Lake Grove Elementary during Read-a-Thon
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Need Help? Have Questions? If you need help or have any questions about how to maximize the success of your event, please email Mary Puskas, LO Foundation Director, or call (503) 534-2106.
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