PTC Fundraising Ideas: Let's Get the Playground Equipment!

[missiemom]

I need help coming up with ideas to get our PTC to have a Pampered Chef fundraiser. I am going to the meeting this Weds. night it's about setting up the fundraisers for the year. I was thinking that if me & the tastefully simple, tupperware & home interior ladies did a Sat sale in the schools gym that we could all do this huge fundraiser for the new school play ground equipment. I was thinking that we could do it in late Nov/ early Dec. I did bring it up to the PTC Pres. & she said she would talk to a couple others but didn't think it would go over well since they tried it a few years ago but picked a bad weekend. Any ideas would be great. Thank You!:balloon:

 

[jrny2001]

Why not do a catalog show and have each student/family collect 5 orders?

 

[cathyskitchen]

I did something similar with my kids' preschool, and it went really well. We raised almost $1000 for the school, and it's a small school with only 85 kids. We had 12 vendors each pay a table fee ($10), then donate 10% of their sales to the school, as well as a small gift item that was raffled off in gift baskets. We earned $200 from the gift basket raffles alone!! I did really well - at least $1000 in sales both years we did it (last year and the year before) and was able to donate the most. It's important that every vendor "works" their booth and doesn't sit there waiting for people to just walk up and order. Also, make sure you have snacks and beverages for the guests (our parents donated these).

Advertising is key, too. Make sure you send flyers home with the parents in advance so they put it on their calendar, and see if you can get it on different community bulletin boards, local papers, etc. We even asked local businesses if we could put flyers in their front windows, and many said yes. We also created 2 large "sandwich board" signs and placed them at the intersection where the event was being held to get "drive by" business (which we did). We tracked how everyone found out about the event by asking on the raffle tickets.

The vendors also collected orders from their own customers, invited their customer lists, and asked people who couldn't make it to place orders in advance. The key is to get attendance, though, so make sure you offer something for those who are there, like drawings for prizes and such. Also, keep the number of vendors to a minimum - any more than 12 really thins out the amount of sales everyone gets, and you want it to be worth the vendors' time to do the event, too.

Hope that helps! I'm doing it again this year the first weekend in Nov., and this year we're doing it 2 days - Friday night 6-9 and Sat. 10 - 1. It's perfect for holiday shopping since most products are in by Thanksgiving!

 

[cathyskitchen]

Oh, and if it's for an elementary school, definitely see if you can get Discovery Toys, Usborne Books and any other company that is geared towards kids. Parents will come for those, then see the other vendors and buy from them, too!!

 

[missiemom]

Thanks Cathy that definaltely helps. Plus I totally forgot about the Discovery toys.

 

[dianevill]

I'm the coordinator for our 4K program's Shop 'til You Drop. We do something very similar to Cathy's fundraising program, and it attracts a lot of attention each year. As Cathy mentioned, the key is advertising! You have to get the word out there. One thing, if you do a Shop 'til You Drop kind of event, if you call Pepsi and/or Coke they'll give you a couple of banners to put up at intersections.

If you do the raffle, in the state of Wisconsin, you need to get a license. It's $25, and the phone number is 800-791-6973 to obtain a form.

Cathy, I like your idea of having area businesses post flyers in the windows. We had some that put them on their bulletin boards, but having them in front might be better. Also, we asked the two local grocery stores to put flyers in the shopping bags about a week before the event, and they happily obliged.

Good luck!

ETA: We had 38 vendors last year, and my sales were still over $1000. I don't think having that number of vendors hurt - we asked all of them to invite their customers.

 

[cathyskitchen]

Diane - wow, your event sounds great! I didn't know that about Coke or Pepsi - one of my best friends works for Pepsi in their Marketing Dept. in NYC, I'll have to call her!

We had 20 vendors last year, and 12 the year before, and made the same amount of money. But, some of the vendors were not "working" their booths - just sitting there waiting for people to walk up to them (can everyone tell that I HATE that by now?!)

Anyway, it irked me b/c I was working my tail off and the other girls were just sitting there complaining that they weren't getting sales. HELLO! Who's fault is that?! Those folks were NOT asked back this year! We're hoping that the vendors we have for this year are much more motivated sellers, and by having it 2 days, we'll double our total.

If that's the case, maybe we'll add more vendors next year, and then I'll promote the event to my kids' elementary school. I haven't mentioned it yet b/c there is a huge 5K fundraiser they do every year already that they promote in the spring that gets all of the funds they need for the entire year - pretty impressive, huh?? But, the 5th grade always needs a big fundraiser, so I'm hoping to push it for that. We'll see!

OH, and since the school we did the event for had their own license to do raffles, we were able to print their number on the raffle tix and didn't have to pay a fee. Always check your state's laws for raffles and if the school/church you're doing it for already has a license or permission to have them.

 

[scottcooks]

Advertise advertise advertise. I've done several of these, but they are not worthwhile without foot traffic. Ask what advertising has been done.

 

[missiemom]

Thank You!!!:thumbup: I went to the meeting last night & pitched my idea about a shop til you drop & they loved it. A couple of people said we tried it a few years back but it didn't turn out well & we were hoping that they would try it again the next year but the PTC pres at the time said it was a waste the prev. year & declined to do it again. The only downfall is that they said since I had so many ideas (thanks to my friends here ) that I was incharge of it. So I am off to meet with the lady in charge of scheduling the gym to see if we can get it the 1st or 2nd weekend of Nov.
Once again THANK YOU!!!