Businesses have a lot of
resources and are often willing to get involved with their local
schools.
Work with the companies
in your community to secure donations for your school.
Corporate sales donations, goods and services are a good option
for your school if:
You are trying to involve the
local business community in your school
Someone in your school community
has a connection to a local business
You have the ability and
mechanisms to promote a program
Your school community
wants to help raise money for the school, but does not have a lot of
time to volunteer
School Night at Local
Retailers/Restaurants
What to do
:
Partner with a local business by arranging to have a
percentage of profits earned at a particular store/restaurant on a
particular day donated to your school.
Visit a local store/restaurant and speak with the manager or
community affairs director.
Choose a night on which an agreed-upon percentage of sales will be
donated to the school and then publicize this to everyone you can –
promote the store, promote the event and get people to come out and
buy something that night.
Ask
the store to have posters, balloons or volunteers from the school
there to gently ask customers to participate.
Resources needed
:
A few volunteers to approach the business and arrange
promotion, as well as to be there on the school night to encourage
people to participate; supplies such as posters and balloons to put
in the store if the store agrees.
Remember to
:
Sign an agreement with the store to solidify what percentage
of sales on what night your school will be receiving.
Send a thank you note to the store manager and employees for
their participation, and be loyal to that store.
If this is successful event, approach the store about having
“School Night” once a month, or every six months.
Good for
:
Schools with few volunteers, connections to a particular
retailer, or with someone comfortable approaching and selling store
managers on the idea.
Example:
PS/MS 207 in
Queens
provided the example of raising funds at the local Burger King.
Each month they choose a day in which the school children use a
different theme to draw posters to place in Burger King.
Between the hours of
4:00
and
8:00pm
,
PS/MS 207 receives 20% of total sale orders.
The Parent’s Association hosts this fundraiser every month.
Example:
MS 245M contributed the idea of
working with Pizzeria Uno to raise money.
Pizzeria Uno provided the school with vouchers to give to the
families, and 20% of purchases made with vouchers will be donated to the
school.
They have a
website
and package available
explaining this deal.
Approximately 70 families participated from MS 245.
In Kind Donations
What to do
:
Approach local businesses for equipment, supplies, food and
beverage donations for school events.
Many businesses are happy to give free or discounted
products, especially if you offer to have promotional advertising at
the event.
This increases
their visibility in the community and brings in new customers for
them.
Be very clear when you
ask for the donation – know exactly what you want and how much you
need for the event.
You do
not want to accept donations of products you don’t need/can’t serve.
Resources needed
:
Someone to
speak to the businesses and organize the donation.
Remember to:
Send a thank you note
for any donation, no matter how small, that you receive!
Good for:
Schools that do
not have advance money for events.
To get a percentage of
sales donated to your school on a long term basis, visit the websites
listed below for ideas and programs:
www.scrip.com
and
www.scripadvantage.com
- Scrip is a national fundraising program. Schools, teams or parent
associations can buy gift certificates to local stores at a discounted
price (5%-10% off).
The group
then sells the gift certificates to the community at face value to use
at these stores.
This is a
popular idea, because it requires nothing on the part of the donor –
they are still shopping at their usual stores and buying their usual
products, but they are now helping the school earn money.
Both of these programs, among others, sell scrips to a number of
businesses that operate in the city.
This website will walk you through the process.
www.boxtops4education.com
–
General Mills runs a program in which the school community can clip the
box tops off of General Mills products, send them to the school and the
school mails them to General Mills.
General Mills will pay the school 10 cents for every box top sent
in.
More details and
participating brands can be found at the
Box
Tops for Education
website.
To register your school, ask your school principal or
administrator to enroll in the program by calling 1-888-799-2444,
7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST
,
seven days a week. Put a box in the school hallway or have teachers
collect box tops from students to send in bulk.
www.schoolpop.com
– If your school community is Internet savvy and shops online, this site
will be valuable to you.
Schools
can register at
www.schoolpop.com
and then encourage parents and community members to shop through this
site.
Schoolpop partners with
popular merchants and has links to their sites on the Schoolpop website.
When a supporter starts shopping at Schoolpop, they can link to
these merchants and a percentage of their purchase’s profits are donated
back to their school.
The
advantage here is similar to the Scrip idea above – people are still
shopping with their regular online merchants and buying the same
products, but now they are also helping the school fundraise.
Visit the website for details.
Verizon Long Distance
Extra Credit
–
Your school can sign up with Verizon to take part in the Verizon Long
Distance Extra Credit program.
Any Verizon Long Distance user can
enroll online
or call Verizon at 1-877-X-CREDIT
and have Verizon donate 5% of
the user’s bill back to your school.
There is no cost to the Verizon user
. Each quarter a check
is automatically sent to your school with all the donations from your
school community.
WaMoola for Schools
– WaMoola for Schools is a program by Washington Mutual to support
public schools.
Every time a
customer uses a Washington Mutual Visa Check card for any purchase, they
earn points.
At the end of every
year, Washington Mutual donates cash based on the number of points to
the school designated by the customer.
The school can use the money for anything it needs.
The customer pays nothing to enroll or belong to the program and
there is no limit on the number of points that can be earned.
Visit
http://www.wamoolaforschools.com/
for more information, and to learn how to have your school community
sign up for this program.