You may have seen a post on my site a few weeks ago about raising money for my son’s school, using the online site EasyFundraising. Having joined the PTA when he started school a year ago, I have been to keen to lend a hand and help in any way I can. It is a small village school so every little bit helps.
This weekend had just seen our school’s Christmas Fayre, which is always a big fundraiser for the school. However, this kind of thing can’t happen every month. So what are some simpler ways of raising money for the PTA (or any charity of your choice for that matter)? EasyFundraising is really easy to use, and just as it describes, it makes fundraising easy. So if you want to have something in the background ticking away to raise funds, then this could be the best thing for you and you school or charity.
How Has It Been Going?
Since signing up two months ago, I have been able to raise nearly £50 so far, all from doing things that I normally do any way. And with some more Christmas presents and for left to buy, it can only go up and up. Just imagine if every parent in the school could raise £50 every couple of months for the school? It makes it possible to get some of the smaller things that they need and have on their wish list, such as craft items, kinetic sand, and outdoor mirrors for the key stage 1 area.
The great thing is that my latest donation shown here, for £2, was for referring a friend to sign up to the cause. So you can literally get free money for your school! I don’t know why I was never using this earlier. I use it on my laptop and have a donation reminder downloaded for my web browser, but I know some parents at the school that use the app, and find that quick and simple to use too.
However, it hasn’t been such a smooth ride.Even though you can get these free donations for the school through referrals, there are still people that don’t sign up. So if you’re looking to do this in your school, it can be a good idea to do a physical demonstration of it to get people signed up there and then. Many people I have been speaking to are using it when they shop but some do tell me that they forget. So if you’re signed up but just forget when you shop online, then I would recommend downloading the browser extension for your computer, so that it always reminds you if you’re on a retailer that does make the donations. That has been the best way for me, for sure. Posters around school have helped to a certain extent. But talking face-to-face has been the best thing for getting the parents at school engaged and shopping!
If you’re a member of your school’s PTA looking for a few more ways to fundraise, then you could always:
- Arrange a non-uniform day with the school. Students are always happy with this and even a £1 donation each can make a difference.
- Organise a bring and buy sale at the school. A good way to clear out the loft of old baby things or toys, as well as donate money to the school.
- A quiz night for parents can be a fun way to get them involved. A team entry fee and a bar is always a winner for making quite a bit of cash!
- Getting the children involved with a bit of fun like ‘guess how many sweets in a jar’ kind of thing can work well. When they get a prize if they win, it is sure to get a few people paying to enter.
Have you ever done any of this things before? They are good for an injection of cash. But as I have said, I think easyfundraising works well to have in the background raising money (though some promotion of it at the school from time to time will be a good reminder for people that are yet to sign up).
If you have a school that wants to raise funds, then easyfundraising is a great idea to get signed up with. You can also select any charities of choice that are on there, if you want to do a good deed without it having to cost you anything extra. I think it is a great site to be using, it is simple and easy, and the best thing is, you don’t have to do anything that you aren’t already doing. It can be hard to ask parents to keep reaching into their pockets all of the time, which is often what school fundraisers are. So this is a great way for parents that can’t always contribute to donate, without them having to spend anything that they wouldn’t be anyway.
Have you heard of easyfundraising before? Would love to hear what you think.
*post in collaboration. All opinions are my own.
Oh wow! That’s so inspiring. Such a lovely thing to organise!
Give it a go!
These are some really great tips but it makes me so sad that people have to go to such lengths to support their schools and ensure their children are adequately provided for in their education!
C x
Charli recently posted…Timekeeping
Thank you, yes it’s a shame there isn’t more funding!
Its a shame that schools have to do this now-a-days but it helps to raise money especially with the 2010 Gov cut-backs. Now, almost 8 years later, schools are worse off than ever before.
What you are doing by helping in anyway to help the school fund raise. That deserves a mega thumbs, cheer and pat on the back. Go for it and well done.
John M
John M recently posted…The Nikon D850 Unboxing and Review
Thank you 🙂
Ahh well done you for trying so hard with this. We did a fundraiser at the weekend for the school by throwing a Christmas party, it was great fun!
Thank you, ah that sounds lovely!
These are some really good tips and well done helping the school fund raise :))
Thank you 🙂
I agree it is such as shame we have to raise more money for schools due to cutbacks, well done though if everybody chips in things become more achievable
Yes definitely
I have to admit I’ve not heard of EasyFundraising before but it sounds like it is really working for you, how awesome to have raised some money for the school!
Sarah Bailey recently posted…The Top 5 Firework Displays this New Year
Thank you, yes it’s a great tool!
That is such a lovely thing to do for the school! Well done on raising £50 so far. I hope you continue to raise as much as you can, I always found raffles and bake sales a popular way of raising money, or school discos x
Thank you, sounds great 🙂
There’s some great tips here and easyfundraising sounds like a really interesting site. Well done for all the fundraising you’ve done so far, a really great effort!
Thank you!
I have said for years that I need to get onto my kids PTA, because I think some changes need to be made and maybe a fresh face with new ideas to add into the mix! You never know, though! 😉
New ideas are great to get things moving 🙂
I dont have kids, but fundraisers are always appearing and it is great that you have taken the pressure off and given people some ideas x
Thank you 🙂
This is a really lovely and selfless thing to do! Congrats on the fundraising so far. I’m sure you’ll exceed whatever you personal target is!
Thank you 🙂
Well done you for keeping at it and raising money for the school. Some great tips and Easy Fundraising sounds like a really useful tool 🙂
This looks great, I’ll look into this for my kids school and bring it up with the PTA.
What a great way to raise money and some brilliant tips too. Such a great thing to do for every school.
We use easy fundraising for ours too and it adds about £500 onto our totals every year
We have it set up with our pta but hardly anyone uses it which is annoying. We need to advertise it more x
Great fundraising ideas. We’ve just come back from our Christmas Fayre which was run by our PTA and it was a roaring success!
It’s very good of you to be raising money for your child’s school. Very inspiring. Wish you all the luck to achieve your goal.
Great tips! I remember when I was at school, our school had to cut back on my favourite class purely because they couldn’t fund it, it was so upsetting because af the time we didn’t understand it that it had to do with the government cutting back on certain things.
Non school uniform day is always a good way to raise money, as kids love being able to wear their own clothes.
I had never heard of it before but I definitely need to look into it a bit more now x
I’m not a parent so didn’t know anything about PTA meetings (other than in the film Bad Moms haha). Great way to raise ££ for the school though!
I’ve not heard of this either. I do think it is a good idea to support schools that are not adequately supported by local government.
I’ve never heard of EasyFundraising before. It sounds like you really great fundraising site. I’ll definitely be checking into them to see if I can raise money for my daughter’s sports teams. Thank you so much for sharing.
Rich