Easy School Fundraising Ideas

It's almost impossible to say no to someone selling a perfectly glazed doughnut... especially if it's for charity.

High school fundraisers have seen incredible results just by selling doughnuts. Doughnut sales are a very easy school fundraiser for athletic teams, choir groups, and other school organizations. The great part is, doughnut companies like Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Doughnuts are more than happy to help in your school fundraising event.

Stop by your local doughnut shop and tell them you are looking to purchase a fundraising package. You can get as many boxes as you want, but only get as many as you think can be sold. These are quite inexpensive and allow you to more than double your investment each time you sell one for your school fundraiser.

The perfect time and place to sell doughnuts is before school starts in the parking lot, hallway entrances and classrooms. Grab a couple of boxes to sell each morning before school and don't be surprised if you've raised over a thousand dollars in a few months time for your school fundraising effort.

Perhaps the most common fundraising event for youth sports leagues, schools, and churches is a car wash. Hosting a car wash as a school fundraiser is incredibly easy to set up and requires no more than a few buckets, towels, and soap to bring in good charity donations.

To set up your car wash fundraiser, contact any local corner store or grocery store. Inform them of your fundraising efforts and most will be more than happy to allow you to set up your fundraising event in their parking lot. Having a car wash in a store parking lot will increase its shoppers for the day, so this part is very simple.

Once the location for the fundraiser event is set, go pick up a few buckets, towels, and dish soap. These are the only costs associated with a car wash. Promote your school fundraiser by placing volunteers on street corners to wave signs and point people in the right direction for a car wash. The more volunteers, the faster you can wash cars, which means more money for your school! Be sure to get plenty of volunteers signed up, and watch the donations pile up!

As with other school fundraisers, don't be surprised if people make donations more than what you're charging for the wash, especially if you really make their vehicle shine!

A great fundraising idea that will get a lot of attention from school's students is to put on a show.

Talent shows are something everyone wants to see. Charge a small fee for each act to perform, as well as an entrance fee at the door for spectators. Be sure to have a prize for the best act that you really hype up. This should really get students to sign up, increasing the total income.

Concerts attract a wide audience of different ages, even attracting those outside of the school community. If you know a talented musician have them play a show and give part of the benefits to your school. If you don't know a talented musician, try a battle of the bands competition.

Everybody likes to attend the big game. Whether a football, basketball or baseball competition, these events are brining in a hefty amount of money at the door. Next game try asking the athletic director if they will donate a percentage of the earnings to a different branch of the school budget, particularly something that is struggling. This will work only if athletics thrive at your school, but if they don't try the drama department. School programs need to work together if they don't want to get cut!

While doughnut sales, car washes, and talent shows are successful school fundraising events, what about a year round fundraiser?

Online fundraising companies are offering schools a unique fundraising event that lasts all year round. Companies like GivingJOE offer this online fundraising for free.

This service gives people the opportunity to support their favorite organization each time they shop online at over 400 different merchants like Macy's, Target, Apple, Adidas, Expedia and more. Users are to simply choose the organization they wish to support and a percentage of each qualifying purchase will be donated to that organization (school).

GivingJOE has worked so well for schools because many of these online merchants offer savings such as free shipping or other discounts just for shopping online. Users can support their favorite organization, while saving money on something they are already doing... Shopping!

How does it work?

1) Sign up with GivingJOE (free)
2) Select your organization to support
3) Shop online
4) Donations will be sent to the organization after each purchase

This business model gives people the opportunity to use their dollar more than once. They can spend it at their favorite stores, and support their favorite organization. Schools using online fundraising programs are earning thousands of dollars each year. Online fundraising is continuing to grow, and school fundraising events are constantly being replaced by online fundraising efforts.

Check Out GivingJOE Here

Most of the mentioned school fundraising ideas are easy to setup and proven to be successful. Any school that incorporates a variety of these into its fundraising strategy will find sure success. While it's great to host many of these easy fundraising events throughout the year, it is also very important to have at least one year-round fundraiser.

Whether it's an online fundraiser like GivingJOE, or another method of fundraising, a year-round fundraiser gives schools the opportunity to receive charitable donations at any time. The more opportunities schools give their supporters to help fund the school, the more fundraising schools will receive.

If you're looking to get involved with your local school, fundraising is a great way to get started. The future budget cuts will cause our educational system a lot of pain, so let's do everything we can to help keep them on their feet! Be sure to look into multiple methods of fundraising, including both offline and online opportunities.