calling all entrepreneurs

[rcardin]

My wife is on our PTA at our school. She is the dance chairman. Since we are in a low economic area our PTA needs to make all the money they can. I told her I would post the question of how to make a PTA more profitable.

We have a population of 1150 students in the middle school. Our dances are a major fundraiser for them. Any ideas how to get more kids to attend? We average about 200 per dance. This seems to be pretty low to me.

Any ideas on how to make money for them? ie fundraisers. We sell concessions at all of the games but I would really like to increase our revenue since it goes directly to the teachers for their classrooms.

Open to any and all ideas. Think of it as a small non-profit business.

Thanks in advance
Rick

 

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[djs13]

I remember middle school dances like they were yesterday. I think the best thing you could do is get a legit DJ. We always had "that DJ" who played Christina Aguilera songs. Nobody is going to show up if you have that.

Also, I remember the teacher's being really natzi. I realize they have to run a tight ship, but it always seemed like they were looking for problems. I think if you can make the dance an enjoyable time you're going to get alot of word of mouth amongst students about how cool they were.

As far as making more money, maybe you can hold a raffle at the dance. You could buy a basic ipod for a hundred dollars, sell raffle tickets for $5 each and you'll have your money back after 20 tickets sold. This is how my high schools makes money. They do it with just about everything from Yankee tickets to electronic gadgets. You don't even have to wait for the dance to have raffles. You could have kids sell the tickets during lunch periods.

I'll try to think of more ideas and if I do I'll post them later.

 

[rcardin]

Fortunately I own a DJ company and do about 30-40 events a year. I've got that one covered. We have up to date music shipped to us every Friday. this is the same as radio stations get so it is edited.

I agree about the teachers being Nazi like, but with todays MTV and BET showing hoe people SHOULD dance we have to keep a close eye on them. They tend to emulate what they see on TV. A little to risque for 12 year old.

 

[Bilgefisher]

I think 1 in 5 is a great turnout. Much better then in many schools. But here are some ideas:

Charity raffle, door prizes. 1-5 dollars per entrant. Extra money goes to the kitty.
Better yet, a raffle ticket for every other student kids convince to come to the dance.

Have you asked the students what they would like to see at a dance?

I also suggest talking to some students and ask their help getting other students to the dance. Word of mouth.

Offer group discounts.

If a student can convince 5 others to come, their entrance is free.

At the dance have a school spirit booth setup with t-shirts, hats, candy etc.

Start a monthly newsletter to parents. The cost may be offset by some donations and further parental involvement. Also you could ask parents if they would rather receive emails, again reducing your cost. Offer limited advertisement to local companies in the newsletter. A local McDonalds may be willing to pay a small price for a Big Mac coupon in the newsletter. Also in the newsletter offer a web link to where parents can purchase school spirit items. "My Kid attends X middle school." Proud parents of X middle school student. Bumper stickers, tshirts, whatever you can think of.

Some parents might even coax there kids into going to the dance if they simply knew about it. Also the cost will not be 1100 papers since many households will have more then 1 kid.

I'm not sure how much they would go for it, but offer cheap financial classes to some of the parents. Inform them that all proceeds go to the school funds.

Chili cookoffs are always fun. $5 entrant fee for each participant. $1 to families to come and enjoy the feast. This could be a great way for a family to have a cheap meal as well. Open the cookoff to the neighborhoods the school feeds. I know some folks whose kids have left school wouldn't mind getting involved in that. You could possibly even look at spreading that newsletter to the neighborhoods.

Little late in the season for carwashes, but each one can bring in around $150.

Come spring talk to your local nurseries. Offer a mothers day flower sale. We use to do this as kids. We could bring in up to 6000k dollars a year on this alone.

Ponsettie sales in Dec.

Talk to the school, if they are installing new sidewalks or benches anytime soon, offer bricks for sale. families can purchase a brick with their name on it that will be permentaly part of the school.

Curb painting - offer to repaint the numbers on the curb at $10 per curb.

With halloween approaching, best costume contest. $x per entrant.

Talk to your neighborhood car enthusiest. Have a car show with $x per entrant and small trophies to the best car. Let the students do the voting. Setup several catagories.

Candy sales. Many companies including the top chocolate manufacturers offer sales proceeds to schools and the students can win prizes through those companies.

See if the school is willing to sell advertisements on fences at the ball fields.

Have a bulliten board inside the school where companies can pay a small fee to post an advertisement.

If the school allows soda machines at lunch, see if some of those proceeds can go towards PTA funds.

In high school we had car bashings, not sure if that would fly in middle school. (our rival school was the Impalas, guess which car we picked lol)

I have run out of ideas. Here's a suggestion for further ideas, go to your local boy scouts, girl scouts, boys and girls clubs, and kiwanas and see if they have any suggestions for fundraisers.

Then try this website. Just found them after this post Original and Easy Fundraising Ideas | Fundraiser Insight

 

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[fanocks2003]

My wife is on our PTA at our school. She is the dance chairman. Since we are in a low economic area our PTA needs to make all the money they can. I told her I would post the question of how to make a PTA more profitable.

We have a population of 1150 students in the middle school. Our dances are a major fundraiser for them. Any ideas how to get more kids to attend? We average about 200 per dance. This seems to be pretty low to me.

Any ideas on how to make money for them? ie fundraisers. We sell concessions at all of the games but I would really like to increase our revenue since it goes directly to the teachers for their classrooms.

Open to any and all ideas. Think of it as a small non-profit business.

Thanks in advance
Rick

-50 bucks per participant.
-50 bucks for every audience participant.
-Create dance lectures for different kinds of dances i e break dance, salsa, jazz, disco etc. Appeal to different folks.
-Market like crazy by DM. Send out flyers to every school student and hope for the best. Market outside school. You can gain a lot of new audience members and dancers that way and you can make it bigger. 1000 people are low stuff. You will not win that way.

Bottom line, no one cares much about charity stuff. What can they gain is more important. Make it a show biz and you will win.

If you are smart you take 30% (or 100% even) of those gains of yours, buy a small business. Find someone to run it and send all of the future profits to your charity work. Automate the stuff. Make new charity events, buy more businesses and send all profits to charity. You will soon be the hottest charity workers in your area, maybe even in your country.

 

[australianinvestor]

While it is good to make money in a way which is enjoyable for all, don't limit your money-making strategies to getting it from students and families. It's almost like charging them for their own educational costs via a middle man.

Perhaps develop a product or service which the community-at-large would like and sell it to them.

A few ideas:
- Hire out tennis courts, baseball fields, etc on weekends for corporate or social games
- Start a social sports league and host games at the school field
- Organise a market where anyone can buy a stall on the school sporting fields for $15 and sell their junk (500 stalls x $15 = $7,500 (minus a few expenses, plus keep a field for paid parking, $5 a car).
- Arrange to hold a carnival.
- Ask for corporate sponsorships of sporting teams
- Create a beautiful calendar with current and historical photos of your area, and sell it to everyone
- Since classrooms are unsued at night, put on some night classes. Create a 10 week course for many different subject areas (not all academic). $50 a head x 200 participants x 2 courses a year = $20,000 (minus expenses).
- Start a school art show, get community and student artists to sell their works for a fee.
- Create a discount coupon book for the businesses in the area, and sell them for a couple of bucks to everyone in the local area.

That's all I've got for the time-being (I've just been to a barbeque, so I'm full and ready to fall asleep on the couch!).

 

[australianinvestor]

Perhaps organise an eBay junk sale. Get parents to pledge junk from their place, and a volunteer with a truck to pick it up. Students photograph and list it on ebay, store it at the school for a week until it is picked up.

I was also looking for the American term "Yard Sale" before... Advertise the city's largest yard sale on school grounds on a certain date. Get PR like crazy from all media outlets you can, and sell spaces for people to park their car and open the back with all their junk in it. Also sell regular parking spaces for visitors, and sell food/drink on the day. Even try to get radio station air time for free to plug it, or get the radio station to do an OB (outside broadcast) from the school on the day. Make it a huge event. Get a stage, get some bands to play, put on some kind of entertainment.

 

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[servicefly]

Usually the quickest way to get capital for school needs in your situation is to seek advertising by local businesses to be placed on the auditorium(gym, etc.) walls. Most local businesses want to help and they like the idea of exchanging their money for advertising. A 3ft. x 4ft. banner isn't that expensive. You might even get a local print company to build them for free for some other bartering. Also, get parents to barter their services for more advertising costs.

Never hurts to have a local celebrity show up at a dance.

 

[Happy]

Hold a raffle that allows the winner to guest DJ with you, for their 15 minutes of fame.

Hire a "Live" band and hold a raffle - Winner of the raffle gets to be on-stage with the band.

 

[Yankees338]

Usually the quickest way to get capital for school needs in your situation is to seek advertising by local businesses to be placed on the auditorium(gym, etc.) walls. Most local businesses want to help and they like the idea of exchanging their money for advertising. A 3ft. x 4ft. banner isn't that expensive. You might even get a local print company to build them for free for some other bartering. Also, get parents to barter their services for more advertising costs.

Never hurts to have a local celebrity show up at a dance.

That reminds me of an episode of Entourage. It's Vince's birthday (he's a movie star) and his friends want to throw him a huge party. They keep going over budget, so one of his friends comes up with the idea of getting everything sponsored. I know it's a different situation, but that could definitely work. Maybe even get some local business to give away a few things, or maybe cater some snacks?

 

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