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Want to know some of the best fundraiser ideas for school? These are kid/parent tested and approved fundraiser ideas, to help bring funds into your school. PTA/PTO members are often searching for fundraiser ideas to help support their schools’ needs, and this list has so many great options.
Fundraisers are such a great way to serve your school. Typically, the more time you put into a fundraiser, the more it will benefit your school. Talk to your school, and see what their needs are. Does the gym need a stereo system? Could the PE teacher benefit from some new equipment? Does the librarian need new books for the students? Could the playground use a facelift? What is your principal in need of? Discuss the needs of your school, and then determine which fundraiser(s) you are going to try out to fulfil those needs.
After learning about all of these ideas, you are going to be a pro at your next PTA/PTO meeting. Start brainstorming, gathering supplies, and advertising. The school will be so grateful for all of your efforts.
This post is all about fundraiser ideas for school.
1. Penny Wars/Piggy Wars
This is such a fun and simple fundraiser idea. Each grade level gets a 5-gallon water container. You put them all in the commons area, and label them for each grade level. Pennies are each worth 1 point. A quarter is negative 25 points, a dime is negative 10 points, and a nickel is negative 5 points. The idea is to put pennies in your own grade level, and then put anything else into the other grade level’s piggy bank. You can paint the water jugs pink, and make them look like pigs. Leave the containers there for 2-3 weeks, and then at the end, count up all the money to see which grade level won. The children really get into this one.
2. Pancake Breakfast
Invite all the children and their families to the school for a pancake breakfast before school starts one morning. Charge a small fee for the pancakes. You can even do this during the holidays, and invite them to eat breakfast with Santa.
3. Tamale Night/Food Truck Night
Ask for volunteers to make tamales, and invite the children and their families for a tamale night at the school. Charge a small fee for the tamales. Can also set up food trucks at any school event, and ask the food trucks to donate a percentage to the schools.
4. Bingo Night
Grab some bingo cards and charge a small fee. Get some cheap prices, and have a fun night full of bingo.
5. Talent Show Night
Encourage kids to try out for your school talent show, and then charge a fee for family members to come watch.
6. Auction
There are so many different ways to host an auction. First, you will need to gather items from local businesses to be auctioned off. Then you can either do a live auction, a silent auction, a service auction, or an auction online.
7. Carnival
A carnival does take some extra effort, but it can bring in a decent amount of money. Get a lot of volunteers to sign up to run booths. Have prizes at the booths. Sell food, popcorn, candy, drinks, and then charge for tickets, or a flat entry fee. Our school used to do a fun Halloween Carnival each year, but you could do one any time of the year.
8. Field Day
Ask volunteers to set up obstacles races and games outside, and then have the kids start at one station and go around until they’ve finished them all. Charge an entry fee. Another idea is to get giant inflatable slides, inflatable bounce houses, and inflatable obstacle courses, and charge a flat fee for kids to go on them for a few hours. Sell food and snacks as well.
9. Fun Run (color run)/Walk-a-Thon
Done properly, a walk-a-thon, or run-a-thon can bring in a lot of money. Students can get donations for each lap or mile they run/walk, or donations can be a flat rate. Offer prizes according to how many donations they bring in. A color run is great for middle schools and high schools. Students can purchase a bag of colorful chalk that they can throw.
10. Spirit Night at Restaurant
This is one of the simplest fundraiser ideas for school. Host a Spirit Night at a restaurant. Many restaurants, such as Cafe Rio, Dominos Pizza and Panda Express will support local teams by offering a percentage of their sales to anyone who comes into the restaurant to support that fundraiser during a specific day. Other than advertising, nothing else needs to be done to have a successful fundraiser.
11. Flower/Bulb Sale
Sale flowers or bulbs for a simple fundraiser.
12. Swimming Pool Event
Host a spirit night at the swimming pool, or movie theatre. Contact your local swimming pool, or movie theatre and see if they would be willing to donate a portion of their sales to your school and then advertise for a specific night.
13. Rubber Duck Race
You could do this fundraiser at the same time as the swimming pool event. Number your rubber duckies, and then the community can each “buy” a rubber ducky. If your local pool has a slide, send rubber duckies down the slide to see which one crosses a specific finish line first! Winner gets the grand prize. Keep the rubber duckies to use each year. Our community used to do this in our local river. They would drop thousands of rubber duckies using a dump truck, and the entire community would come to watch.
14. Book Fair
Our school hosts the Scholastic Book Fair about 3-4 times a year. Its a good fundraiser for us that has allowed our newer school to fill our library with fun books for the children.
15. T-shirt Sales
Sale school t-shirts to all of the students and parents. You could also sale keychains, or other items with your school logo on them.
16. Snack Sales at Lunch
This fundraiser takes a lot of parent volunteers, but you could set up snack sales during lunch. I know one school that makes $1000 a day doing this.
17. Candygram Sale
The students can buy a candy gram to be delivered to their friends. I’ve done this in elementary, middle, and high school, and it worked great at each school. Some parents will buy them for the entire class as well. You can do it for any holiday, or occasion.
18. Envelope Wall
This is a simple fundraiser. You create a display of 100 envelopes and label them 1-100. If someone wishes to donate they would put $1 in the #1 envelope, or $28 in the #28 envelope, or $100 in the #100 envelope, and so on. After all the envelopes are full, you will have raised $5,050.
19. Multicultural Fair
A multi-cultural fair is a great way for students to learn about other cultures, and to showcase delicious foods, and talents from their own cultures.
20. Yard/Rummage Sale and Dance
This is one of my favorite fundraiser ideas for school. Host a rummage sale (yard sale or garage sale). Ask all the families at the school to donate anything they no longer need to the rummage sale. Set up tables in the gym, and allows families to come shop at the rummage sale for a few days. My high school did this every year and the community loved it. At the end of the rummage sale, the school would host a school dance called the “Rummage Romp” where all the high school kids would come dressed in all the craziest things they could find from the rummage sale. It was always one of my favorite dances, because you didn’t have to find dates, and you just went with all of your friends.
21. Movie Night at the School
Host a movie night at the school. Sale tickets and concessions and invite the community.
22. Balloon Pop Party
You fill up hundreds of balloons and put money, or stickers, or something in a few of the balloons. The children pay to be able to pop a balloon, to see if they get one with a prize in it.
23. Jellybean Count
Set a few jars of jelly beans around the school, and the kids can pay to guess how many jelly beans are in the jar. The winners of each jar get to keep the jelly beans.
24. Lawn Flamingo
Basically, you can pay to put flamingos on someone’s yard. It’s a really fun fundraiser, and doesn’t take too much effort, other than moving the flamingos around from yard to yard. Check out THIS post for more details on how to do the flamingo fundraiser.
25. Donation Jars at Businesses
This is a simple fundraiser, where you ask businesses if you can leave a donation jar at the business, for the community to donate to. Leave it up all year. It most likely won’t bring in a ton of money, but every thing helps.
26. Sports/Dance Camps
If your sports or dance team is looking for a fundraiser idea, have them run a camp for the community. Parents are always looking for camps to put their kids in.
27. Popcorn
Double Good popcorn is sooooo delicious! This is one of the easiest fundraisers I’ve ever done. You create a store, super quick, and send the link to all your friends and family. They purchase popcorn from your store, and it is shipped straight to them. All you have to do is advertise on social media.
Another idea, if you do a movie night pop your own popcorn and sale it to the kids at the movie night, or other event.
28. Car Wash/Dog Wash
This is another great idea for a sports team. Host a car wash and/or dog wash, where people can donate to have their car or pet washed.
29. Anti-Fundraiser
We did this fundraiser during quarantine a few years ago. It was super easy to do. You just send home a note informing all the parents that you aren’t going to be doing a fundraiser, but instead, are asking for straight donations. Check out this hilarious form HERE for ideas. Parents who despise fundraising will appreciate this!
30. Lip-sync/Karaoke/Open Mic Night
Host a lip-sync contest, a karaoke night, or an open mic night, where students can impress with their stand-up comedy routines. Charge a fee to enter and/or participate.
31.Game Night
There are many ideas for a game night. You could host a board game night, a video game night, or even a sports game night. For example, you could have the teachers play against the students, or teachers against teachers. I knew a school who had the basketball team play basketball while riding donkeys. When I was in high school, I played in our annual “Powder Puff” game, where girls from the school played in a competitive flag football game. Charge an entrance fee.
32. Art Exhibition
Have the entire school, or a grade level, hang up their art, as if they were in a museum. Invite families to come to the museum, and charge to get in.
33. Sale Oranges/Potatoes
Students can sale oranges or potatoes as a fundraiser for their sports team. A simple way to bring in some extra money.
This post was all about fundraiser ideas for school. There are so many different options and typically, the more work that goes into the fundraiser, the more money it will bring in for the school. So what are we waiting for? Let’s gather all of our supplies, start advertising, and let’s serve!