Raising Money for Your Kids’ School? 6 Strategies for Success

If our kids deserve the very best education and extracurricular opportunities money can buy, why should we place a limit on the funding available to them?

For all sorts of reasons too complicated to get into, of course. Much as we’d love it too, money doesn’t grow on trees.

But, to be clear, we shouldn’t place a limit on the lengths to which we’ll go to ensure that our children have every opportunity to learn, grow, and become the best they can be. To that end, we’ll pull out all the stops to raise funds for our kids’ schools, sports teams, extracurricular clubs, and all the rest.

These six school fundraising strategies have proven themselves time and again in the real world. Give them a try and see how they work in your community.

 

1. Give Your Kids Some “Skin in the Game” (If They’re Old Enough)

Once your kids are old enough to understand the value of money, why not give them some “skin in the game” and put them in partial control of their own destinies? Any of these student-led fundraising ideas work well at scale, preferably with close parental supervision. The more latitude your kids have to plan and execute a fundraising effort, the harder they’ll work to get it done.

2. Join (or Start) a School Rewards Program

Call it “passive fundraising” if you’d like, but a school rewards program is no slouch. School-Days, an innovative program led by South African entrepreneur Paul Esterhuizen, is an excellent example: a rewards program that raises small sums with every purchase, creating sizable pools of extra school funding over time. If no such enterprise is available in your part of the world, why not start one yourself?

3. Draw Upon Your “Non-Parent” Networks

Non-parents want kids to have the very best too. Don’t be above asking work colleagues and personal contacts outside your kids’ social networks for contributions to specific activities or organizations, like sports teams.

4. Fundraise In-Person at High-Visibility Locations Around Town

Every pair of feet (and every wallet) is another opportunity to raise badly needed funds. Plan tabling events at high-traffic fundraising locations in your community: grocery stores, shopping malls, parks, ball fields on game days. 

5. Offer Sponsorship Opportunities to Fellow Parents

We all like to feel as if we’re making a difference. What better way to empower your fellow parents than to offer them the chance to “sponsor” some aspect of the club, team, or organization you’re fundraising for? 

6. Go Hat in Hand to Community Businesses

Apply the same reasoning to businesses around your community and you’ll be surprised at the reception. Business donations set up a mutually beneficial “win-win”: the business gets free advertising and your kid gets some additional support.

 

More Funds, Brighter Futures

We would all be better off if the most important things in life really were free. Alas, that’s not how the world works. Opportunity always carries a cost, and in the context of school organizations and extracurricular activities, it’s up to parents and older kids to ensure that cost is met. 

With these six fundraising tactics in your toolkit, you’ll have a fighting chance to do just that. Here’s to a brighter future for the next generation of scholars and athletes.