Is your classroom in need of art supplies or classroom materials, but your school is short on funds? The most common solution is to ask parents to contribute. However, parents receive many school donation requests at the beginning of the year, which can be a strain on some families. We’ve compiled a list of fundraising ideas that you could consider for your classroom.
We should note that we did not include some common school fundraising ideas, like bake sales, carnivals, and silent auctions. While these ideas can be very successful for schools, they typically require participation and sales to entire school community, which would be overkill for the funds a class would need. Also, if every class in a school held its own bake sale, the students and parents would probably get pretty tired of them. As a result, we excluded those ideas and limited the ideas to those that could be localized to a classroom and the friends and family of the students in that class.
Educational Fundraising Ideas
These are the holy grails! The best fundraising ideas tie the money raised to educational growth for the students as well as parent and community involvement.
Math-A-Thon
We’re big fans of Mathathons. We rate them as the top school fundraiser in terms of their educational value, fun, and community-building ability. During a Mathathon, students answer as many math problems as they can over a couple weeks and ask friends and family to support them by making a donation. ForOurSchool.org is a mathathon fundraising platform that guides students through the entire year’s math curriculum, so hosting one to start the year can be a great way to review the past year’s material.
Read-A-Thon
Readathons can also be great ways to reacclimate students to the school environment. Many schools host their own Readathons, but if your school doesn’t, then they would be the ideal way to kick off the school year. Similar to Mathathons, during Readathons, students read as much as they can over a couple weeks and ask friends and family to make donations to support their reading goals.
Fitness Challenge
Students have been away from PE class for a while, so a fitness challenge could be just what they need to get their heart pumping again. This could be a free-form event (e.g., students choose their fitness goals) or you could set a class goal (e.g. , students collectively run 100 miles in total over the month).
Yoga Class
Similar to a fitness challenge, a yoga class helps promote health and fitness, but parents and other friends and family can also participate in this event. Ideally, one of the parents in your class could host this event, and it could be held on the school grounds or in public place to save on expenses.
Dance Class
If no one in your class has a yoga background, a dance class could be a good alternative. Charge a small fee for admission and decide whether it should be targeted to students, adults, or both.
Fun Run
Organize a run in the park or around your community and charge an entry fee. Give small prizes for the top runners. This is the type of event that could and should be done repeatedly since it helps build a positive association with running and staying fit.
Virtual Fundraising Ideas
These class fundraisers leverage the skills and abilities of the students and parents in your class. Since they are virtual, you could open up the events to other students and parents in the school community. However, that might put a little more pressure on the production value of the event, so we recommend keeping it simple and limiting to only your classroom.
Virtual Cooking Class
The best-case scenario is that one of the parents in your class is a professionally trained chef. If that isn’t available or they aren’t willing to participate, every parent has at least one recipe that they are good at. Open it up to anyone that is interested in giving a demonstration on how they do it.
Virtual Concert
This one does require some ability, but if you have a few students and/or parents with musical talent, you can set up a Zoom session where they take turns performing.
Virtual Trivia Night
Select one parent to be the host and ask a handful of questions over a few themed rounds. Students can form virtual teams to help build classroom cohesion, or parents and children can work together.
Virtual Art Class
If one of the parents in your class is a professional artist or has an art background, they can walk participants through a painting workshop.
Virtual Fitness Class
Similar idea to the yoga class, but by moving it online, it opens up the event to more people and removes the costs associating with renting a venue.
Online Craft Workshop
Similar to the virtual art class, but instead, the instructor will walk participants through a simple craft project, such as paper flowers or finger knitting.
Online Language Lesson
This one might only be useful if you can schedule a series of lessons and tie them into a common goal (e.g. learning French songs to cheer during Paris Olympics). Alternatively, if anyone in the class can give basic instructions on a language that is not widely known, such as Nigerian Pidgin, it might be a fun way to introduce it.
Fundraising Ideas for Parents
Some classroom fundraisers don’t need to include the students at all. These classroom fundraisers are targeted at the parents and can be great ways to help them get to know one another.
Parent’s Night Out
Offer a babysitting service for a night, so the parents can get together. You can host a movie at the school or in the backyard of one of the parents. Meanwhile, the parents can organize a casual dinner or just a night of freedom.
Karaoke Night
Host a karaoke night at a lounge or in someone’s home, and make sure there is plenty of alcohol available.
Paint and Sip Night
Each participant is given a canvas, brushes, and some paint, and they are guided through the process of painting a picture while also sipping on wine or their favorite beverage. Similar to the virtual art class, this event should be led by a parent with some artistic background, but since alcohol is involved, pretty much anyone that isn’t drinking could lead it.
Bar Night
Contact a local bar and let them know that you are raising money for your school. Offer to host an event at their bar in exchange for a percentage of sales that result from the event. This usually ranges from 15-25%.
Wine Tasting Night
This is an easy one. Buy a few bottles of wine and some glasses and call it a fundraising event. Bonus points if participants learn a little background on the wines selected and what they should be looking for when drinking them.
Game Night
There are not a lot of games that work well when you there are more than 10 participants, but one we recommend is Salad Bowl (also known as Fishbowl). In Salad Bowl, you divide the group into two teams and everyone writes the name of a person, place, or thing on a small piece of paper. Put the papers into a salad bowl (hence the name) and each team takes 60-second turns trying to get their teammates to say the name or word on a randomly selected paper. In the first round, the person speaking can say any verbal clues. That continues until all the papers have been selected. Once that is done, in the second round, the person speaking can only give non-verbal clues. In the third and final round, the person speaking can only say one word. The team with the most points wins!
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