How to Host a School Fundraiser
Fundraising for an event

Timing your School Fundraiser Event

School nights are usually the best times to host big events as a school fundraiser because most people do not like attending school events on weekends (with the exception of school fetes) and numbers may be down. 

Somewhere in the middle of the term is the best time of the year to plan  school fundraiser events, as people won't be studying as hard for tests and you'll have plenty of time for publicising your event. Try avoid times of the year when many people are taking tests, such as close to finals week. Also, try to avoid the very beginning of school terms, as you will need at least a couple of weeks to publicise the event. (Similarly, Mondays also aren't a great day, because it only gives one day of the week of the event for publicity).

As many of you will have already experienced it is best to plan school fundraiser events on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays somewhere in the middle of academic terms. It is up to you when your events take place and these are just our general suggestions from experience.

Fundraising for an Event

Be sure to plan the event far enough in advance to give you enough time for proper fundraising and promotion. The biggest challenge is in planning events that will be fun and that parents and students will enjoy attending. If people anticipate enjoying the event you will get a lot more support and your fundraising will be a lot easier.

Publicising an event

Properly publicising an event is the key to a successful event. If the event is not publicised properly attendance will be low and your fundraising will suffer as a result. If you plan on inviting the public to an event, it is a good idea to publicise the event as much as possible and make use of every available publicity resource. Most radio stations and newspapers run free community announcements. 

A good idea is to raffle a major prize to be drawn at the event. Tickets can be sold to the public prior to an event by the students, a flyer on the event can be handed out with the raffle tickets, left in shops, placed on bulletin boards and otherwise distributed to encourage public attendance. Creating competition for the students to work hard on selling the tickets will achieve good results and prizes can be awarded to students who sell the most tickets. Students can also assist in finding businesses to distribute flyers to and locating bulletin boards to post them on.

Social Networks - Almost all students are a part of online social networks such as FaceBook or Twitter. Encouraging the students to post that they will be going to the event on the social media networks will also get attendance from their friends and pier groups. It is all about creating a buzz! and there is no better way to do that than through online social media networks.

Other ways of publicising your event include making use of signage, making use school, church and sports community groups which often appreciate being notified of upcoming events. Getting an announcement put in local newsletters, church bulletins and sporting club events calendars is often a great way to outreach to the community and boost  attendance at your event.

In review, here are a few good publicity techniques and ideas:

• Pre-selling raffle ticket to a major prize to be drawn at the event to encourage attendance 
• Flyers posted in classrooms, common areas and recreation areas
• Signs in front of the school 
• Encourage students to post their attendance on their social media networks inviting all their friends 
• Posting flyers on community bulletin boards 
• Place flyers in local businesses and at the local council 
• Use community notices on radio stations and in local newspapers 
• See if you can get notices in newspaper calendar sections as well 
• Post information to any popular community internet sites 
• Post in church and community newsletters, sports clubs, bulletins and calendars 
• Sell sponsorship and advertisements to businesses - particularly those connected to the school community and have them also publicise the event. 

Hosting a Giant Screen Movie Night as a Fundraising Event

Giant Screen Movies are easy to plan, easy to promote and repeatable over and over. Students love to watch movies on the big screen and they really get enthusiastic about big movie nights.

Using Big Screen Movie nights as a fundraiser is extremely easy. All you need to do is book a Giant Screen Cinema package from Ezehire. They do all the setup and order your movie selection for you.

This is how it works;

1. Hire a complete indoor or outdoor Giant Screen Cinema Package - this includes:
2. • a professional giant screen
   • professional projection
   • professional sound
   • lighting
   • cables and setup
3. Average Attendance - experience from many of these events tells us that schools can expect good attendance at these events. On average if a school has say 1200 students the average number of attendees is expected to be around 800 people (i.e. student and families combined).
4. Movie Selection - when you have decided on a popular movie to screen Ezehire can arrange the movie license for you. This fee is paid directly to the movie distributor.
5. Fundraising is accomplished around the "Big Screen Movie Night" with not too much effort in several ways
6. • Sale of movie tickets - Most schools charge between around $10 per ticket or $25 dollars per family
   • Advertising - Selling big screen advertisements to business is relatively easy and easy to produce. If you can get the businesses to provide you with camera ready artwork Ezehire will produce the advertisements for you included at no extra cost.
   • Banner Advertisement - You can use a vinyl banner to advertise the school or a major sponsor at the bottom of the screen.
   • Sale of food and beverage - People like to eat when they go to the movies or go out at night. Whether you have hamburgers and sausage sizzles or more elaborate catering you will usually sell plenty.
7. Running the movie - Ezehire Giant Screen Movie Packages" include our technician on site to run the movies for you.
8. Education and Community Awareness - These movie nights can also be used for educational purposes. You can run a school video or an education film before the main feature and use an intermission as a time to sell more food and beverage. If you have a certain theme and would like to promote discussion on certain issues you can show a movie that will raise questions around those issues.

The nice thing about video or movie nights is all that's left for you to do is publicise, the event. Click here for more information on outdoor movie nights as a school fundraiser.

Hosting a speaker:
Hosting a speaker is a great way to involve your school community. People love to hear knowledgeable speakers speak on important issues. Business leaders also make great speakers and roll models to educate students and the general community. Every school community would have access to good speakers and many will donate their services to the school for free. Some very popular speakers and personalities can be very expensive but don't let their price tag stop you. If you do a good job on publicising the event, these speakers easily draw crowds.  

Costs involved with bringing speakers typically include the speaking fee, travel costs, lodging and meals costs. These costs can often be shared if other groups in your area are also interested in bringing the speaker and share travel costs.

It is very common today for speakers to use laptops, projectors, screens and lecterns. It is likely that your speaker will need you to provide these items for a PowerPoint presentation. 

If you bring a speaker to your school, make use of him or her for the entire day, or the time that he or she is available to you. This means that you can often use the speaker to appear at multiple engagements during the day for the same agreed fee. One great way to make use of a speaker is to plan a student and teacher luncheon, where the speaker can address an informal luncheon and answer questions. You can also have the speaker come to a class to address students or hold a special students-only function and get the speaker to speak informally there.

by - John Corrick
20th July 2009
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