Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

We only do ONE fundraiser a year and thats a golf tournament. It normally brings in $15,000, but this year we got $23,000. For more information go here . The best part about our fundraiser is that it not only paid for our trip to Lone Star and Atlanta, but we also recieved cash back to spend during the trip. I hoped this helps.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

While i was in Annapolis, I spoke to the team from Immaculata High School in Somerset, NJ (sadly I can't remember their team number...12 something) about fundraising. They told me about how a group of students gets together outside of local stores and sell sodas and such. They talk about how it's for a good cause, and nearly everyone buys a soda or brownie or whatever else they happen to be selling that day. I know when my team does car washes, and we talk about FIRST and the good cause people tend to give us an extra $5 or $10. So make sure to hype up FIRST and get your potential customers interested in the cause and you'll be that much more successful.

I wonder...would it be illegal to sell girl scout cookies as a fundraiser? :yikes:

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

Girl scout cookies? probably.

FIRST scout cookies? definitely. just get your team's scout to approve 'em. autograph 'em, even.

Ah, another time that calls for FIRST water...I really think we should hoard the stuff in atlanta next year.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

every year, our team sells our customary Hawaiian shirts, and they are usually one of our biggest fund raisers. just find something that is cool, but that most people don't have already.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

Our team sells candy in local businesses. We purchase the candy in wholesale lots from a local distributor. By purchasing it wholesale and in bulk we're able to make a 50% profit on some of it.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

RAGE had a carwash, and put out the "twin britneys" to get cars, then we made LOTS of good money, plus we had a good system to keep cars moving.
Another thing we did, sell fish, cheap goldfish in bowls w/ water and a few rocks $4, 12 sold and people asked for more, 50% profit i believe
What happens if you don't sell them (although we didn't have that problem) some team members get new pets:D

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

We have bulit a playhouse the last two years, and have sold raffle tiickets through the town. We had the materials donatited from a city group and profited about 4K from it. We also have a bowl-a-thon, where we ask friends a family to donate a flat fee and go out and have a good time. We felt rather than donig a candy fundrasier is that, people are more likly just to give you the money than waqit m,onthes for candy they might never eat. Plus 100% of donatations go straight to the student.

Re: New Fundraising Ideas!
 

Reported; spam in a 4-year-old thread.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

our team holds a halo tournament. 20 dollar entry fee, 50 cents for a game to 20 kills in the main room, and provide the concession stand. we gave out a 200 dollar first place prize also.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

Team 612 was looking for some extra bucks for Championship, so they a door to door coupon sale.
We have a dry cleaner franchise in our area, also known as Crest Cleaners. They give us free coupons every year, which we can sell for $20 bucks each. In last two days, students have made around $3000 just by going door to door and selling coupons.
If you have any franchise that is well known in your area, you can give it a try. If some of them don't have a coupons program, you can help them start one and make money out of it, while they get promoted and get more customers.

Imad

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

Fund raising is one of the best ways to impact the community. People are always willing to pay to be inspired or taught, even entertained.

We do 3 separate weeks of FLL camps in the summer to teach kids prior to the upcoming FLL season, this has not only brought in about 2 or 3 thousand a year but also has TRIPLED the amount of FLL teams in our area. We provide an advanced camp for students as well which assures that they'll come back and learn more.

Another thing we've found (on a slightly unrelated note), if we do these things while students are young they grow up and join the team. I'm an example of this. RUSH did FLL camps when I was in 4th grade I did it, I conned my mom into getting the school to start an FLL team, and grew up to join FRC. So this truly does wonders for not only fund raising but also recruiting.

There is also our Parent's Night out. This is basically an activity night for kids at a local middle school. We have plenty of things to do, and of course food for sale (because kids love food, and we love having $ to build a robot). Every 10 year old is ridiculously excited to see robots, so we like to show it off. This takes quite a bit of planning, and is a decent amount of work, but they make us about $1000 each.

In the past we did a garage sale of stuff (mostly junk) we got donated from the community. It, again, was a lot of work organization wise, but in the end was successful. We found the key was advertising.

Selling stuff works well and all, but it is probably not as profitable as community events, and for some students is more of a commitment than 3 hours on a Saturday.

I'll post more if I think of them and/or remember to come back to the thread, I know we've done other things, but it's 2 am...

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

The first and the foremost step to start a fund raising campaign is to plan it in detail. Prepare a mailing list of the persons whom you wish to send out the mailers. Draft a letter for the Fund Raising Campaign, highlighting the cause for which the funds are required. Be polite in your letter, but do take care to mention in detail the ultimate goal of your campaign.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

Tonight is the 2nd Annual Raider Robotix Body Building Show

at 6PM

last year we raised about $2500\

(and it was paid by people we dont always ask for money for robotics.)


If you start driving right now you might make the 6 PM show- we'll have a seat for you!!!

WC

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

We also do a Pig Contest, each student gets a plastic piggy bank and must carry it around with them 24-7 until they get the minimum dollar amount ($25). Students are also supposed to decorate their pigs or give them a theme and at the openhouse, family, friends, sponsors, teachers, or students can put money in the pigs to vote for the best decorated or themed pig. That student wins an award and we also have a light-weigt and heavy-weight contest so the student with the most money and least weight ratio and the student with the most money and most weight ratio win too.

Another fun and pretty easy fundraiser we did this year was a bowling fundraiser. Each student was required to sell at least 5 tickets ($15/ticket) to family, friends, or themselves for the event and the ticket included pizza, salad, pop, cake, 2 games of bowling, and their stub was put into a drawing for a flat screen tv. Also, at the bowling alley, we had a 50-50 raffle and a door prize raffle where people would buy tickets to try to win various prizes that were donated by team members or local businesses. This in my opinion was the best fundraiser we have done, it brought in 3 times the amount as our parents-night-out usually does and seemed quite a bit easier too.

Re: Need New Fundraising Ideas!
 

Don't know how they exactly did it, but our team raised enough money at lunch to pay for an off season. Students paid for a lenght of duct tape and attached a teacher to a wall. It helped that the teacher was the one that handed out detentions. Still waiting to see a picture of this.