Fund Raising Ideas

[FunkyRatDemon]

We host a FIRST Lego League, clean-up after basketball games, and put the Mascot (me) on street corners with a sign saying "Need money for bolts"

[752PRMami]

Our team was thinking of hosting a game night. that's when people pay to play games, like chess, checkers, or even video games, which is really popular in my school. I think that when thinking of ways to fundraise, people have to think of ideas that are popular amongst their community and/or school.

[wolfj]

A local restaurant, called the TI Inn, has created a special in honor of us. It's called "The World's Largest Pancake Breakfast." Basically, people pre-order the breakfast, and they get them on any weekend in... I think it's mid-May to late-June. Anyway, it seems like its going to be a huge success.

Try suggesting things like that to local businesses. See what happens. Good luck!

[Koko Ed]

Well our kids came up with a fund rasing idea that I can't tell if they were serious or not. For $1 you can rub my head for good luck. The first thing I thought was " If they come in last, they're robot is a pile of scrap and the lead teacher quits do we give them their money back?"

[artdutra04]

For the 2007 season, Team 228 teamed up with a local neighborhood association group to sell pulled pork sandwiches at the Meriden Daffodil Festival, a HUGE parade and festival in our town that draws 200,000+ people every year. Some civic groups in the past have reported earning as much as $30,000 selling food and concessions at this event!

This past year, we've also had a car wash, a pasta dinner, and a pancake breakfast, all of which earned between $500 and $1000. In the coming months, we're planning on hosting another car wash and a possible can and bottle drive.

// Shameless plug: If you'll be at the Meriden Daffodil Festival in Connecticut on Saturday April 28 or Sunday April 29, 2007 and would like to support a fellow FIRST team, then be sure to stop by our food booth in the concessions tent!

[EOC]

We are hosting a trivia night Saturday. It's a lot of work but we usually net $2500 to $3000.

[Bongle]

I have no idea if this would work at all:

My mind was wandering the other day, and I thought an arcade might be a good idea. Not with real arcade machines, but you could set up Halo tournaments, wii sports tournaments, driving game races, etc. It might be a week-long event in the gym at lunch or something like that. Charge $1 per match. Further, if your team has some avid or overconfident gamers, you can up the ante and say "if you beat the robotics team at a game, you win $2!". That will help drive people in if they think they can win.

Edit: I worked out some math, and it's pretty bad considering the amount of effort this would require.
Let's say you set up 4 school machines to play some networked game with a 5 minute turnaround time (4 minute match + 1 minute setup?), charging $2 per play per person. So every 5 minutes, you earn $8 from the 4 people, and thus $96 per hour. That's not terrible, I guess. Especially if you can get larger matches (16 players is $384/hr, but that would be hard to sustain).

On that note, a wii with 4 remotes could earn $96/hour if you assume a best-of-3 tennis match takes 5 minutes, which is usually doesn't.

[SgtMillhouse648]

QC Elite at one time was planning to set up a halo tournament. Halo is really big at West, and we figured it would be a great idea for a fundraiser. When we went to clear it with the head of the game club, we were shut down as halo is rated M, only Teen and below are allowed.

[MChapman]

In my experience on Aces High we have a unique way of fund raising. Each student takes the names of a some businesses around our surrounding towns an goes out to the company and explains who we are, what we do, ect. we then show them a yearbook with all the events we do (our sponsors from previous years are in them) an give them the option in supporting our team. We have sponsor amounts ranging from $30.00-$2,000.00. Each different price the company pledges for allows their name on something. (ex. 30.00 gets you a business card size ad in our yearbook, say $500 gets you the ad an your company name on our banner) Many companies love donating their time an money to our team once we explain everything about our team an how we work. They find it very fascinating what we do, an they usually do not hesitate in giving us money. Each year students go back and ask again, an each year we get a great success rate.

Our biggest fund raiser is our pre-ship scrimmage. This is the biggest event before ship date in our area and teams from Ct, Ma, NH, and even NY have come to it. We get to test out the FIRST field. We have our registration fee, the food stand, a bake sale, we sell shirts, all of this money is helping our team, an we thank the other teams that help support us. If you can manage something like this, or smaller it helps a lot.

Even the pasta dinners. We held our first one last fall, an it was a great success! It can be a lot of work, an a lot of setting up, but once its time for pasta, you're guaranteed some great fun and laughs. Just think great team bonding! It really works, and your community is supportive. Even ask Rosie, RAGE, or Gus. They would tell you the same thing.

[KathieK]

Originally Posted by MChapman

Even the pasta dinners. We held our first one last fall, an it was a great success! It can be a lot of work, an a lot of setting up, but once its time for pasta, you're guaranteed some great fun and laughs. Just think great team bonding! It really works, and your community is supportive. Even ask Rosie, RAGE, or Gus. They would tell you the same thing.

We've got pasta dinners down to a science. Check out the NEMO white papers - How to Hold a Profitable Pasta Dinner Fundraiser and its companion, How to Hold a Profitable Pancake Breakfast Fundraiser, both found on the NEMO website, Resources section, www.firstnemo.org.

[RoboMom]

I cut and paste ideas off these forums for a workshop last year. Lots of great ideas here.

[RoboMom]

http://foundation.verizon.com/05004.shtml
Verizon Foundation has a donation program for employees who can verify 50 hours of volunteer service.
Thanks to Mark from Team 2199 for letting me know of this program.

[robostangs548]

On Saturday, our team hosted a car wash at the local party store, and believe it or not, our team made more money in 4 hours then the cheerleaders did in 6! Total we made around $600, and we got a few extra bonuses... One of the people getting there car washed was the VP of a local news station, and was interested in getting the program on the air, so not only did we make 6 hundsky, we also have a meeting set up to be on the news.... I definitely recommend having a car wash... Just ask a local store to donate water and you are all set!

[njamietech]

624 generally does a carwash at our local Kroger.

However other clubs in our school have done:

Lolipop sales (HOSA)(you can buy boxes from certain companies online)(ive done this one before)

Mum and Garter sales (Band) (very annoying though)

Warm Cookie Sales (FBLA) (yum!!!)

Various order sheets (Multiple organizations)

Reusable Discount Cards (Football)

Cupon Books (football)

Running the school Store (FBLA)

Your welcome to try any of these.
However some may be harder to do than others. Ive put a by the ones i reccomend

Good Luck

[KathieK]

And at every fundraiser you do (esp. ones that attract the public like pasta dinners and car washes) be sure to include your team brochure and wish list.