Fund-raising Ideas Your School Can Use
Last May, the Dave Matthews Band visited Talent Unlimited High School, which received funds raised from the AOL Concert for the Schools. The school used the funds for lighting and sound equipment for its auditorium.
In the last two years, the Fund for Public Schools in New York has raised more than $109 million, under the leadership of Vice Chair Caroline Kennedy and CEO Leslie Koch. “When I first came to work with Caroline Kennedy as a consultant,” says Koch, “I realized that it’s not about the money; the real job is getting the public to care about education, to connect with the schools in a more personal way than they have in decades. Marketing is about how you get people to believe in something. Caroline Kennedy had a number of innovative ideas, and I helped implement them.” Below are some of those ideas.
For help with your own fund-raising, also check out the Fund for Public Schools’ fund-raising kit, which has helpful tips on events, product sales, grant writing, and forming school/business partnerships.
- Shop 4 Class gets retailers to pledge a percentage of the proceeds from a week’s sales during the third week in May to support school libraries; it raised more than $100,000 the first year and has expanded to include malls in May 2006.
- The Get Organized New York tag sale got media attention when Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker donated some of her famous shoes and clothing for the event in Central Park.
- Good Neighbor partnerships with supermarkets like White Rose and Pioneer support parental involvement in schools by providing food for PTA meetings and helping parents with fund-raisers.
- Outdoor Benefit Concert. AOL sponsored a Dave Matthews band concert in Central Park, raising $1 million for arts and music education. Overall, the Fund raised nearly $3 million to restore arts education, turning to a variety of funders (Bank of America, Wachovia Bank, AOL, the Macerich Corp in Queens) to support training for 3,000 arts teachers. Bonus: The week after the Dave Matthews concert, Rosie O’Donnell wrote a $1 million check. This money went to support Learning Leaders, started 30 years ago, to encourage parents to become volunteers in schools (more than 15,000 parents are participating).
- And more: In October, the New York Times supported the Fund through The Great Read in Bryant Park. The Fund has raised $3 million in private funding to give competitive grants to libraries. Twenty-five playgrounds will be renovated over the next five years through the Trust for Public Land, a private partner.
We’d like to hear about innovative fund-raising ideas that have worked for your schools. Send stories to liveandlearn@aarp.org.
About the Author
Jane Ciabattari wrote Stealing the Fire: Stories.
This article first appeared in NRTA Live & Learn, Fall 2005.
