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Although there are many fundraising ideas you can do exclusively for the parents and local residents, choosing kid-friendly events to involve the children can help you bond with their families. Some of these fundraising ideas are great for any time of year, and some are fun stall ideas for fetes or local gatherings in your home town.
Kids Club HQ is an all-in-one software that saves you time so you can put your energy into running an amazing kids club to help all the children get excited about arriving in your care. And once you’ve signed up to use our affordable system, you can use the saved time by passing on laborious admin tasks to Kids Club HQ. This will allow you to put your energy into planning fundraising events, such as the nine listed below!
Top 9 Fundraising Ideas for Kids
1. Movie Madness
Choose a family-friendly movie that has just been released from the cinema. Organise a showing on a weekend or afternoon and invite the kids, their siblings, and the parents. Then charge a small fee of a couple of pounds per head to show the film on your projector or large TV screen.
Alternatively, you could also ask for ‘pay what you feel’ donations to ensure that families who may struggle financially can still get involved. You may instead wish to charge for snacks or drinks instead as a way to raise funds.
Either way, this is a low-stress event involving minimal planning other than organising chairs or bean bags to sit on and a few popcorn bags for the kids.
2. Cake Sale
A popular fundraising option for kids is a cake sale. Maybe it has something to do with the sugar?
Ask each child to make a cake, bring a packet of biscuits or offer some form of baked goods to sell outside the school or in town. The older children in your care may be able to help you out with handling the sales, which can help teach them about money and get them excited to be involved in the more ‘adult’ part of fundraising.
All kids (and most adults, too!) love cake, so this is a sure-fire way to get everyone excited about helping with the fundraising!
3. Face Painting
Invest in a children’s face painting kit for less than £10 and ask for a small donation to transform the kids into their favourite animal, superhero or princess. Soon, you can recover the costs of your kit, and then all other donations can go straight into your profit.
4. Pets and Steps Fundraising Walk
Encourage the children and their families to join you on a short local walk with their furry friends. Ask for a donation and give each participating child a certificate for joining in with the walk. Alternatively, you could ask the kids to get more involved by asking them to ask their family, friends and relatives to sponsor their walk.
This is a great fundraising idea to get the children enjoying nature, blowing off some steam and prompting the adults to meet their children’s friends’ parents. All you need is knowledge of a pretty local walk and a car park or bus stop to meet the parents, and you’re away!
5. Create a Class Cookbook
Some people show love through food, so why not ask each of the children to ask their parents to write down the recipe for their favourite dinner and then create a class cookbook that can compile all of their recipes together! Ask parents to request a printed copy of the recipes so you don’t print more than you can sell. The kids will enjoy this fundraising idea as they can share their favourite dishes with their friends.
6. Kids Clothes Swap
Organise a clothes swap, whereby the kids will each bring a few items of clothing they have outgrown or don’t wear, along with a small donation to your fundraising efforts. Then, organise a day to have the children look through the other’s clothes and pick a few items to take home.
A clothes swap is also a sustainable way to ensure the kids’ clothes find a new home where the kids will cherish them to avoid the clothing going into a landfill site.
7. Kids Book Swap
Similar to a clothes swap, take this idea and apply it to other kids’ things such as children’s books. This is a great way to inspire the children to get excited about new books and enhance their reading abilities.
8. Family Portraits
Family portraits sessions can go for a pretty penny with a professional photographer. So if you are handy with the camera or have a friend with an amateur knowledge of photographs which could help you for a few hours, you could offer a service of taking photos for each of the kids and their families. First, get the kids excited about the event by providing delicious snacks and funny props to have a little giggle at their dad in oversized glasses and their mum in a bright orange wig. Then you can ask the parents for a small fee to send them the digital files of the photos they like!
9. Slime Party
There are few things kids love more than making a mess, so play into this and have a slime party!
Gather all the elements to make slime in the classroom and charge a small fee to cover the costs of the ingredients plus a little extra for the fundraising pot and have fun with it. Put down bin bags or plastic sheets on the floor and lay down some table cloths to ensure things don’t get too out of hand and then embrace the mess. Allow the kids to show off their creativity with colours and glitter.
More Funding Ideas
Read our previous article for more information about funding for after-school clubs, including how to apply for national grants, government loans, and personal financing.