Child care fundraising is essential to take full advantage of the potential of your center as an atmosphere for children’s learning. Child care fundraising isn’t just about raising money for your facility but it also an opportunity to bring your community to work together for a cause. Fundraising creates friendships between children and families. It is not always easy to organize a child care fundraising drive. But, with proper planning, and working with the right people, there is no doubt that your child care fundraiser will be a success.  For the best preschool and elementary school fundraising solutions, visit www.fundraisingzone.com 

Child care fundraising can be classified into 3 types: 

• Direct solicitation
• Indirect solicitation
• Events

Direct solicitation involves the task of asking for donations without giving something in return. Typically, you send out solicitation letters to target supporters and they give back the letter with their donations. The advantage of this type of child care fundraiser is cost-efficiency. Furthermore, most supporters that are targeted for this type of fundraiser are business owners and wealthy people from the community. However, the downside of this fundraiser type is the limited number of supporters. Additionally, most business establishments are not fond of solicitations. But, with the right contacts, and the right approach, who wouldn’t support a child care fundraiser with a noble cause?

The indirect solicitation requires you to give something in return for the money donated. This type of child care fundraiser includes selling merchandise, concession, entertainment or services. Typically, the most popular indirect solicitations are shoe-drive, cookbook sale, bake sales, raffle draws, book sales, garage sales, art festivals, and the list goes on. Most child care centers take part in this type of fundraising activity. The entire community may participate and thus creating bonds and friendship between families. 

Hosting events is another exciting fundraising activity for a child care center. Hosting events, however, can be costly and would require proper planning. Although it may be costly and difficult to organize, events can raise you a decent amount of money. Additionally, people love events as it creates memories. There is also a long list of events that you can organize for your child care fundraiser. Some of them are dance night, trivia night, dinner for a cause, lunch with a celebrity, gourmet picnic, karaoke night, movie night, etc. There is a ton of events that can be appropriately organized for your child care fundraiser. The internet is a very useful tool in finding one for your child care fundraiser.

The key to a successful child care fundraiser is proper communication. Child care centers must see to it that parents are informed (that they will conduct a fundraiser) and this must be done at the start of the year. Give out details as to what child care fundraising activities you’re planning to organize. Early on, ask people to get involved. People play an important role in a successful child care fundraiser.

Organize people by forming teams to make tasks more manageable. By forming teams, people are grouped according to their expertise. You may form a budget team, promotion team, thank-you team, and don’t forget to assign a leader, who will be in charge to look over the entire organization. 

Brainstorm for every possible fundraising activities. Don’t rule out anything as every suggestion is important. Let ideas come in and then collectively decide which activity is appropriate for your fundraiser. Consider the amount of budget and do proper accounting for all expenditures and income. Drafting a budget would be wise as it projects an expected income for the fundraiser. Keep a detailed record of how much goes in and how much goes out. Always issue a receipt for every time money is received. If possible, all payments should be by cheque and every detail recorded.

A timeline is also an important ingredient in the organization of a child care fundraiser. It helps you keep track of your progress. It helps you determine if you are getting behind the schedule, or determine if you are just exactly on the right track. Keeping up with the timeline avoids procrastination and delays. In the timeline, a detailed step-by-step implementation of the tasks must be arranged. This helps maintain the process of your child care fundraiser to run smoothly.  

While planning and organizing a child care fundraiser can be too stressful and tiresome, it is highly important to always keep things fun. Strive to work together in a fun way so everyone keeps their enthusiasm. Besides, child care fundraisers are organized not just to raise money for a cause, but to also create fun and excitement among community members.