16 Fun & Easy Preschool Fundraising Ideas
If you own or manage a daycare or preschool, fundraising is a great activity for parents to do with their toddlers. However, coming up with preschool fundraising ideas can be challenging. You’ll want to choose activities that are fun and simple yet productive at getting you to your fundraiser goals. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a list of some easy fundraising ideas for preschoolers that everyone will enjoy participating in.
Preschool fundraising: Why it matters
Fundraising is part of a student’s academic career for many reasons. Tuition and extra-curricular fees hardly ever cover the costs involved in running a school, thus many child care centers and preschools count on fundraisers to help them earn money for their extra programs or charitable causes.
On the other hand, a preschool fundraiser is a wonderful way to teach children about the importance of giving back to the community, not to mention the sense of accomplishment is a great confidence-booster for them.
A fundraiser also teaches children important values. They’ll learn about hard work, committing to a task, and teamwork if they fundraise with their classmates. It’s also a great way to bond with their parents, as most daycare fundraising ideas require the input of their guardians.
Preschool fundraising ideas
1. Host a read-a-thon
The best fundraising ideas for preschool are those that make learning fun, and what better way to motivate kids to read than pay them? A read-a-thon encourages students to set a goal of reading many books within a specific time, while parents and friends give pledges towards the goal and donate as it happens. All this can be documented through a live stream.
2. Creative card designs
Together with teachers or parents, have preschoolers create cute card designs that can be reproduced and sold to the community. They could be holiday cards, or “just because” cards, it all depends on the cute, heart-warming message you include.
3. Do a bake sale
This is one of those fundraising ideas for daycare that encourage participation from parents. Bake special cookies with the kids and contribute them to the bake sale. To make things more fun, parents can record themselves in the process with their children, and then help them do deliveries around the neighborhood.
4. Sell stationery
Pencils, magic markers, and more. Every family needs stationery in their home, especially things as cool as secret ink pens. Buy these in bulk and create an online marketplace where you invite members of the community to purchase items.
5. Photo day
If children can’t have photo day at school, parents can send in their favorite picture of their child and pay a price to have it customized and put in the year’s virtual photo book.
6. Hold a raffle
Create special raffle tickets with gifts that children and parents alike would appreciate, then sell raffle tickets online. Randomly selected numbers get to win a prize. The “raffle show” can be done via live stream.
7. Online spelling bee
Have students, parents, or other community members participate in a spelling bee contest online. Make it more special by selecting words that are related to your school or hometown. The audience and participants pay an entrance fee and encourage people to donate to the cause as the show happens.
8. Fun run
Encourage students to commit to a virtual fun run with their parents and ask the community to pledge according to the total distance covered. Simply create a spreadsheet for parents to log their times and add up your money raised as the times come in.
9. Dance-a-thon
If you’re looking for preschool fundraising ideas that get the staff involved, this is it. Select a song and ask all your school’s best dancers to enter a competition. Charge an entry fee to those watching.
10. Virtual talent show
Every child has a skill they would like to show the world. Arrange for them to showcase their skills in a virtual talent show. Charge people to log in to the virtual show, and collect donations from the audience as the show goes on.
Fundraising ideas for small preschools
If you don’t have the advantage of large student numbers, here are some preschool fundraising ideas that could be just as effective in raising money:
1. Teacher charity walk
Ask teachers to get involved by organizing a virtual charity walk. Students and their parents are also welcome to participate, but the focus should be on the teachers reaching their distance goals. Ask the community to pledge or donate based on step milestones or miles covered.
2. Principal/teacher challenge
Fundraising for preschoolers is more exciting if they get to do something fun, and perhaps, just a little bit silly. Choose a task that a teacher or the principal has to do, such as dress like a clown for a day or do a puppet show. The teacher or principal will do the chosen silly task when the fundraising goal is reached.
3. Recycling round-up
Parents and children can do this together. Inform the community of a recycling drive where preschoolers and their parents pick up trash such as plastic bottles and soda cans for recycling. They can contribute to the drive, while the school earns money for whatever recycling they collect.
Daycare fundraising ideas
Daycare fundraisers can be just as fun if everyone gets involved.
1. Host a walk-a-thon
Have children and their families commit to walking around the neighborhood for a certain number of laps or hours. The winning family gets a prize, as well as the family that collected the most pledges.
2. Holiday candy grams
Have children create personal crafts to be delivered to their favorite community members alongside some candy. Make sure to kindly note that optional donations can be made for the candy grams.
3. Shoe donations
Ask parents and children to round up all the shoes their children have outgrown and donate them to an organization that pays for gently used shoes.
Simplify fundraising with a GoFundMe
Make it easy for parents and the community to follow through with their pledges and encourage others to donate to your cause with a GoFundMe donation page. Just choose an idea for your donation drive, set up your crowdfunding campaign, and start fundraising.