6 Ways to Raise School Funds During a Lockdown

6 Ways to Raise School Funds During a Lockdown

The current situation has no doubt had a huge impact on your fundraising plans and therefore your funding levels. However, instead of putting your plans on-hold, have you thought about changing them? The COVID-19 pandemic has taught a lot of people, in a lot of different situations to be creative and find alternative ways of achieving their goals.

So, how can you raise funds whilst adhering to social distancing during and after a lockdown? Here’s a few ideas to get you started.

1. Run a Silent Auction
It’s no surprise that people are spending much more time on the internet including social media so it’s a great time to run a silent auction. This can be carried out by creating a Facebook group and asking members to place their bids of the posts of each item. The items you auction off could be items you already have which was planned for use in your spring/summer fair. Or, if you don’t have anything to auction off, you can still ask for donations and they can be left at your school at a designated place and time for a contactless drop-off.

2. Set up a Donations Page
Set up a donations page on a fundraising platform such as Virgin Money Giving who unlike Just Giving, do not take a percentage of the funds raised. If you were working towards raisings funds for a specific project such as a school canopy, you could set that as your target and ask for donations to help you get there.

3. Take on a challenge
Take the amazing Caption Tom Moore as an inspiration and take on a challenge to raise funds. If you’re still going into school every day, you could run laps around the school field, or how about walking or cycling to school instead of driving. The possibilities are endless and there could be more than one of you that gets involved. Maybe your pupils can get involved too either from home or at school.

4. Hold a Virtual Quiz
Who knew quizzes would become so popular? Online video chat platforms such as Zoom have enabled friends and families to connect during the lockdown and they are also extremely popular for holding quizzes. So, why not hold one yourself to raise funds for your school? You can offer a prize for the winner/s that can be collected once lockdown is over or posted.

5. Online Cash Back Websites
With online sales rocketing, now’s your chance to sign up to websites that reward you with a percentage of cash when buyers select you as their charity, examples include Amazon Smile, Give as you Live, Top Cash Back and Ebay for Charity. Be sure to let everyone know that you are registered on these websites for maximum rewards.

6. Flowers and Vegetable Plants
With everyone at home, we’re all looking for ways to keep us busy and reasons to spend as much time outside in our gardens or balconies as possible to get some fresh air. That’s why selling flowers and vegetable plants is a great way to keep parents and children busy. Children love to watch plants grow and if you sell vegetable seedlings, they will learn how their food is grown. You can sell the plants as a contactless drop-off service to doorsteps and ask for payment electronically via bacs or PayPal.

Have you found any other ways to raise funds remotely during the lockdown? We’d love to read your ideas in the comments box below.

Plan Ahead
Now is also a great time to start planning your fundraising efforts for the following school year, so be sure to download our A-Z fundraising pack for over 50 ideas to help you meet your target.

Download our free A-Z Fundraising Pack for Schools

Disclaimer: We are in no way associated with any companies mentioned in this blog post, nor are they paid promotions. We are mentioning them for your information only, before using them, you should always look into the terms and conditions of each company yourself.