How to pick the right fundraiser

Choose a fundraiser that your volunteers can run and that fits your community. Compare volunteer time, upfront costs, potential audience, budget, and school culture before committing.

A small school with a handful of active volunteers can compare a direct ask or read-a-thon with events that require more coordination, such as a fall festival or auction. Build a local budget and calendar for each option before deciding.

One more rule of thumb: compare net proceeds, not only gross sales. Include product, fulfillment, platform, and payment-processing costs before choosing a fundraiser.

Options with less coordination

These are the ideas you can launch in a week with a small team. Great for filling a budget gap or testing what your community responds to.

  • Direct ask (no-frills donation drive). Skip the product and just ask families to give what a typical fundraiser would cost them, minus the wrapping paper. Best for busy communities that prefer writing one check to selling cookie dough.
  • Scan-to-give QR campaign. Post a QR code on flyers, the marquee, and at pickup so anyone can give from their phone with Apple Pay or a card, no app or account. ScanRaise lets donors cover processing fees. Connected Stripe campaigns send donations through the organization's Stripe account, while approved platform campaigns receive monthly payouts.
  • Spirit night / restaurant night. A local restaurant donates a share of sales on a set night when families mention your school. Almost zero cost, easy to repeat monthly, and a nice community hangout.
  • Coin or cash drive with a twist. Run a friendly grade-versus-grade collection (pennies count positive, silver counts against a class) with a leaderboard. Best for elementary schools and quick seasonal pushes.
  • Box Tops and rewards programs. Enroll in app-based grocery and retail rebate programs that earn your PTA money on purchases families already make. Passive, but it adds up over a year.

Events and experiences

Events build community and tend to bring in the biggest single-day totals, but they need more hands and more lead time. Pick one or two as your signature events for the year.

  • Fall festival or carnival. Game booths, a cakewalk, food trucks, and a bounce house, with tickets sold per activity. Best for schools with strong volunteer turnout and a few weeks to plan.
  • Trivia night or game night for grown-ups. A ticketed adults-only evening with team tables, a silent auction in the corner, and a cash bar where allowed. A reliable winter earner when outdoor events are off the table.
  • Movie night under the stars. Rent a projector and inflatable screen, sell concessions, and charge a small per-family admission. Low risk, family-friendly, and easy to repeat.
  • Talent show or family dance. Charge admission and sell concessions; students perform or the whole family dances. Big on community spirit, modest but dependable on revenue.
  • Silent or online auction. Collect donated items and experiences (a teacher read-aloud, a parking spot, local gift cards) and let families bid in person or on their phones. Best paired with a gala or trivia night.
  • Color run or fun run event. A short, untimed run with color stations, often combined with pledges (see a-thons below). Works for almost any age and doubles as a wellness event.

Product and spirit-wear sales

Product sales are familiar and require no admission, but watch the margins and the volunteer load of collecting orders and distributing goods. Lower-overhead, branded items usually beat traditional catalogs.

  • Spirit wear store. Sell school-logo tees, hoodies, and hats through a print-on-demand shop so there is no inventory to buy or store. Steady, year-round, and it builds school pride.
  • Cookie dough, popcorn, or snack sales. A classic catalog or pre-order sale with a partner vendor. Best when you have older students who can manage their own order forms with adult oversight.
  • Plant or flower sale. Request written terms for product cost, revenue share, minimum orders, delivery, spoilage, and refunds before preselling seasonal plants.
  • Holiday shop or pop-up market. A small store of low-cost gifts kids can buy for family, or a market featuring local vendors who pay a booth fee. Best in December.
  • Cookbook or yearbook of student art. Compile family recipes or kids' artwork into a keepsake and sell copies. Sentimental items sell themselves and cost little to produce on demand.
  • Restaurant or entertainment discount cards. Sell a card or digital pass good for local deals, with merchants donating the offers. Low upfront cost and repeat appeal.

A-thons (pledge-based)

A-thons are the margin champions. There is no product to buy and little to no overhead, so your PTA keeps nearly everything raised. Students collect per-unit or flat pledges for completing an activity, with adults handling all the money and online collection.

  • Read-a-thon. Students log minutes or pages read and collect pledges per unit or a flat amount. Best for literacy-focused schools and works entirely indoors.
  • Walk-a-thon or fun run a-thon. Students walk or run laps while supporters pledge per lap or a flat gift. A perennial favorite with elementary schools that pairs activity with fundraising.
  • Step or fitness a-thon. Track steps or active minutes over a week with the phone-browser tracker. ScanRaise participants can optionally connect Fitbit, select a day, review its daily summary of steps, distance, and active minutes, and choose whether to import it. Per-unit pledges let supporters tie giving to the recorded result.
  • Math-a-thon or skill-a-thon. Students earn pledges by completing practice problems or skill challenges. Ties fundraising to learning, which parents and teachers appreciate.
  • Dance-a-thon or jump-a-thon. A timed, high-energy session students get pledged on. Best as a culminating event with music and a leaderboard on screen.

Online and direct giving

Online options reach grandparents, alumni, and out-of-town relatives who will never attend an event. They run with minimal volunteer time once set up.

  • Recurring giving program. Invite families to set up a small monthly gift, like the cost of a coffee, that funds the PTA year-round. Predictable income that smooths out seasonal swings.
  • Peer-to-peer (P2P) campaign. Give families their own shareable donation pages to send to relatives and post on social media. Best for reaching well beyond your immediate school community.
  • Employer matching gift drive. Remind families to check their employer's current program. An approved one-to-one match adds an amount equal to the eligible gift, while the employer decides eligibility, ratios, caps, and approval.
  • Raffle or 50/50 draw. Sell tickets for a prize basket or a split-the-pot cash drawing where local laws allow. Quick to run and pairs well with any event; always confirm your state and PTA rules first.
  • Online auction with mobile bidding. Run the whole auction from phones over a week so people can bid from anywhere. Extends an in-person auction's reach and runtime.

Business and community partnerships

Partnerships diversify your funding and reduce how much you ask of individual families. They take relationship-building but can become dependable year-over-year support.

  • Local business sponsorships. Offer banners, newsletter mentions, or event signage in exchange for a sponsorship gift. Best for big events and to underwrite costs so more of your other fundraising is profit.
  • Corporate grants and community foundation grants. Apply to local company giving programs and community foundations for specific projects like a library refresh or playground. Slower, but larger and non-recurring on families.
  • Service-based fundraisers. Partner with a car wash, bake sale, or volunteer-staffed concession stand at a community event. Adults handle money and logistics; kids participate with supervision.
  • Auction of donated experiences. Ask local businesses to donate services such as a haircut, class, or meal. Document restrictions, expiration dates, and platform, processing, and fulfillment costs.

Make it easy to give

The single biggest lever on any fundraiser is removing friction. People who want to support you will still walk away if giving is confusing, slow, or feels nickel-and-dimed. A few habits make a real difference.

Lead with scan-to-give. A QR code on every flyer, table tent, and the school marquee lets supporters give by card from their phone. Apple Pay or Google Pay may appear when supported. No ScanRaise app or donor account is required. The same code works for events, a-thons, and direct asks. ScanRaise also generates printable per-person QR donation cards and a live leaderboard you can put on a screen.

Offer to let donors cover the fees. A checkbox at checkout lets supporters choose whether to add the calculated fees to their gift.

Keep your own money. Choose tools where your organization connects its own payment account and receives funds directly rather than waiting on a platform to pay out. As of 2026, ScanRaise charges a flat 2.5 percent platform fee with no setup, monthly, or contract fees. Stripe processing applies separately and varies by payment method, country, and account. Your organization connects its own Stripe account, and ScanRaise does not hold those funds when Stripe is connected.

Finally, protect kids. Keep adults in charge of all money handling, never send students door-to-door alone, and never collect or post student personal information as part of a campaign. Online and on-campus giving lets families participate safely without any of that risk.