Prizes for a donation drive, need ideas asap... UPDATE in OP

If prizes are expected, how about buttons or t-shirts saying "I support XYZ school." you could do pencils, buttons, wrist bands and/or tshirts.

Is it pure donation or an "-a-thon"?

Our main and pretty much only fundraiser is our fall Jog-a-thon. We typically raise around 50-60k with 650 students in a medium-high income area. We have several prize levels that build so you get every thing in the levels below the amount you earned.

$35 is something really small (lanyard, small toy)

$50 last year was a visor (olympic theme)

$75 last year was a plastic Water bottle

$100 is always a themed shirt. This shirt is never sold. Only way to get it is to earn it.

$200 is $20 Target gift
card

$300 is a $30 Target gift card (you only get one gift card not both)

Then there are prizes for the top ten earners school wide. These students typically bring in around $600-$1k+
Prizes have been drones, ipads, large lego sets etc. Usually whatever can be found for a good deal.

Top 10 earners and top earner per grade level (there is some overlap) get to go on a limo ride with the principal to a local kid friendly resturant.

We have been at the school for 5 yrs and our goal has always been met.

The only other fundraiser we do is a silent auction at the end of the year. It doesn't bring in a ton but it also isn't a big focus.

I'm not sure if by donors you mean students who are collecting donations or the individuals who are actually donating the money but only our students received prizes.

Funny story before we had kids dh was hit up for the jog-a-thon by our neighbor's daughter. I had done it in past years and being a teacher knew that "laps" didn't necessarily meant lap around a football field. I would do about 50 cents to a $1 a lap. Well DH didn't know and did about $2 or 3 a lap. I think he ended up owing about $160. I told him to pay up! He never did that again but the little girl always tried to grab him if she could. Lol

Are scented pencils that worthy of a prize for donating $60 when $30 gets you ice cream and $100 gets you both a limo ride ice cream? And, only 25 students out of 500 participated last year? If that's the case, I think the program needs to be revamped. Perhaps offer lower incentives to get more participation... $5 earns you a raffle ticket, $10 gets you 3 raffle tickets, $20 gets a special recess break, etc. Grand prize might be the winner gets to be assistant principal for the day. Smaller raffle prizes could be a bag of candy. Larger prizes could be cookie jar filled with candy.

How/for what purpose is it used?
Does this amount include or exclude the cost of the prizes (given to various level donors & the classroom that raised the most money)?

Our school did fun Fridays. Kids could buy treats for a 25 cents. They made a ton of money.

Almost all of our school organizations do a write a check donation. The "prize" is the tax receipt and not being hit up for fundraisers!

Our district education foundation gives yard signs for a large donation.

I won't say our families don't like prizes, they must like ones that involve a little status like the yard sign, not trinkets. Merchant donated prizes all go to fundraising auctions, the merchant gets publicity.

Good luck!

We had parents donate themed baskets. The basket could be any container and they filled it with items for that theme: sports,snacks, art, school supplies, books, movie, beach, spa etc. more than one family could donate to the basket. Examples for sport would be a sling bag or other inexpensive backpack as container, water bottle, sweat band, ball, socks .....
Movie: large plastic popcorn bowl as container, popcorn, candy, new and used DVDs.

People come up With some awesome ideas.

The baskets are raffled off.

eta:  it was a committee or club/sport that did the baskets not the general school population but you could do that.

My kid's elementary school auctioned this off - no traffic problem as they just went in the staff entrance.  It went for big, big money.  

This wouldn't work for your current donation drive, but may be something to consider for the future-

A local Boy Scout troop had a fundraiser that we participated in. It's geared toward local businesses. Each business donates $300 and prints up 3000 flyers. The boy scouts put the flyers in plastic bags and go around to a couple of the huge developments in our area and hang them on door knobs. Our total cost was $390, because one of the leaders did the printing- 3000 black and white double-sided copies on brightly colored paper for only $90- that's less than 1/4 the cost of anywhere else I called for printing. They were hoping to have 12 businesses donate, but only ended up with 7 or 8. They stuffed the bags on Wednesday night and will be delivering them today. Most of the flyers were 8.5x11, some were smaller, some were business cards. THere were two local dentists that donated, so the troop obviously didn't limit it to just one business per type. They also had a "cover page" of sorts, with a thank you note from the troop, listing all the participating businesses in alphabetical order.

The great thing about a school doing this type of fundraiser is that in addition to local businesses, there are so many sahm's with their own little side business these days that it shouldn't be hard to drum up contributors for something like this. You could limit it to something like one Avon rep in K-1st, one in 2-3, one in 4-5, etc. depending on whatever is popular in the area. Here it would be Lularoe reps that would need to be limited. The bags could be distributed to each school family, plus neighborhoods in the area.

Normally the areas that the scouts will be distributing in are very strict "no soliciting", but boy scouts and girl scouts are always allowed. Probably the majority of the troop lives in those neighborhoods anyway, (and the leader that did the printing lives in the biggest neighborhood) so it would be easy to ask permission. You can always lower the price and number of houses distributed to, depending on student/parent involvement in passing out the flyers.

Not gonna lie- the parent who did the printing was a lifesaver. Everywhere I called was over $400, most way more than that. We almost didn't do it, until I called the leader and found out his much better pricing. He sometimes works from home and has a work printer that he has a certain # of copies he can make each month. He gets charged like 10 cents for colored copies and 1.5 cents for black and white (per side). He only charged what he'd have to pay for the actual printing. Nothing for his time, and nothing for the paper. I thought about doing 1500 half-size flyers (2 to a pgae) and he would have done that and cut them for me, but $90 was so cheap there was no need to do that. If the school could do the printing at their cost for the interested businesses, it would definitely get more people to participate.

ANywho- sorry to ramble on, but this all just took place in the last week, so it's fresh on my mind.

Good luck with the fundraising!


ETA- two more I just remembered-

The local middle school is having a family fun night next month- games, probably bouncy houses, etc for parents and kids. They are encouraging local businesses to have a "booth" (really just a 6 or 8 foot table) in the hallway leading to the gym. For $40, they can claim a spot and advertise their business that night to all the parents coming with their kids. I don't know if they will allow selling or just advertising. 

The local high school allowed local businesses to donate a gift basket of some sort to be silent auctioned off at the high school's musical. They performed three nights, and each night the baskets were on a table outside the auditorium for people to bid on. At the end of the weekend, the winning bidders were notified.

For litter sakes do not do the flyer thing. No soliciting means no soliciting even scouts are included. Flyers in my door piss me off at about the same level religious people knocking at my door.

Along the lines of front spot for car dismissal, if you have any programs / plays / etc, raffle off four front row seats where you can arrive five minutes before the show.

First in line for hot lunch for a specified time.

Principal for a day where the child gets to make the announcements / dismiss school / etc.

First on swings / favorite playground equipment for x minutes for a week

All time kickball pitcher at recess for a week (or whatever)

Things like that for raffles that don't cost money. You can make it different for K-2, 3-5, 6-8 if needed.

And for lower amounts ~ you can wear a hat at recess, bring a stuffed animal to lunch, free get out of a specified homework card, free bathroom pass, silly littler things.

We did class contests. If everyone donates at least $5 , you get free dress. Class that donates the most gets a popsicle party. We had bulletin boards showing the leaders and announced it at flag pole.