Make A Donation to Queens High School Of Teaching

Businesses have a lot of resources and are often willing to get involved with their local schools. Work with the companies in your community to secure donations for your school. Corporate sales donations, goods and services are a good option for your school if:

• You are trying to involve the local business community in your school
• Someone in your school community has a connection to a local business
• You have the ability and mechanisms to promote a program
• Your school community wants to help raise money for the school, but does not have a lot of time to volunteer

School Night at Local Retailers/Restaurants

• What to do: Partner with a local business by arranging to have a percentage of profits earned at a particular store/restaurant on a particular day donated to your school. Visit a local store/restaurant and speak with the manager or community affairs director. Choose a night on which an agreed-upon percentage of sales will be donated to the school and then publicize this to everyone you can – promote the store, promote the event and get people to come out and buy something that night. Ask the store to have posters, balloons or volunteers from the school there to gently ask customers to participate.
• Resources needed: A few volunteers to approach the business and arrange promotion, as well as to be there on the school night to encourage people to participate; supplies such as posters and balloons to put in the store if the store agrees.
• Remember to: Sign an agreement with the store to solidify what percentage of sales on what night your school will be receiving. Send a thank you note to the store manager and employees for their participation, and be loyal to that store. If this is successful event, approach the store about having “School Night” once a month, or every six months.
• Good for: Schools with few volunteers, connections to a particular retailer, or with someone comfortable approaching and selling store managers on the idea.

Example: PS/MS 207 in Queens provided the example of raising funds at the local Burger King. Each month they choose a day in which the school children use a different theme to draw posters to place in Burger King. Between the hours of 4:00 and 8:00pm, PS/MS 207 receives 20% of total sale orders. The Parent’s Association hosts this fundraiser every month.

Example: MS 245M contributed the idea of working with Pizzeria Uno to raise money. Pizzeria Uno provided the school with vouchers to give to the families, and 20% of purchases made with vouchers will be donated to the school. They have a website and package available explaining this deal. Approximately 70 families participated from MS 245.

In Kind Donations

• What to do: Approach local businesses for equipment, supplies, food and beverage donations for school events. Many businesses are happy to give free or discounted products, especially if you offer to have promotional advertising at the event. This increases their visibility in the community and brings in new customers for them. Be very clear when you ask for the donation – know exactly what you want and how much you need for the event. You do not want to accept donations of products you don’t need/can’t serve.
• Resources needed: Someone to speak to the businesses and organize the donation.
• Remember to: Send a thank you note for any donation, no matter how small, that you receive!
• Good for: Schools that do not have advance money for events.

To get a percentage of sales donated to your school on a long term basis, visit the websites listed below for ideas and programs:

www.scrip.com and www.scripadvantage.com - Scrip is a national fundraising program. Schools, teams or parent associations can buy gift certificates to local stores at a discounted price (5%-10% off). The group then sells the gift certificates to the community at face value to use at these stores. This is a popular idea, because it requires nothing on the part of the donor – they are still shopping at their usual stores and buying their usual products, but they are now helping the school earn money. Both of these programs, among others, sell scrips to a number of businesses that operate in the city. This website will walk you through the process.

www.boxtops4education.com – General Mills runs a program in which the school community can clip the box tops off of General Mills products, send them to the school and the school mails them to General Mills. General Mills will pay the school 10 cents for every box top sent in. More details and participating brands can be found at the Box Tops for Education website. To register your school, ask your school principal or administrator to enroll in the program by calling 1-888-799-2444, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. CST, seven days a week. Put a box in the school hallway or have teachers collect box tops from students to send in bulk.

www.schoolpop.com – If your school community is Internet savvy and shops online, this site will be valuable to you. Schools can register at www.schoolpop.com and then encourage parents and community members to shop through this site. Schoolpop partners with popular merchants and has links to their sites on the Schoolpop website. When a supporter starts shopping at Schoolpop, they can link to these merchants and a percentage of their purchase’s profits are donated back to their school. The advantage here is similar to the Scrip idea above – people are still shopping with their regular online merchants and buying the same products, but now they are also helping the school fundraise. Visit the website for details.

Verizon Long Distance Extra Credit – Your school can sign up with Verizon to take part in the Verizon Long Distance Extra Credit program. Any Verizon Long Distance user can enroll online or call Verizon at 1-877-X-CREDIT and have Verizon donate 5% of the user’s bill back to your school. There is no cost to the Verizon user. Each quarter a check is automatically sent to your school with all the donations from your school community.

Visit http://www22.verizon.com/longdistance/extracredit/overview.jsp for more details, to sign up your school, and to let your parents and school community know how to have 5% of their bill automatically donated back to your school.

Target School Fundraising Program – Similar to the Verizon program, your school can also sign up with Target to get 1% back on purchases made at Target with a Target guestcard or Target Visa, and a .5% donation for purchases made anywhere with a Target Visa. Visit http://target.com/target_group/schools/search_school.jhtml for more information and to sign up your school.

WaMoola for Schools – WaMoola for Schools is a program by Washington Mutual to support public schools. Every time a customer uses a Washington Mutual Visa Check card for any purchase, they earn points. At the end of every year, Washington Mutual donates cash based on the number of points to the school designated by the customer. The school can use the money for anything it needs. The customer pays nothing to enroll or belong to the program and there is no limit on the number of points that can be earned. Visit http://www.wamoolaforschools.com/ for more information, and to learn how to have your school community sign up for this program.