WHO WANTS TO BE A MILLIONAIRE?

By Brin Best (www.brinbest.com)

SINCE THE BEGINNING of the new school year primary schools up and down the country have been celebrating after receiving news that their schools have been successful in winning external funds for a new project or initiative.

• A Doncaster school has been awarded £5,000 from the Foyle Foundation to turn its library into a state of the art learning centre
• A Dorset school has been awarded £10,000 from the National Lottery to enhance its extended schools provision
• A Norfolk school has secured over £50,000 from a range of sources to provide high quality sporting provision for its students and the community

With over £1 billion in external funds now available to schools in the UK, there has never been a better time to consider whether your school is getting its fair of the funding cake. If the answer is ‘no’ then the good news is that it is not difficult to access new funds for your school, providing you adopt a professional and strategic approach. In this article, I’ll tell you how.

Should schools be fundraising?

Schools are often described as ‘reluctant fundraisers’. It seems unfair that in a wealthy country such as ours we still feel the need to have to raise external funds to achieve our educational goals. During my training work with teachers I am keen to acknowledge that in the real world fundraising for schools would not be necessary.

 

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'Won’t it be a great day when our school has all the money it needs and the RAF has to hold a jumble sale to buy its new bomber'

Sign displayed in a primary school staffroom

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However, it’s worth bearing in mind that I have yet to find a teacher working in any country in the world who is completely satisfied with the level of funding that their school receives. Because educational professionals are united by their dedication to their pupils, they always want to achieve more. As such, it seems that school fundraising is here to stay, so this article is provided to help you to appreciate the opportunities for school improvement offered by fundraising, as well as providing some practical advice about how to ensure you’re successful.

The scope of school fundraising today

The £1 billion in external funds available for schools annually is not, of course, distributed evenly. A small number of schools are very successful at fundraising, eating up most of the funds and leaving only the ‘crumbs’ to the vast majority. My wish as I work with schools is to ensure a fairer balance can be established. If every primary school in the country were to secure an even share of the external funding pot, then this would constitute an additional £20,000 to every school year on year. This is surely a goal worth working towards.

While fundraising is an afterthought in many schools, it is a core activity in a few. These schools have realised that there is a fantastic opportunity to be grasped if they can focus their efforts and galvanise staff and the wider community. These schools are achieving inspirational things and changing lives in their communities.

The vital link to school improvement

It’s important to recognise that school fundraising is not very effective if your strategy is simply ‘to get as much money as you can and then decide what you would like to spend it on’. Instead, successful schools develop carefully considered, business-like approaches that ensure a better cost-benefit ratio of the time and resources invested.

Above all, it’s essential to reflect first on the overall vision for your school. Consider what type of school you want to become in five years. What would be in place then that you don’t have now? What additional opportunities would you like to have developed? What outcomes would these be bringing that are currently not a feature of your school? This is clearly an activity that should be led by the senior leadership team but would benefit from the involvement of all staff, plus representatives from your community. By imagining this preferred future, you can establish what projects will need to be set up that will help take you there.

In this sense fundraising can be seen as a key school improvement initiative. Many schools are now including fundraising as a separate element in the school improvement plan, helping to secure staff time to ensure actions are carried out.

The key elements of a fundraising strategy

I have been fortunate over the last five years to have worked with hundreds of schools who are very active in their fundraising. I have also been able to learn about the work of other successful schools through personal visits and by reading about their efforts in the press. Having studied the features of such successful schools I have come to realise that they have several elements in common in their fundraising strategies.

1. They are clear why they are fundraising

Successful schools have staff who understand why fundraising is taking place and can talk about the specific projects which are planned in order to help the school achieve its overall vision. Senior staff in the school are powerful advocates for the role of fundraising in order to meet school improvement priorities.

2. They have somebody in post who oversees fundraising

This is often a member of non-teaching staff who takes on the coordination of fundraising as an additional duty. Importantly, time is put aside to work on fundraising and by giving it this high status people come to realise it is important within the school. This person also has high level access to people and key documents in the school.

3. They have carefully constructed development plans

   As with any area of development in the school unless there are plans then things don’t tend to happen. The development plan for fundraising makes it clear who is doing what and when things should be happening. It becomes an essential point of contact as work progresses during the year.

4. They are imaginative in devising project ideas

   Because fundraising is inevitably competitive to some degree, it’s vital to find ways of standing out from the crowd. For funding bodies the key criterion is originality – the more imaginative a solution you can find the more likely you are to be given funding.

5. They have a ‘can do’ attitude, are fiercely determined and persistent

Successful schools are vibrant places to be in because staff believe that amazing things are possible and work tirelessly to make them a reality. There are bound to be knock-backs when fundraising, but it’s vital to take these in your stride, find ways of overcoming them and continue working towards your goals.

 

Case study: Woodheys Primary School, Manchester

A school governor and teaching assistant at the school set in train a series of creative events and activities that have put it at the forefront of education for sustainable development and raised tens of thousands of pounds.

The work began five years ago with an £800 award to create colourful murals in the cloakrooms, a welcome opportunity for a school serving an area of considerable deprivation. Success led to further bids, which were rewarded by grants to create a tropical oasis garden and a range of environmental projects involving children.

The Parent-Teacher Association was encouraged by this success to professionalise its own fundraising, with a variety of imaginative ideas, culminating in an auction of ‘promises’ which raised £3,000 in one night. The school also replaced its time-consuming jumble sales by working with Bag 2 School (www.bag2school.com), an ethical organisation that gives schools cash for clothing.

The most recent event, a flower festival, saw the school stage a major fundraiser while also allowing children to show off their work to parents and the wider community. TV gardener Jeff Turner chaired a gardeners’ questions time session, helping the school raise almost £2,000 for its new outdoor classroom project.

 

But I can’t afford to employ a fundraiser!

When the idea of a fundraising coordinator is mentioned schools sometimes sigh and say that they can’t possibly afford any new staff – but I believe this is a defeatist attitude. The experience of schools shows that whenever they have invested in time to work on fundraising coordination it has been brought back many times over. There are now hundreds of schools who have given a member of staff between one and four hours per week to focus on fundraising who are willing to go on record to say how beneficial this has been to the school.

In terms of who you can call upon to carry out the coordination work, it’s worth saying that a variety of models have worked and continue to work for different schools. These include:

• A school business manager who took on the role in addition to his financial management functions
• A deputy headteacher who had the leadership of fundraising as one of her performance management measures
• A part-time member of support staff who was employed by a school for three hours a week to focus on fundraising

Obviously, if the fundraising coordinator can be supported by a small team that includes a governor, a member of the senior management team and somebody who provides admin support, then what he or she can achieve will be maximised.

‘Projects’ not ‘things’

Primary schools that are successful at raising funds learnt early on in their fundraising journey that it’s not easy to get money just for ‘things’ like new classrooms, playground equipment and general day to day running costs and resources. Like it or not, this is what funders think the government is there to do, whether or not our government is genuinely putting its money where its mouth is. Instead, the approach that works time and time again is to identify a ‘project’ that can form the core of a campaign to raise a specific sum of money, within a particular timescale. Examples of such projects include:

• A community garden - requiring £3,000 by March 2007 in order to get the garden ready for the spring term
• An after-school maths club – which needs £500 set up costs and £50 a week running costs for its first six week trial, scheduled for September 2007
• A major arts festival – a celebration of different cultures requiring £10,000 by June 2007 in order to run the festival during the summer holiday

Three funding sources for primary schools

There are literally thousands of potential funding sources available to schools. Indeed, one of the major challenges facing schools is how to identify – from the plethora of possible sources – the most likely funders for their projects. To help to fast track you to the most suitable funders, I provide below details of the three reliable funding sources for primary schools. Though there are many others to learn about from websites such as Funderfinder (www.funderfinder.org.uk), these three are well worth considering first. Two have been selected as ideal sources if you have a modest project in mind – if you’re new to fundraising it is often best to focus on a more modest project initially.

Awards for All (www.awardsforall.org.uk)

This Lottery-funded scheme has provided hundreds of grants to schools for a very wide range of projects, spanning sports, arts and other community-focussed projects. Up to £10,000 is available and schools can apply at any time.

Example projects

• A creche facility for a rural community
• Coaching for girls and women taking up rugby league
• A creative writing project to enable children’s work to be published and performed

Reaching Communities

This major scheme is making a difference to community cohesion and allowing schools to take the lead in transforming their communities through a range of innovative approaches. Substantial funds are on offer (up to £500,000), especially to groups of schools working in partnership to achieve more far-reaching outcomes.

Example project

• A consortium of schools in South Yorkshire is awaiting the outcome of their £300,000 bid to provide speech therapy across a large socially-deprived area, combined with a range of specialist projects in the schools designed to tackle underachievement.

National Foundation for Youth Music (‘Youth Music’; www.youthmusic.org.uk)

Another lottery scheme funding music-making activities in schools, with grants typically up to £5,000. Some of the schemes focus on very young children or even pregnant mothers, allowing extended schools projects to be funded.

Example project

• Leominster Schools Choir received a grant to perform songs on the theme of war in collaboration with adult choirs, involving a workshop and culminating in a public performance.

Business and income generation

Finally, I turn to consider how your school can gain funds from businesses and from your own income generation activities. Both are currently under-appreciated by schools as sources of fundraising.

In order to work effectively with business the buzz phrase is to ‘build a relationship’. It’s no good simply writing lots of letters to businesses in your area and expecting the funds to flow in. Instead, consider what’s in it for the business, and invite business leaders into school for informal gatherings and opportunities to learn more about the school and its vision. Only then ask for their help and do not forget that their support in staff time and resources can be as helpful as actual cash. Though it may not come naturally to many schools to manage PR with businesses in this way, it is becoming more and more common and is surely the way forward for schools.

Income generation on the other hand is something which has been long established in schools, at least on a small scale. Summer fairs, jumbles sales and beetle drives are all examples of traditional activities which has been the mainstay of school fundraising for years. But now schools are beginning to realise that, as they are increasingly being seen as more business-like by others, they need to look to more imaginative and sustainable ways of generating income (see box).

Five unconventional ways to generate income

1. Collect old telephones, computers, printer cartridges and clothes which can all now be sold for cash to reputable companies and organisations (could bring in £1,000 a year if well organised)
2. Organise special events to take advantage of your site and location such as car boot sales, Asian weddings, school reunions, caravan rallies etc.
3. Harness the potential of your site to bring in funds out of school hours through the hiring of rooms, facilities and equipment
4. Consider whether nearby attractions offer you fundraising opportunities (e.g. parking for sporting events or specialist activities)
5. Ask parents to volunteer their time or services in return for a certificate of recognition – most schools have an under-harnessed body of support just waiting to be tapped in this way

 

Further reading and information

www.lotteryfunding.org.uk/

A joint website run by all Lottery funders in the UK which allows you to search information on current funding programmes.

Best, B. and Dunn, K. (2005) The Fundraising for Schools Pocketbook. Teachers’ Pocketbooks. A concise but comprehensive introduction to the world of school fundraising, with step by step advice on how to devise your strategy and how to access the funds you require.

Copyright Brin Best