Making it Fun to Raise Funds For Schools

Fundraising for schools doesn’t always need to involve organising large scale events, such as Summer Fairs or Christmas Pantomimes. There are easier and less intensive ways to generate funds that won’t require a small army of volunteers and copious amounts of administrative support…and it can start with a simple phone call to discuss our Christmas Card service and the other projects we offer.

PTAs provide an invaluable link between parents and schools, often bringing communities together by supporting school activities and forming strong links with head teachers and school staff. One of the core benefits is the way PTAs use a variety of methods to raise funds that help schools bridge the “Funding Gap” and we have developed several ways to help this vital work.

Back in 2009, IQ Digital House launched IQ Cards (www.iqcards.co.uk) as a community-focused project. Its aim was simple: to provide creative and easy fundraising for schools by developing a service that enabled school children to design their own Christmas Cards (that could then be sold to generate income for their school).

The project is free and simple to run. We send a design pack to the school, the pupils create their artwork, we scan the artwork, print the products, and return to school to be distributed to parents. For every product purchased the school raises funds to spend however they choose.

Our IQ Card Fundraising Pack

The feedback from PTAs and schools was very encouraging and helped us to develop a range of Christmas themed products to suit all budgets, including postcards, wrapping paper, sticky gift labels, magnets, keyrings, notebooks, and even chocolate bars (which always seem to be popular with parents and grandparents!).

Chocolate Bars are also a (popular) option

Last year, we printed an incredible 1.2 million Christmas Cards and produced an amazing 146,000 gift products, which included 15,000 chocolate bars!

Almost 940 schools used the service, including nurseries, infants, junior, and primary schools, with many notable results across the board:

• • • • One nursery with 70 children raised a terrific total of £172
      • A school with 250 pupils added a superb £502 to their school’s fundraising efforts
      • A larger school with 450 pupils generated £782, one of the best totals for 2022

Almost £200,000 was raised by the schools that participated last year, and although we’re only in July, 706 schools have already registered to use the service for Christmas 2023. We’re hoping to help over 1,000 schools with their fundraising efforts this year.

Cards printed, packed, and ready for distribution to one of the schools

For 2023, we are expanding our services to cover an even greater range of fundraising projects that can benefit schools throughout the year. This has been driven by requests from several PTAs who asked us to produce cards, gifts, and keepsakes for different seasonal events (including Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Year 6 Leavers). We’ve been delighted to support these ideas and offer even more scope for PTAs to generate funds across the whole school year, rather than just Christmas.

We have also suggested some new ideas for PTAs to consider, such as producing Recipe Books – where pupils can contribute their favourite recipe to form the content (it’s a delicious way to encourage pupils to cook and try foods from different cultures too).

A new option: creating a Recipe Book of pupils’ favourite meals

Some of the most popular new ranges cover School Leavers’ Gifts, including autograph books, keyrings, bookmarks, power banks, and Bears (many of these can be personalised with the school’s name, crest or logo, and the year). You can find out more about the new range of options by using the following links:

www.iqcards.co.uk/fathers-day-school-fundraising-gifts

www.iqcards.co.uk/school-leaver-autograph-books

Or follow this link to the main website: www.iqcards.co.uk

If your school needs other types of printing work completed, PTAs and schools can view examples of signage, floor stickers, and wall graphics by clicking on this link to: www.iqcards.co.uk/iq-school.

We can also help with all types of banners to promote events across the school year, from Summer Fayres, Sports Days, and Prom evenings to pantomimes, plays, shows, and concerts (don’t forget we can design and print tickets, lanyards, posters, leaflets, and programmes for attendees too).

If you can’t see what you want, please call us. We love discussing ideas that can help your fundraising efforts. Recent examples include printing items for School Fetes, Summer Fairs, and even producing a “Selfie Frame” for a school Colour Run.

Sustainability and Carbon Offsetting

An important element of our service is helping our customers to fulfil their Sustainability and Climate Risk (SCR) policies by utilising greener materials for the printing process (which we can use to offset the carbon emissions). This is also available to PTAs and schools.

For example, the paper we use for Christmas Cards is purchased through our paper merchant who utilises the Carbon Balanced Paper Scheme with the World Land Trust. Last year we were immensely proud to see that IQ Cards were able to offset 12,977 kilograms of CO2, to help the environment and protect 2,479 square metres of critically threatened Tropical Forest.

This year, we are introducing further environmentally friendly improvements by switching the polybags (that products are packed in) to biodegradable bags, the tape on delivery boxes is being replaced with paper tape, and the Return Bags used for the completed design packs will be made from recycled content.

Lisa Mortimore, Commercial Director at IQ Digital House comments: “Our team really enjoy working with PTAs and schools. We try to make our services easy to access through the www.iqcards.co.uk website or by calling our office for advice and support. It’s always fun speaking with PTA organisers and schools about ideas that can help them generate funds all year round, while helping the environment through our carbon offsetting arrangements.”

Find out more about our services
Over the years, we have established a reputation for being responsive, flexible, understanding, and competitively priced. If you think we can help your PTA or school, please contact our Commercial Director, Lisa Mortimore on 01252 796 903 or email [email protected].

We offer a wide range of services for schools, colleges, academies, and universities. Over 30% of our annual business comes from clients and customers in the Education, Training and Learning & Development sectors.

You can also find out how we work with education centres and help students by reading these two articles:

www.iqdigitalhouse.com/how-we-help-education-centres

www.iqdigitalhouse.com/helping-students-to-enjoy-college-time

Published July 2023

Categories: IQ Cards, Small Format Digital Print, Large Format Digital Print