Seeking alumni donations isn’t just about fundraising—it’s about connecting with former students. By tapping into emotional motivators like nostalgia, recognition, and shared impact, you can inspire former students to stay engaged and give back.
Request Prize Donations From Local Businesses
Fundraising prizes don’t have to break the bank! Event organizers that want to offer a particular type of prize but are trying to stick to a budget can reach out to local businesses and restaurants to see if they would be willing to donate a prize in exchange for a shout out at the event!
See also: The 50 Best PTA/PTO School Fundraising Ideas
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Lunch With Teacher
Younger students love nothing more than spending one on one time or small group on one time socializing with their teachers. Having it as a prize for a fundraiser will definitely motivate the students to do their best, especially if the teacher is popular among the students or if they spend a lot of time with them in a professional setting.
Extra Recess With Friends
Setting aside some extra recess time for a contest winner and a few friends would be the ultimate way to celebrate a contest win!
Extra Test/Quiz Points
This prize should be especially valuable to your high schoolers. An extra 5-10 quiz or test points, depending on how they’re weighted for the overall grade, can be the difference between passing or failing a test or quiz, getting an A or a B in a class, or being the valedictorian or the salutatorian of the graduating class.
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Get StartedPizza Party
A class pizza party is a great way to celebrate with classmates after achieving a goal as a team!
Headstart On A Game Or Sport
Allow an extra 5-10 second head start on a game or a sport during recess or gym time! This should be popular with your exceptionally competitive ones and even give the less athletic students a chance to keep up with the more athletic ones.
Gift Card
Everyone loves a gift card! Use this as a prize to wherever is popular with your participants and watch them turn up the intensity as they think about how they would use it.
Cash Prize
This prize is the most straightforward prize on the list. Games like the 50/50 Raffle and others promise half of the cash earned on the event to a single participant and always draw a lot of entries.
Ribbon Or Medal
The classic competition prizes! Feel free to get medals and ribbons denoting 1st place, 2nd place, and 3rd place or just a single medal/ribbon for a single winner.
Extra Reading Time
This prize should be a big hit with your heavy readers. This should be especially tempting if it comes with the student picking a book that the teacher also gives as part of the prize.
Trophy
Also a classic competition prize! Feel free to get creative with this prize. Hand out a Golden Brisket to a first place BBQ Cookoff winner, or a golden book to the person who brings in the most money for a Read-A-Thon.
A Trip To The Prize Box
A lot of teachers have this already in their classrooms but NEVER underestimate knick knacks from the dollar store! To dress this prize up to fit on a larger scale, swap the dollar tree for walmart and spend $5-$20 per prize. Feel free to also wrap the prizes in either gift wrap, plain brown paper, or newspaper depending on the event and have the winners pick blindly from the available options.
Themed Basket
Have an array of themed gift baskets to offer as prizes. The baskets can be gaming themed, cooking themed, or feature time spent with a loved one or on yourself, like with a movie basket or a self care basket.
Movie With A Teacher
Have a special time where a teacher shares one of their favorite age appropriate movies with a group of winning students. Bonus points if they choose to provide lunch for the students as well!
Bragging Rights
Another free yet classic prize! There’s nothing quite like knowing that, while everyone gave their best, your best was better.
Special Field Trip Privilege
Celebrate with your students by allowing them to have a special privilege during a field trip. Extra time at the petting zoo or a special tour of a historical room or building can go a long way as a special reward.
Movie Tickets
Everyone loves to go to the movies! Include movie tickets as part of (or all of) your prize to the local movie theater!
Play A Silly Game
Allow the winner of a contest or a fundraiser to play a silly game, like bean boozled, with the teacher, principle, a few classmates, or all of the above!
Principal Comes To Read A Book
A good class prize is to have the principle pop in and read a book to the class! Bonus points if you can talk him or her into wearing a silly wig while reading to the students!
Diy Escape Room
Allow a fundraising winner and a few friends to try to get through a DIY escape room made by the PTO/PTA!
Flip The Coin/Make A Game Announcement
Allow a fundraising winner to flip the coin at the start of a high school game or make an announcement on the loudspeaker before or during a sporting event.
Record A Message For The School
Ask the fundraising winner to record a message that will be later sent to the parents/partners from the event that made the whole thing possible! The student will love the opportunity to say thank you to the parents for participating or announcing that school will be shut down for an inclement weather day.
Rename The School For A Day
Rename the school in the students honor for a day! Have some banners made up to hang over the name of the school, which can easily be removed at the end of the day, and change the signs if at all possible just for 24 hours.
Special Guest
Allow the student and his or her class to visit with a special guest for the day! Options could be a police officer and their dog, a local high school or college athlete, the principal, or another local official.
Have A Special Hat/Silly Costume Day
Allow the winning student and their classmates to dress in either a silly hat or costume for the day to celebrate their win!
Pie In The Face
Pie the principal or another local official in the face as a treat for winning the contest!
Slime The Principal
Allow the winning student to dump a big bucket of slime on the principal or teacher’s head in front of their class to celebrate their win!
Kiss The Pig
The principal has to kiss a pig or another animal in front of the winning class or allow the animal to kiss them!
Star Of The Day
The winning student gets to be the star of the day and wear a special decorative star for the day! The student is allowed to lead the lunch line, read the announcements, be the special helper for the teacher whenever he or she needs it, anything to allow them to stand out and be the go-to person for their special day.
Show And Tell
The winner of a prize gets to bring their favorite item from home to show and tell the class all about it! The school can limit it to only non-living items, or allow pets as long as a parent comes to allow it to be shown and return the pet home once the show and tell is over.
