Many hands: The hard work of Fundraising

A sponsored post for CUA School Fun Run

As you guys might know, our girls go to our local Public School here in our village which is known as a Small School. There are just 29 kids in the whole school from Kinder to Year 6 divided into 2 classes with 2 teachers. It’s a truly amazing little place with amazing facilities and opportunities for the kids, the teachers work so hard and the kids are great. I especially love that they all socialise and play with kids across all the years – this has been particularly important for Daisy as she has just herself and another boy in her entire year 5 – so she has been able to have lots of friends with the older kids.

Sounds and often looks like a dream doesn’t it?

And it is. It really is. But there’s one thing that becomes tricky in a small school like ours and that’s fundraising.

That dreaded word that comes up at most P& C meetings across the country in pretty much every school. Fundraising is a necessary evil to provide support for our kids and make sure that we as parents and the community can help with the shortfall in equipment, facilities, and opportunities.

Being in a small village community like we are, it’s not just our School that needs funds to keep organisations floating. We have A School of Arts committee (on which I sat for a number of years as secretary) there’s the Progress Association, there’s the hockey club (junior & senior) there’s the Rural Fire Brigade, The Easter Market committee, Fishing and Tennis Clubs…in smaller (especially rural) communities these are the clubs that are a huge part of our life. Their events make up the rhythm of our year and they are an integral part of the social part of our community.

The one thing they all have in common is fundraising. I can already see my default position of sitting on my hands being triggered just by writing the word because I am a do-er. You know the type. The person that always puts my hands up (Rob is the same). We can get stuff done and you know what they say, if you need something done, ask someone who is busy. And that’s how Rob finds himself the P&C President on the RFS every Wednesday night, at tennis on a Monday night and selling raffle tickets at the pub to the visitors ever other weekend over the warmer months.

The CUA Fun Run helps schools & communities all around Australia (just like ours) raise lots of money easily for whatever project they have in mind. It’s a simple set up: no risk, no upfront costs or products to buy or sell so profit is guaranteed. In 2016 over 700 schools took part (over 230,000 students) raising over $3.6 million and they were named the 2016 Fundraising company of the year because of their proven success rate.

Let me tell you a little about what we have to do each year. Our main fundraising for our little School is our annual Easter Market. Each year our quiet little village goes from this:

To this:

And my kitchen bench to this:

With over 10, 000 people visiting our small school works a serious sausage sizzle that makes the bulk of our money, as well as stall holder fees and a cake stall our the front it’s one day where we can make the bulk of our money for the year in one hit. There’s just one thing about that: it’s bloody hard work.

It takes months and months of planning; it takes serious man & woman power (and a lot of it needed) with our small pool of parents to pull from. It’s relentless, year after year it comes around and always on the Easter long weekend – no holidays for us over the time. There’s baking required, and lots of it that takes time and effort – favours are called on and when it’s a combined effort from the whole village all focusing on their own clubs and groups we just plain run out of people power.

It’s a fabulous day, no doubts about it but it’s FULL ON.

I know that I wouldn’t be alone in my frustration (and exhaustion) about raising money for schools or community groups…hundreds of you out there would be do-ers too so that’s why I wanted to share with you details about The CUA Fun Run as an option for your next fundraising projects. There might be a new playground needed, some bubblers, heaters, equipment, technology, the costs of these can often outweigh what can be raised and of course projects comes up that need money quickly that can be outside of dedicated times to raise money if you have a fete or the like every other year.

The CUA School Fun Run is a national fundraising campaign available to schools throughout Australia. The program allows students, parents & communities to come together to raise money in a way that empowers the kids, in a healthy way (not a box of chocolates in sight!) to raise money.

You can check out how it works in this video here:

Some of the things that I think are the best parts are:

• Online donating (no counting of money or coins) especially good for interstate and overseas family. Also allows other members of the community to easily donate
• Kids can have rewards for the levels that they reach as they go and they can choose what they are
• The event is relatively quick: the run can be done in 2 hours and doesn’t mean an entire day of parent power required on the day PLUS it’s less effort required in planning something like a fete.

There are some great case study videos here to see how schools were able to raise great amounts if you want to have a look at real people sharing their success stories. As a do-er I instantly could see how ir works practically and financially.

You can check out more details of the Fun Run over here. CUA have been connected with the Fun Run for the past 8 years and are increasing their involvement this year. For a credit union like CUA that also provides health insurance, loans and banking it’s a great fit for them.

You can check out more about CUA and the products and services they provide here. Or have a look at their community partnerships here.

How is fundraising for your school?
Do you struggle with it or is it your speciality?
Has anyone ever tried the Fun Run as a fundraiser?
How did it go?