We have worked with numerous schools these past 16 years helping them raise funds for playground equipment projects so as a result of this, we have built up a useful knowledge bank of what works and how you can do this successfully and effectively. But sadly there is no easy magic wand which you can wave to immediately muster up the required pot of gold, these projects do take time and with dollops of determination and true grit on top! You need to think outside of the box as well to better your chances of securing funds faster.

You also need to bear in mind that for all of the options open to you as listed below, it might be a mixture of a few of them which gets you to your designated target so it is always best to initially put out as many rods as possible because you never know which big fish might bite first.

1) School Budget – this may sound completely obvious but if the school can donate any funds from its own budget or devolved capital budget, then this is a good start. It financially and psychologically gets you off the starting blocks but also a lot of funders like to see some sort of match funding (or at least a contribution) from the school.
2) Your LEA – put in a call to your local education authority to see if they are running any specific or relevant grant programmes for schools or initiatives in their area. For example, we sold last year an eco outdoor classroom with a living sedum roof to a school in South West London as there was a grant programme to promote cleaner and healthier air in the Borough.
3) Get your PTA on board – so much of our work nowadays comes directly from the efforts of PTAs, God bless them! If you have an active PTA, give them this as their next major project to raise money for but talk to us first about how we can devise some novel & creative fundraising ideas for you. For example, last year we worked with a primary school on developing a pedal powered eco outdoor classroom – so to raise money for this, we put together a pedal powered disco event where the children and parents had to cycle on these special dynamo bikes to produce enough electricity to power up the disco. If they stopped pedalling, so did the music! But more importantly it raised a lot of money because the event enjoyed a very high attendance (because it was novel and fun) but also the PTA charged for both attendance and got everyone to sponsor a bike rider. Plus the event was very relevant to what they were trying to raise money for.
4) Crowd Funding – this is the way the world is going and you need to be part of it. These websites are an excellent way of spreading the news about your project and message to a far wider audience plus you can constantly update them with news, initiatives, targets reached, videos etc. Have a look at the link below for a school in Norfolk who have done this really well and have actually gone over their target amount.
Crowd Funder Brooke School
There are also some other specialist educational crowd funding websites such as Hubbub.
5) Commercial Sponsorship and Donations – get together a list of potential companies you could approach who might donate some money towards your project. But I have seen so many schools do this really badly and as a result, consequently don’t get anywhere. The most important thing is to put yourselves in the shoes of the person or organisation being approached – how are you going to make them part with some cash to help you? We have actually published a whole paper on this subject matter and how you can do it successfully. Please contact us for further details.
6) Individuals – similar to above. Do you know of any local wealthy or benevolent individual who could help out? If you don’t ask, you don’t get. A school we worked with in Lancashire personally approached the owner and MD of a local oil company with the children listing all of the reasons why this new school playground equipment would benefit them. They were just as surprised as I was when he wrote back with a cheque for £10K attached!
7) Grants – this is a whole big subject worthy of a separate blog but suffice it to say there are numerous grants out there which could possibly fund or partially fund your project. But you have to know where to look for them and you have to know how to apply for them correctly. With the harsh winds of austerity blowing ever more into the educational sector, the competition for these grants has become ever greater. But we have a lot of experience here and without wishing to brag, we took on six school projects earlier this year to see if we could help them access grant money to pay for our products we had quoted for. Five of them we have successfully helped get the required funding for – so not a bad hit rate.

So if you would like any further advice on any of the above or if you have a specific upcoming project in mind, then please contact us as below:

Simon Fearnehough on 01865 858982 or email: simon@hideouthouse.com or visit School Grant Funding