Plan an art show to raise funds for your organization. Secure a location and ask local businesses to sponsor your event or have parents donate wine, cheese and fruit. Ask local artists to donate pieces such as paintings, sculptures, pottery and jewelry. Have the children of the child care center help create the programs and invitations. See if your local radio show will donate free air time to advertise the event or send out mailers to the community and put up posters in markets and other stores.
Create T-shirts that promote your child care organization while raising funds for your school. Create a T-shirt design contest at a site such as ContestCause (see Resources). Simply create your account and then invite families of the children and staff at the center to create unique T-shirt designs right on the site. They can also vote each day for their favorite T-shirt and order the winning T-shirt right from the site. ContestCause will even create the winning shirt and ship it directly to the purchasers. Or, you can create a unique design with the hand prints from some of the children in various colors and have a local T-shirt company print enough shirts to sell for your fundraiser. Be sure to include your center's name on the shirt.
Create your own calendar and sell it at the end of the year to raise quick funds for your child care center. Ask a staff member who is handy with a camera to take photos of the children at the center. Group them together or take candid shots of the kids in their classrooms. Create a picture for the cover by gathering the children in front of the center. Upload your photos and choose your calendar template from an online site such as Vista Print or FedEx Kinkos. Order one copy of the calendar so you can see the quality and use it to take orders. You can keep your photos on file at Vista Prints for a small fee until you are ready to order your quantity for your fundraiser.
Raise money for your organization by organizing a cookbook sale. Collect recipes from families and staff at the child care center and put together a cookbook. Have the children of the center make pictures on some of the pages and on the cover. Put together your own books to save money by copying the pages and using a binding machine to bind the book together. Use a heavier, card stock as the front and back cover, and don't forget to include a table of contents. If your center has a website, promote your cookbook there and in the classroom as well.