Your school band shows out at every home game, tons of practices, and many other pep rallies and major events at your school. It’s safe to say that they are a big part of your school’s community. That’s why relying on the network of supporters for your band can be an excellent way to help band students make an impact at your school through fundraising. To help you make the most of band fundraising opportunities, we’re sharing our five favorite marching band fundraiser ideas for your PTA to plan and our top tips for success:
- 1. Host a Concert
- 2. Plan a “Day of Music”
- 3. Organize a Battle of the Bands
- 4. Run a Practice-a-Thon
- 5. Give Music Lessons
- 6. Top Tips for Hosting a Successful Band Fundraiser
With these ideas and our tips, your band fundraiser is bound to be a hit! Regardless of which idea you choose for your school fundraiser, our tips for success will help you pull it off. Let’s get started!
1. Host a Concert
Hosting a concert is a classic and fool-proof band fundraiser. After all, performing music is what your band does. Their friends and family love to see them perform, so they’ll be sure to buy tickets to attend your concert. However, hosting concerts semi-frequently will require you to get a little creative in order to create incentives for family and friends to attend multiple concerts a year.
Here are a few ideas of creative ways to host different concerts:
- A Christmas concert
- Dinner and a Show
- A Halloween-themed concert
- A Valentine’s-themed Jazz Soiree
- Classic Rock Favorites: Marching Band Edition
This way, there will be a different type of concert that will interest everyone and friends and family won’t ever get tired of hearing the same songs over and over.
2. Plan a “Day of Music”
If you’ve already hosted a solo concert for your school’s band, you could consider hosting an even bigger event. You can gather various musical groups from your school (like the choir, orchestra, and musical theatre groups) or even local music groups to host a music festival. Sell tickets to your “Day of Music” and consider including other fun festival activities and treats to really make it an event worth attending.
For example, you can sell festival food and carnival games for guests to enjoy when they aren’t watching the show, and to make a little extra money! Consider partnering with your school’s football team to make your “Day of Music” a joint fundraiser on the football field.
3. Organize a Battle of the Bands
With this idea, there are two main ways to pull it off. To involve your entire school band, you could set up a Battle of the Bands between different school bands from your area. This can be a great way to get students who normally wouldn’t attend a band event interested. Advertise it as an exciting and competitive school spirit event!
Alternatively, many of your school band members likely have musical endeavors outside of their participation in your band. To host a Battle of the Bands that features a larger variety of music, you can do a battle between individual bands that play rock, punk, or whatever other music. This can allow you to open up the competition to your wider community and can appeal to people’s varied musical tastes.
However you decide to run your competition, you can raise funds by charging an entry fee for bands as well as charging for tickets. Like with a music festival, you should also consider selling concessions.
4. Run a Practice-a-Thon
A-thon fundraisers like read-a-thons, dance-a-thons, or, in this case, practice-a-thons make excellent pledge fundraisers. With this idea, your band members will get to practice and improve their skills while fundraising. Similar to a walk-a-thon, students will ask family and friends to pledge to donate a certain amount of money for every unit of the metric of “practice” that they choose to use.
For example, supporters could donate a certain amount for every:
- Page of sheet music practiced.
- Five minutes of rehearsal.
- Different musical pieces practiced.
- Run-through of a piece.
A practice-a-thon is perfect for both raising money and improving your band’s skill level. Parents will be more than happy to support this kind of fundraiser!
5. Give Music Lessons
A music lesson fundraiser is an excellent way to fundraise over the summer when your student body won’t be as involved. Before the school year ends, you can advertise the opportunity to local elementary and middle school band programs for younger students to learn from a high school mentor. Their parents can sign them up for one-on-one sessions over the summer.
Alternatively, you can host a day-long workshop where younger musicians can play alongside the high schoolers in the band program, be taught by the high school band director, and break out into small tutoring groups led by the high school students. For students hoping to join the high school band, this is an excellent opportunity to not only improve their skills but get in touch with the band director and current members of the band.
Working parents will be thrilled to have a productive place to send their kids during the workday and the kids will love getting to play music with older kids. Plus, the high school band members can use this experience on their resumes! It’s a win-win-win fundraising opportunity!
Top Tips for Hosting a Successful Band Fundraiser
Regardless of which band fundraiser idea you choose to go with, there are a few things that can help you take your school fundraiser from good to great. Follow these tips for a successful band fundraiser:
- Involve your students. While your PTA and administrative staff will need to be involved, interested students can help you plan and market the event. It will help your event succeed and help build important skills for your students.
- Be transparent about donations. Letting parents and other donors know exactly what you plan to do with the money they’re donating can help encourage them to donate or to give more than they initially planned.
- Create some friendly competition. To get your students involved even more, you can challenge them to see who can sell the most tickets to your fundraising event. Don’t forget to offer a fun prize as an incentive!
- Pick the right software. When it comes to selling tickets, accepting donations, marketing, and storing donor data, you need a secure and easy-to-use fundraising platform to help you succeed.
- Spread the word. Make sure you market your fundraiser well. Put it on your website, send it out in a newsletter to parents, post on social media, and hang flyers around your school for students to see.
Following these tips will help you raise more and ensure that more of your student body is engaged with your band fundraiser. This can be a great opportunity to increase school spirit while raising the necessary funds for your community!
Additional Resources
- 6 Great Questions to Ask Before Your Next School Fundraiser: Make sure to check out this resource as you begin planning your next fundraiser.
- How to Organize A Fun Run Fundraiser in 7 Steps: If you’re looking for fundraising ideas for students not in the band, learn how you can organize a fun run with this resource.
- 7 Virtual and Hybrid School Fundraisers to Try This Year: If your school is still taking precautions, these fundraiser ideas will be perfect to keep your students safe and healthy.
