Preschool gets creative with fundraising

26 June 2013

Preschool gets creative with fundraising

A non-profit preschool, Capital City Preschool (CCP), is getting creative with funding new innovations around its premises. Since the Government’s budget has effectively been cut for the fourth year in a row, the preschool has increasingly had to rely on external community sources to pay for any costs over and above those that are fixed.

Some of the many interesting ways this preschool has raised money is through fundraisers, such as movie evenings, New World shopping discounts, Entertainment book sales, and Easter raffles starting in 2009, which was evidence to Centre Management that they didn’t have to struggle as much as they did in this type of situation.

When budgets are low, marketing and advertising costs are the first to get cut, and CCP also heavily relies on the networks that the organisation has within the community for word-of-mouth and other types of support.

“It’s just the way things are, and rather than complain about budget cuts, we at CCP thought we’d start working hard with our board members and staff at finding innovative ways that we could still fund upgrades to the preschool,” says Lisa Marshall, Preschool Manager.

“We’ve developed some amazing community networks within the City, and without these great support systems, we wouldn’t be able to achieve what we have so far.”

One of CCP’s main forms of advertising is word-of-mouth, and with the exceptional reputation that the Preschool has, most new enrolments have been referred to the Preschool using this type of advertising.

The most challenging part of working with a increasingly dwindling budget, coupled with the rising cost of inflation is that the Preschool has put a freeze across the prices charged to parents to ensure that childcare costs do not become unreachable, which in turn would also affect enrolments.

“Even though inflation keeps rising, we know that many people are in the same situation as we are. Wages are not matching the cost of inflation. That’s why we’ve kept childcare costs the same to ensure that families can still access our inner city Preschool.”

And, with a loyal bunch of teachers at the Preschool’s side, the entire teaching team is fully invested in the Preschool’s success.

“We realise that we’re not just growing our Preschool. Every upgrade we make is for the children who attend, and will support the children learn, grow and develop. We just want to see a happy bunch of children who succeed. We’re honoured to play such an important role in the lives of these children”

The next item on the fundraising agenda is a massive online auction via TradeMe. All items have been donated from local businesses, such as the Intercontinental, Logan Brown, Hutt Boyz Choppers, Helipro, Cafe L’Affare, Chow, Art for Art’s Sake, Little Beer Quarter, Sophie Voon, Ballingall Bach and The Library around Wellington.

With a bottle of John Key’s personal 2010 selection, three weekend getaways to choose from, a chopper to chopper experience, high tea with Wellington’s Mayor, dinner with New Zealand’s Deputy Leader Grant Robertson, a signed Hobbit book (Sir Richard Taylor, among Hobbits, and other cast and crew of the trilogy) signed NBL merchandise, an painting by a CCP teacher and a $400 telecom phone, and artwork creations designed and painted by each of the Preschool’s children, CCP has ‘upped the ante’ in this latest fundraiser.

Please go to Capital City Preschool’s fundraising page for details about auction items and bidding, http://www.facebook.com/CapitalCityPreschoolFundraisingPage?fref=ts.

Watch out for auction items on www.TradeMe.co.nz from 27 June 2013.

Capital City Preschool is a non-profit Preschool providing education and care for Preschool children aged 3-5 years, for over 18 years. We are licensed for 30 children. To retain a dynamic learning environment we keep an average daily roll of 28 children and the teacher ratio is 1:7.

ENDS

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