I am about to undertake an experiment to see if one small primary school in Glasgow can get parents, staff, friends, family and the local community spending online via a website setup and run by parents in the schools Parents Council. I am interested in seeing if we can get the 5,000+ households in the catchment area using the website to search for and make purchases online and in doing so raise funds for the school.

Now I am aware that there are plenty of ready made solutions, indeed a few of the networks even have fundraising programs available but I wanted to make something where it can include Merchants from all Networks and where 100% of the commission goes back to the school. It will be interesting to see how the Networks, Merchants and Agencies treat this project, will they be supportive or not?

One thing that amazed me last night at the Parent Council meeting was how switched on the parents and staff are to the Internet and the effect it could have if it works out, however it did take a little explaining as to how it all works and there is a bit of disbelief that company’s such as Marks and Spencer’s, Next, House of Fraser etc would get involved. I explained it’s all about customers and marketing spend and that these companies are delighted to spend some of their marketing budget if we can deliver customers and as they use Networks as providers it’s not a big deal to have a small site like this involved.

So what’s the plan to make sure the momentum carries forward on this project? Simple, all parents will be informed of the site at the up and coming parents evening, a link will be added to the school website, a newsletter will go home and volunteers (parents and pupils) will leaflet the houses in and around the catchment area plus we should get some local press out of this.

This is my contribution to the schools fundraising effort, I estimate it will take up several nights and a few weekends this month to get it off the ground and approx one evening a month to remove out of date merchants and add new ones. Plus I have two volunteer parents who are ready to learn and help out. So if you’re a parent and you have a child at school, you should seriously give something like this a go, you never know what you might raise for the school. I shall keep you posted if this experiment works out, fingers crossed!

Also if anyone else has tried this, I would love to hear your feedback, makes a change to do something for others and not just for yourself 😉