Asking for support from your community can make a
real difference in these straitened times, but it must be
handled sensitively.
Lorraine Jenkin
explains how
to raise funds without raising blood pressures...
Boosting
your budget
No parent will
give up their
Saturday
morning to raise money
for what they perceive
to be your financial
mismanagement!
n the nursery sector
funds are often tight,
and settings’ options for
raising extra cash are
limited. But that doesn’t
mean you shouldn’t try – there are
times when certain purchases will be so
beneficial that finding a means to pay
for them is worth the effort. But how do
you persuade parents who already pay
a lot for your services (even though you
earn every penny and probably more) to
reach into their pockets? The answer is,
you get creative...
THE FUNDAMENTALS
Firstly, it’s important to distinguish
between what a business cost – e.g. utility
bills – and what is an acceptable ‘extra’, for
example, converting an under-used storage
area into a storytelling room. If you need
extra funds to keep the setting open, you’ll
need to look at your business practices,
expenditure and income. No fee-paying
parent will give up their Saturday morning
to raise money for what they perceive to
be your financial mismanagement!
Secondly, if you’re thinking of asking
parents and staff to help with fundraising,
you must ensure that yours is the kind
of nursery they will
want
to help. If you
treat parents as service-users and staff as
service-providers, you’re less likely to be
able to count upon their support. Instead,
appreciate their worth as part of the
nursery family – their loyalty may well
surprise you. Identify parents and staff
who will want to help; not all will, but key
people can galvanise others into activity.
BE SPECIFIC
The best way of asking for help is to
target a project, then break it down into
items and costs, and be specific. People
are more trusting of ‘10 bags of peat at
£3.75’ than ‘£50 for materials’; it shows
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