Fundraisers for nursing students

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I'm looking for fundraising ideas for my nursing class. Any suggestions?

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.

We raised funds within our group by bringing in cases of sodas, juice boxes,water ,coffee and tea and selling it back to the class at a profit....That was really all we needed....

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I really hadn't thought of anything like that. Thank you for that idea.

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Specializes in critical care.

You really need to contact your school's SNA to see what they already do before assuming they'll be okay with you doing stuff on your own.

OP, I'm perplexed by you. You posted about being interviewed for a school you're trying to get in. Here, you're asking about fundraising ideas. If you're not yet in a program, how will you fundraise for it?

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Specializes in critical care.
You really need to contact your school's SNA to see what they already do before assuming they'll be okay with you doing stuff on your own.

OP, I'm perplexed by you. You posted about being interviewed for a school you're trying to get in. Here, you're asking about fundraising ideas. If you're not yet in a program, how will you fundraise for it?

Forgive me. I just looked through your posts and realized your interview was in 2014.

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Forgive me. I just looked through your posts and realized your interview was in 2014.

Yeah, I'm in the 2nd semester. I wouldn't be posting about something I'm not experiencing.

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Specializes in critical care.
Yeah, I'm in the 2nd semester. I wouldn't be posting about something I'm not experiencing.

Right on! My SNA did restaurant fund raisers, class t shirts and sweatshirts (and just for fun ones), bake sales, Littman orders for the upcoming first-semester students, stuff like that.

What have you already done in the past?

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We did a car wash that actually made some serious cash. All you need is about $100 worth of supplies that you could have donated, a couple of water spigots with hoses, a few buckets, and a dozen people. We were able to wash in the parking lot of a local auto store, kind of like an AutoZone Supercenter combined with a large service center. We earned our SNA budget in one day, about 8 hours, which included two SNA scholarships, t-shirt orders, and three food-and-drink socials for the semester.

We also sold burritos on the quad. Being in the Southwest, breakfast burritos are a food staple. We didn't make much money per burrito, but we would sell out every single time, and actually were able to add extra selling days during the semester due to popular demand from students. The demand eventually led to the SNA starting a burrito committee, as silly as that sounds, in order to maximize that opportunity. A chorizo and green chile breakfast burrito may not sell well in Omaha or Boston, so use your critical thinking skills to find a suitable alternative for your area. The key to selling well to students is to keep the price (and consequently the profits) down, since most college students don't have much more than $5 in cash on them when they're heading to class.

We did try a SNA sponsored potluck, where members made a dish, and everyone (non-SNA members as well) who ate paid $7 for a plate, but it was a fiasco on so many levels. Plus it creates a little bit of a divide between SNA and non-SNA classmates because the non-SNA members feel pressured into supporting something they didn't want to be associated with in the first place.

We also did do a restaurant fundraiser with two chain places, but that's pretty much a waste of time. We only received 10% of the bill donated, excluding alcohol. We chose Chili's and Texas Roadhouse. However, the math just didn't add up like we hoped, when you consider an average meal is like $12 per person. At a donation rate of $1.20 per person, you need an awful lot of people to eat in order to make any serious cash.

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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

I'm curious about the NEED for fundraising? What exactly are you raising funds for?

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We did try a SNA sponsored potluck, where members made a dish, and everyone (non-SNA members as well) who ate paid $7 for a plate, but it was a fiasco on so many levels. Plus it creates a little bit of a divide between SNA and non-SNA classmates because the non-SNA members feel pressured into supporting something they didn't want to be associated with in the first place.

I'm sure it varies by program but our SNA uses money that we raise to pay for the class's pinning ceremony. Last year we also voted to pay for pins and a 3 day NCLEX review for the seniors.

We have paid for speakers who came in to speak with the juniors during the introduction class. We host and pay for an annual ice cream social to give new nursing students a chance to make connections. This is also a time when we do sign-ups for a mentor program which has been really helpful for most students.

Even if they don't want to be SNA members, the fund raising we do benefits the entire student nursing body. It's a good way to get people involved.

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Ok I will admit at first I thought this was a how do I pay for school thread and I was going to suggest camming as a joke, but now that I see it is a legit thread I will say to talk to your local school's PTA on how they do it every year. They can give you some insight on what your local population likes to cough up cash for.

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