In times of yore if you wanted to produce and publish a video, it cost a lot of money and usually involved specialist companies who sent you their showcase reel which always seemed to feature the same material! But nowadays all you need is a good smartphone and access to the Internet and bingo, you are in business.

I have always felt that the video format is far more powerful than the written word and should be used a lot more extensively in business especially as you now don’t need a Hollywood-esque film budget to get you going and we have something called YouTube.

So how can schools utilise the video medium to their advantage? Well we have worked with a couple of schools now where we put together a creative and inspiring video to send to potential sponsors, corporations and fund providers so that they could see for themselves – rather than read about it in some trite information document – why we needed their financial support. On the two occasions we have done this, the schools quickly got the money they needed because firstly this approach was absolutely original and the children themselves were very much involved in the whole process. It didn’t cost a lot of money but we even managed to put in green screen effects and even wrote our own song about saving the planet!

A school can then put this video up on their own school website, on the display TV in the reception area and on YouTube. You never know who might see it and give you money. I appreciate that you first have to seek parental permission to do this but believe me, it is worth it.

To see some of the videos we have put together for schools, please click on the below link:

http://www.hideouthouse.com/video

And then give us a call!

Please contact Simon at the Hideout House Company on 01865 858982 or email simon@hideouthouse.com

www.hideouthouse.com

 

 

In the great quest for funding, a lot of schools simply overlook approaching local or national companies for donations or sponsorship. And when they have, I don’t believe that they have particularly done it in the right way. But the ones that have done this correctly and to a strategy have, in most cases, got their hands on the moolah.

So you have to imagine yourself and put yourself into the shoes of Mr Boss Man of your target company – he might be feeling the pinch too and wondering where his next sale is going to come from or how he can initiate a wonderful and creative local PR campaign. And then your letter lands on his desk asking for some money for whatever it is you need at the school. Just saying you want some money for x,y and z is not good enough (and I have seen this done pleny of times) – you need to be more emotive and outline very clearly the benefits of what corporate sponsorship to your school will bring to his company.

I have therefore posted below some useful tips on how to approach companies when asking for donations:

Some suggested tips:

1)     First of all ask any of the parents/staff/teachers if they have any contacts in local companies, big or small, whom you could approach. A referral is always the best way to start.

2)     Find out if any of the parents of the children own their own businesses and approach them for donations as they will already have a vested interest in the school

3)     Find out if any of the parents are associated with any trades which the school could use at either a subsidised rate or even better FOC. For example a base work contractor or an electrician.

4)     Approach big corporations as they should normally have some sort of a community engagement budget but make sure you invest a bit of time trying to find out the right person to contact before submitting any proposals

5)     Approach companies who already have green credentials or a corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme – try http://www.greenachiever.co.uk/company-search.aspx

6)     Approach companies whose principal business activities are perhaps perceived to be damaging to the environment and who therefore could use some positive PR to counteract this public perception e.g. oil companies, landfill companies

7)     Write an accompanying letter very clearly stating what you are trying to achieve and how much money you are looking to raise overall in order to purchase a particular item and then include a more detailed proposal using the template we have already drawn up for you. We can also supply to you a library of Hideout House product photos or images which you can incorporate into these documents.

8)     In the accompanying letter tell the company what funds you, as the school, have already raised or can contribute to the project so it makes it look as if you are not just after an easy corporate handout. Tell them also of any other participating sponsors who have already pledged funds.

9)     If you cannot get one company to donate all of the funds, you might want to consider multi-company sponsorship of the product whereby they donate funds to a specific component of the product  – for example, the sedum roof, the wind turbine or solar panel package, the planters, the base works

BE CREATIVE AND STAND OUT FROM THE CROWD!

I cannot stress how important this is and one of the ways you might want to do this is by working with us on putting together a short video featuring the children and staff talking about why the environment is so important and why this product is right for your needs. Have a look at the below link to see an example of this type of video. You can send this out to these companies and perhaps also feature it on the school’s own website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIZHVxbGx6U

LAST BUT NOT LEAST – DON’T GIVE UP IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED! NOTHING IS EASY BUT WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS ALWAYS A WAY.

For more information, contact Simon Fearnehough on simon@hideouthouse.com or call 01865 858982

Website: www.hideouthouse.com

 

The Hideout House Company Ltd, The Oaktrees Centre, 209 Thame Road, Warborough, Oxon OX10 7DH Tel: 01865 858982 Email:info@hideouthouse.com  Web: www.hideouthouse.com

 

We all know that we are living in hard times and need to find alternative ways of raising school funds. So now is the time to find your inner Richard Branson, be entrepreneurial and go out and earn some money for the school.

And a culture of enterprise in schools can also teach children about the rudiments of commerce.

 Here’s some ideas:

1)      Think of the amount of times you use e-bay to sell personal items so why not sell these items instead to parents or the local community and the money earned goes back to the school? Do you grow food on site? – if you do sell this as well. We sell a mobile pop-up shop unit which would help you do just this and here’s another idea. Approach local businesses or retailers and ask them if they would like to sponsor this unit and we can put their name “above the shop” on the header board.

2)      Get companies to sponsor our products and we can put their branding or logos on as recognition of this

3)      Recycle old mobile phones, printer cartridges, CDs, DVDs using our revenue recycle unit

4)      Rent out our classroom buildings to your local community

5)      If you are seeking funding for anything, be a bit creative and put together a school video which features the children talking about why they want this funding and why it is so important. We have some stock videos which you could use for this (see the video page on our website).

Oh and we also operate a customer loyalty scheme whereby we can offer credits and commissions for referral or repeat business. If you help us out, it is only right that we help you too. Makes for good business we reckon. Richard would be proud!

Simon Fearnehough 01865 858982  email: simon@hideouthouse.com

The Hideout House Company Ltd www.hideouthouse.com