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Funding and Grants for Outdoor Classrooms

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A question for you – and that is:

Does your school have sufficient funds in the school budget to pay for your playground/outdoor learning/outdoor classroom projects and if not, do you have enough time to try and source external funding to pay for it?

If the answer to the above is no, then you might want to have a chat with us.

We have invested a lot of our time and energy trying to understand how schools can successfully find alternative ways of paying for our products and it is working as we have helped a lot of schools recently get full funding for their project. We will work alongside you and tell you how we can help you with applying for grants and which grants are applicable to you; we will tell you how you can now potentially lease our products; we will tell you how you might be able to generate extra income by letting out your existing facilities; we will tell you about how to set up a crowdfunding website and approach local companies for sponsorship. And we have a unique PTA fundraising events night which is something no-one else is doing.

We are more than happy to provide testimonials or put you in contact with schools we have worked with on the above.

If you would like to talk further with us about how we can help your school with funding opportunities, then please contact us on 01865 858982 or email info@hideouthouse.com

solar panel and wind turbine system

eco outdoor classroom

 

An Alternative Way For Schools To Fund Outdoor Classrooms

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Enclosed octagonal and rectangular classrooms

Enclosed octagonal and rectangular classrooms

We sell a lot of outdoor classrooms to schools and ever more so those which are fully enclosed with solid wall panels and glazed panels. The reason being is that schools can use them all year round without worrying about the elements (we can also insulate them if they were going to be heated) plus they can use them as buildings which the wider community can utilise and benefit from too.

But the challenge is always funding or lack of it to be more precise. “Love them but we have no budget” is the usual response I hear from head teachers or school business managers. There are undoubtedly grants which you can apply for which will fund these type of buildings but let’s assume that there is no room in the school budget to afford these outdoor classrooms and you cannot get a grant. But you want and need an outdoor classroom for your school. So we have thought “outside of the box” on this issue and come up with following proposal.

Firstly, you can take out an operating lease on these type of buildings (this applies to your school whether it is an academy or within local authority control) over a typical period of 3 years where at the end of the lease period the school then has the option to return the equipment with no further payments or extend the agreement for one final year.

  • If the school extends for a final year the quarterly payments will be charged at ‘fair market value’, typically no more than 60% of the quarterly repayments on the original 3 year lease
  • At the end of the fourth year the equipment is then abandoned to the school with no more rentals to pay, no title is passed to the school

So you have the benefit of the asset now but can spread the payments over a period of time or school budget accounting periods. But we still haven’t got the money to pay for the lease payments I hear you cry.

By way of an example incidentally, a £12,000 enclosed outdoor classroom would cost £80 to rent per week over a three year period.

First question to ask yourself…..could the building be let out for before and after school clubs for example and if so, would you have any idea what a school could charge for this? Could the PTA use it or some of the money they raise each year be used to offset the lease payments?

or we have an association with a company who rent out school premises such as sports facilities or halls (for further information on this see my blog link given below). In terms of hiring halls for example they have on their books some smaller schools in a rural setting earning £10-15k per year but the larger halls in busier cities can attract up to £60k of revenue (obviously dependent on the types of activities allowed). They also have an IT system which does all of the administration for the bookings and they do all of the marketing as well – in return for this, they ask for a commission for all bookings taken. All the school has to do is obviously have someone on hand i.e. site manager, caretaker – to let people in and out.

So if a school were to utilise this service, this would hopefully generate enough extra income to pay for the outdoor classroom leasing payments. You already have the school asset so you need to put it out work. But I am well aware that this would have to be run past Governors and many questions would be asked! See therefore some testimonials below from schools who are already using this system.

But all I am trying to do is find a way of not just giving up and saying there is no money. That would be very un-British!

Angela Mellish – Bursar School: St Bernards

QUOTE: “We wouldn’t be without BookingsPlus! It has saved us so much time with the speedy invoicing and online payments. We recently had the auditors in who commented that the system was an auditors dream. The audit trail is tight, and there is a good level of control within the system such as not being able to delete invoices and payments. The ability to add reasons to credit notes and voided invoices provides the perfect picture as to what is happening. From booking through to payment, it is easy to keep track of everything. The auditors said they would recommend the system to other schools, and so would I”

Steve Munday – Head Teacher William Edwards School

QUOTE: “The BookingsPlus system gives us a significant revenue boost, which we have been able to invest in ICT/ technology, sporting equipment and staffing to ensure that we can provide the best possible learning environments and opportunities for our students. Equally importantly it has helped us to become an integral part of the local community by giving local groups, charities and organisations the chance to use our exceptional facilities. Everybody wins!”

Blog on renting out premises

Generate Money for Your School – Rent Out Your Premises

For further information on the above or to explore opportunities how we can help  your school get funding for our outdoor classrooms, please call 01865 858982 or email: info@hideouthouse.com

www.hideouthouse.com

4m x 3m enclosed outdoor classroom

4m x 3m enclosed outdoor classroom

Generate Money for Your School – Rent Out Your Premises

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Nowadays many schools – because funds and budgets are becoming ever tighter – are beginning to realise that they need to find alternative means of raising money for their playground projects. And what better way to do this than raising much needed extra revenue by opening up their facilities for community use. If you’ll excuse the expression but it is basically “sweating the asset”!

Allowing sports halls and meeting rooms for example to be used outside of school hours can bring in an average of £30-40k per year. Think of a local football team for example who might want to use the school’s pitches and facilities for training in the evening or at the week-end, ditto local badminton or basketball teams, karate/yoga/drama/dance groups who might want to hire your hall or classrooms, culture events at the week-end if you have a staged area…the list can be quite comprehensive. Children’s parties as well and oddly enough you already have a pretty good target market already for this! I have a yoga teacher friend for example who for love nor money can find somewhere to rent out for her class of 30 at the week-end – she just needs a big room!

Classrooms can be used for adult education or week-end supplementary schools.

Of course your revenue generating opportunities are determined by your school’s location and what facilities you have (generally sports facilities such as sports halls and floodlit all-weather pitches, MUGAs are most sought after).

For many years though the time and costs involved in the administration (and not to mention the marketing) to let out a school’s facilities meant that the profit for additional revenue has only been minimal. And of course that scarce resource called time needs to be factored into the equation!

However we have come across an excellent company called the Kajima Community who are changing all of this by making the whole process simple and profitable – whether schools are looking for an effective booking system or a more comprehensive marketing service, they are able to help and take all of the hassle out of the above. They have seen an uptake in their service more than double in the past year as schools need to adapt to maximise profitability of their premises…which will happen more and more in the years to come.

They offer two schemes as per below:

  1. BookingsPlus – where they provide an online system for you to market your facility, administer bookings and collect online payments. A video has just been added to the website which gives a flavour of how the system works.

     2. SchoolBookings –  where they carry out the whole marketing and administration function on behalf of the school to ease the administerial burden. After a site survey they are confident that they will be able to guarantee you that we will be able to cover our fee with new bookings and offer you a free service.

Their website is

http://www.kajima.co.uk

A good way too to earn additional rental income once we have installed and supplied our extensive range of classroom and multi-amenity buildings which can be found at http://www.hideouthouse.com

How To Successfully Use Crowdfunding For Your School Playground Project

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Schools are beginning to use crowdfunding ever more as a successful way and means of raising money for their school playground projects. If you are not fully aware of what crowdfunding is, it is best described as asking a large crowd of donors to each make a small donation to your school – mainly done via the internet of course. It should be effective for schools given the fact that they have a ready-made network of people in their community – be they local businesses, parents, PTAs etc – who all have a vested interested in seeing the project come to fruition. You can also use a crowdfunding campaign to help raise awareness of your school and its vision and to create new partnerships and alliances.

To be successful though, you need to bear in mind the following:

  • Concentrate on projects which are more likely to motivate your local community to donate. Create interesting and compelling stories which very clearly demonstrate how all parties will benefit and prosper as a result. Crowdfunding is all about the sharing community and people power!
  • Be clear in your online communications – explain what the project is, why it is so badly needed, who will deliver the project, in what timeframe and who will benefit; get all associated costs together because you will need to have a target
  • Go for the low hanging fruit first – contact parents, local businesses etc
  • Use social media to its full effect. The average individual has 170 contacts on social media so you can easily spread the word very quickly through this medium
  • Get noticed – you need to make your project interesting and don’t be afraid to be creative. Give your project attention-grabbing straplines and spend some time doing exciting visuals to be used on your website, social media, blogs etc. Use video too – put together a short film (with the children’s involvement perhaps) explaining how the funds will be used, who will benefit and how. Crowdfunding sites with videos are far more likely to attract funding and to succeed.
  • Contact the local press and radio stations as they are always interested in supporting good local causes and will give your project much needed and welcome publicity
  • Consider offering rewards. Rewards are what you give donors in return for their donations. They give an added incentive for people to sponsor your school project – for example, a mention on the school website, offering the school hall for business meetings when not being used, tickets to the next PTA event, have their logo or name on the products if applicable etc
  • Last but not least, always say thank you and keep in touch – get the children to write thank you notes.

For a good example of a successful crowdfunding campaign, please have a look at the below link:

Brooke School crowdfunding campaign

There are some crowdfunding websites which specialise in school projects. These are:

www.crowdfunded.org.uk

www.hubbub.net

www.crowdfunder.co.uk

And then you need to give us a call as we specialise in all kinds of products for school playgrounds including outdoor play equipment, outdoor classrooms, shelters, nature play areas, classroom buildings and growing gardens.

For further information, please contact the Hideout House Company on 01865 858982 or email info@hideouthouse.com

www.hideouthouse.com