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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

 

Successful Fundraising for Schools

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The-Secrets-to-Planning-a-Successful-Charity-Event-A-First-Timer’s-GuideI cannot think of one school I have worked with these past couple of years who have been able to pay for our products entirely out of the school budget. Sign of these still austere times I guess. So increasingly schools are having to look to alternative ways of finding the necessary funds for their playground projects…and this is where we come in.

I am convinced that in order to be successful, the expression “where there is a will, there is a way” is of paramount importance because I have seen so many schools fall by the wayside because they have simply given up or not put in the required effort. And the other thing I am convinced of is that you need to think outside of the box when implementing your campaign and maybe go outside of your traditional comfort zone – and be a bit more commercially minded. And school governors need to understand this too.

But we also understand that school staff are busy and sometimes do not simply have the time to devote to the cause. We therefore work with schools on how to implement a strategic plan on how to raise the necessary funds and this can involve a whole facet of initiatives which usually run concurrently to maximise the chances of success.

  • We look at ways the school PTA can help fundraise but we like to come up with novel ideas which inject a breath of fresh air into somewhat fatigued traditional school fundraising events;
  • We advise on potential grants which could be available for your school project;
  • We tell you about renting or operating leasing possibilities for our products which now a lot of schools can take out on a typical 3-5 year lease period;
  • We tell you how to set up a crowdfunding website for your school to help spread the word and give your project a far wider audience;
  • We tell you how to approach local companies for financial support and donations;
  • We tell you how you can rent out your existing school facilities to earn a meaningful income (some schools we know who are doing this are getting approximately £30K a year for renting their premises and facilities);
  • We tell you about our own customer referral scheme whereby your school can earn commissions from the Hideout House Company for referring us to other schools;
  • We tell you about a scheme we have with the green energy supplier Ecotricity whereby your school can earn money each time someone switches to their tariffs

All we ask in return is that you are dedicated to the cause and are prepared to push the boundaries out a bit more than usual!

For further information about how we can help your school run a successful fundraising campaign, please contact Simon Fearnehough on 01865 858982 or email: info@hideouthouse.com

Our website is www.hideouthouse.com

 

 

How To Fund Your School Playground Equipment Project

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We have worked with numerous schools these past 16 years helping them raise funds for playground equipment projects so as a result of this, we have built up a useful knowledge bank of what works and how you can do this successfully and effectively. But sadly there is no easy magic wand which you can wave to immediately muster up the required pot of gold, these projects do take time and with dollops of determination and true grit on top! You need to think outside of the box as well to better your chances of securing funds faster.

You also need to bear in mind that for all of the options open to you as listed below, it might be a mixture of a few of them which gets you to your designated target so it is always best to initially put out as many rods as possible because you never know which big fish might bite first.

1) School Budget – this may sound completely obvious but if the school can donate any funds from its own budget or devolved capital budget, then this is a good start. It financially and psychologically gets you off the starting blocks but also a lot of funders like to see some sort of match funding (or at least a contribution) from the school.
2) Your LEA – put in a call to your local education authority to see if they are running any specific or relevant grant programmes for schools or initiatives in their area. For example, we sold last year an eco outdoor classroom with a living sedum roof to a school in South West London as there was a grant programme to promote cleaner and healthier air in the Borough.
3) Get your PTA on board – so much of our work nowadays comes directly from the efforts of PTAs, God bless them! If you have an active PTA, give them this as their next major project to raise money for but talk to us first about how we can devise some novel & creative fundraising ideas for you. For example, last year we worked with a primary school on developing a pedal powered eco outdoor classroom – so to raise money for this, we put together a pedal powered disco event where the children and parents had to cycle on these special dynamo bikes to produce enough electricity to power up the disco. If they stopped pedalling, so did the music! But more importantly it raised a lot of money because the event enjoyed a very high attendance (because it was novel and fun) but also the PTA charged for both attendance and got everyone to sponsor a bike rider. Plus the event was very relevant to what they were trying to raise money for.
4) Crowd Funding – this is the way the world is going and you need to be part of it. These websites are an excellent way of spreading the news about your project and message to a far wider audience plus you can constantly update them with news, initiatives, targets reached, videos etc. Have a look at the link below for a school in Norfolk who have done this really well and have actually gone over their target amount.
Crowd Funder Brooke School
There are also some other specialist educational crowd funding websites such as Hubbub.
5) Commercial Sponsorship and Donations – get together a list of potential companies you could approach who might donate some money towards your project. But I have seen so many schools do this really badly and as a result, consequently don’t get anywhere. The most important thing is to put yourselves in the shoes of the person or organisation being approached – how are you going to make them part with some cash to help you? We have actually published a whole paper on this subject matter and how you can do it successfully. Please contact us for further details.
6) Individuals – similar to above. Do you know of any local wealthy or benevolent individual who could help out? If you don’t ask, you don’t get. A school we worked with in Lancashire personally approached the owner and MD of a local oil company with the children listing all of the reasons why this new school playground equipment would benefit them. They were just as surprised as I was when he wrote back with a cheque for £10K attached!
7) Grants – this is a whole big subject worthy of a separate blog but suffice it to say there are numerous grants out there which could possibly fund or partially fund your project. But you have to know where to look for them and you have to know how to apply for them correctly. With the harsh winds of austerity blowing ever more into the educational sector, the competition for these grants has become ever greater. But we have a lot of experience here and without wishing to brag, we took on six school projects earlier this year to see if we could help them access grant money to pay for our products we had quoted for. Five of them we have successfully helped get the required funding for – so not a bad hit rate.

So if you would like any further advice on any of the above or if you have a specific upcoming project in mind, then please contact us as below:

Simon Fearnehough on 01865 858982 or email: simon@hideouthouse.com or visit School Grant Funding