Fundraising Directory

Top 10 tips and tricks for Mothers Day stalls.

These tips generally relate to a Mother’s Day stall being run in primary school but anyone can pull out some helpful principles no matter what type of stall you are running.

Before I begin, have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE these stalls – they are a win-win-win all round. Kids get the real thrill of choosing gifts by themselves, nobody has to take them shopping, the gifts are mostly extremely affordable, and the school gets to raise a little bit of money. The excitement as the children look forward to the day when they can give their gift is the biggest present of all.

Here are my Top 10 Tips for running a Mother’s Day stall.

1. Have you ordered your stock yet? Time to jump on that if not! Search here for mother’s day stall suppliers
2. Keep your pricing easy – whole dollar amounts where possible.
3. Stagger the classes that come through. Morning tea and lunch are fine for the older kids to battle it out, but the littlies should be brought down by their teachers in class lots so things are less frenzied, preferably earlier in the day so there’s plenty of stock.
4. Have a ‘gift board’ set up where many children can see at once what’s on offer – away from the point of sale – so they can then do their agonising (often protracted, bless them) before they come over to make their purchase.
5. Send home a secret ‘gift guide’ (just don’t show mum!) a few days before so they can ponder their options and siblings can compare their ‘intentions’ to make certain you don’t end up with 3 manicure sets.
6. As a back-up, have plenty of cookies baked and bagged (with pretty ribbons). You can always recycle them in the tuckshop if you don’t sell them.
7. As another back-up, if it appears you will run out long before the day is through, have someone on standby to do a run to your local dollar shop. I don’t recommend buying the bulk of your stock there – you are far better off buying in wholesale from a specialist supplier, but they can be a godsend for last-minute emergency supplies!
8. See our tip about making your own paper and setting up a wrapping stall.
9. Watch out for Fundraising’s #2 Profit Killer – leftover stock! You are better off being conservative (with an emergency backup plan) than buying too much stock.
10. Handover notes are NEVER MORE IMPORTANT (did you see how I emphasised that? It’s because it’s SO IMPORTANT! hahaha) than with a fundraising activity like this. Record not only what you ordered and from where, but also whether you would recommend using the supplier again next year, what you would have ordered more of (did you run out at 9.30 or was it the end of the day?) and what were the dud gifts you only sold because there was nothing left? Learn and strive to improve your Mother’s Day stall year-to-year, that’s the key.

There’s plenty more that can be said, including rostering volunteers in 1-2 hour shifts etc… but I have to leave some of the thinking up to you! Oh, and consider running your stall on the Thursday before Mothers Day so that if you do run out, you have time to come up with an emergency backup plan for the Friday (see, I couldn’t help myself!).

Here are a couple more ideas that have come in from our Facebook community about running a Mothers Day Stall:

Angela: We do lots of things at our school for Mother’s Day. Coffee mugs/wine glass with chocolates and/or coffee/tea sachets, little hand sown bags with little goodies in or to keep things in, organising lists/pegs, keyring with handmade attachments, laminated poems/quotes to attach with shopping lists, bookmarks with some space for the kids to decorate or draw something of their own, jewellery of all sorts, decorated plant pots that the kids have painted (Bunnings may be able to help you out with this for either free or very cheaply and they provide a small flower plant), homemade chocolates, fudge, biscuits, etc. Pinterest/google has lots of good ideas too.

Min: Get your school/p&c to draft up a donation letter & do the rounds of shops – not the big chains like big w(they have their chosen organisations they donate to). Got awesome stuff from hardwares/car shops. Never any harm in asking. Local nusery donates herb/flower seedlings – bunnings gave us some potting mix & pots. If you have a router, write little messages onto wood plaques. Metal stamp (letters) I love you onto washers with leather braid for wrist or necklace. Painted some hermit crab shells with a couple of love hearts on them with a cottonwool ball inside scented with lavender oil to put in your drawers. Found some nice old frames in secong hand shops, cleaned them up. With glass, put in a nice light coloured piece of paper with a whiteboard marker; without glass, paint the backboard with blackboard paint with a piece of chalk – memo boards. Can print some cool voucher booklets – back rub/chores/etc – or best mum certificates. Wine bottles with plants that grow in water wrapped with string or painted. If you have someone who crotches, get some teatowels & crotchet an edge so they hang up. All pretty cheap to do – just need the time.

Happy Fundraising!

Mandy Weidmann

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