School PTA Fundraising Ideas That Actually Work for UK Schools

If your PTA needs to raise money for your school this year, the quickest route to a steady, reliable income is a regular online prize draw or 50/50 draw that parents can join in seconds from their phone — something you can set up with nothing up front on Play Fund Win in about ten minutes. But no single idea does everything, so the best PTAs mix one dependable year-round earner with a handful of bigger seasonal events. Here's what genuinely works for UK schools, and how to run it properly.

Start with one reliable, repeatable earner

Fairs and discos are brilliant, but they're one-off spikes that eat volunteer hours. The PTAs that build real reserves pair those events with something that ticks over every single month. A weekly or monthly 50/50 draw — where a lucky parent and the school share the pot — is one of the easiest to run because the prize funds itself and there's no stock to buy or store.

Because it lives online, parents can buy in from the WhatsApp class group, the newsletter or a QR code at pick-up. You set the ticket price, pick the draw date, and the platform handles the entries, the payment and the random draw for you. Once it's running, it takes minutes a week to manage.

Seasonal events that pull the crowds

Big set-piece events are where your community comes together — and where you make the memories that keep people giving. The reliable favourites:

• Summer and Christmas fairs — stalls, tombola, refreshments, a bouncy castle and a headline raffle. Charge a small pitch fee to external stallholders to cover your costs before the doors even open.
• School discos — low cost, high margin, and the children do your marketing for you.
• Sponsored events — a sponsored walk, read-a-thon or scooter challenge. These bring in gift-aided sponsorship and cost almost nothing to run.
• Quiz or bingo nights — an adults-only evening in the hall with a bar and a raffle is a dependable earner and a chance to thank your regulars.
• Non-uniform and cake-sale days — the classic low-effort, high-frequency top-ups that add up across a year.

Easy money you're probably leaving on the table

Some of the best PTA income needs almost no effort at all:

• Gift Aid — if your PTA is a registered charity, you can claim 25p back from HMRC on every eligible £1 of donations and sponsorship. Over a year that's a meaningful uplift for filling in one form.
• Match funding — many employers will match what a member of staff raises. Ask parents to check with their workplace; a single match can double a fair's takings.
• Easy fundraising portals — a small commission on parents' normal online shopping, at no cost to them.
• Local grants — parish councils, supermarkets' community funds and local trusts often have small pots for schools. A short, specific application ("£400 for new library books") tends to land best.

Keep it legal: raffles, draws and lotteries

This is where well-meaning PTAs most often slip up, so it's worth getting right. In the UK, prize draws and raffles are a form of lottery and are regulated. The good news is that most school fundraising falls into categories that don't require a licence — but the rules still apply.

A raffle where all tickets are sold and drawn on the same day at your event (an "incidental lottery") generally needs no licence. A raffle or draw that runs over days or weeks, with tickets sold in advance, is usually a "small society lottery" and must be registered with your local authority — that's a simple, low-cost registration, not a Gambling Commission licence. Tickets should only be sold to over-18s, you must be clear about how proceeds are used, and you shouldn't sell to children. If you're unsure which bracket you're in, check with your local council or the Gambling Commission before you sell a single ticket.

The simplest way to stay compliant is to run your draws on a platform built for it. Play Fund Win handles the age checks, secure payments and a genuinely random draw, and keeps clear records — so your treasurer isn't left piecing together a shoebox of cash and cloakroom tickets at the end of term.

Make it effortless for busy parents

Whatever you run, the golden rule is to remove friction. Parents will happily support the school, but not if it means finding cash, a chequebook or a spare Tuesday evening. Take payments online, share a single link everywhere, and always tell people exactly what their money is buying — "help us reach £2,000 for new playground equipment" beats "please support the PTA" every time.

Get your school's draw live today

You don't need to choose just one idea — but you do need one dependable earner underpinning the rest. A compliant online 50/50 draw is the easiest place to start, and there's nothing to pay up front. Get your school's fundraiser live in minutes at playfundwin.com.