How about creating your own school-branded coffee that raises money for you and changes lives across the world?
A unique school fundraising initiative that tastes as good as it feels
As a Professor of Education I’ve worked with schools for over 25 years and noticed a continuous problem over that time concerned with funding the additional extras which we all know make such a difference to the educational experience of our young people.
With real cuts in budgets now being experienced across schools this problem is much more acute. I decided it was time to try and respond in a positive way.
Through the award winning not-for-profit organisation, Pop Up Foundation my colleagues and I have developed a really simple funding solution. We have teamed up with the wonderful Redber Coffee Ltd to offer your school the opportunity to have its own ‘School Coffee Brand’ which will generate a year-round additional income to go some way to support extra curricular activity.
How does it work?
The process is simple and efficient.
School tells parents, carers, and friends that they have a coffee brand, and they point them towards the website where they can:
- Select the coffee — indicate their preferences and add to basket
- Select the shipping address as their child’s school address
- Select their billing address to their cards address
The coffee is then sent as a bulk order directly to school — and the orders are collected on a specified day each month.
- Parents or any member of the community who wants to support the school can order the coffee as a one-off purchase or as an on-going order via direct debit.
- School can use the coffee for staff-rooms, one-off public events, open-days, parents evenings and social gatherings.
How much money could your school make?
A typical example order of 100kg (100 orders from parents) would put £275 in the school fund every month on an ongoing basis.
Imagine what this could fund in your school…some of our ‘coffee club’ schools have already used this extra income to run environmental programmes, food forest design groups, eco-teams, maker-groups, pottery and printing classes, camping clubs, the purchase of a 3D printer…
We have already trialled this model with great success!
Here’s a link to The Deanes Academy school headteacher Mr. Desi McKeown talking about Deanes Beans — their own coffee brand!
Have a listen:
Is there any risk?
No!
Because the parents are buying the coffee directly from the roaster the financial transaction is entirely based on that relationship, school is not involved in the financial arrangement at all and so there is no risk for your school in the process and no financial requirement.
All we ask is for your school to inform parents, friends and community that they can support school through this funding route. They do the rest and collect their coffee on an agreed date with you from school each month.
A New Year 2018 Offer
We are offering you Free membership of the Naturally Smart programme!
To start off 2018 we are offering any school who takes up the coffee project in the UK — FREE membership to the award winning Naturally Smart network (usual annual subscription is £365) — a global sustainability programme linking schools together worldwide through imaginative projects and resources.
Contact
If you are interested in taking part in this initiative contact us at Pop Up Foundation — email admin@foundation.rocks or call 07590470553 and we will be happy to help you get your own school coffee label going to raise funds for your school in 2018! (ITL)
Independent Thinking Associate Dr Paul Clarke is Global Director of Pop Up Foundation, and European Lead for the programme. He is Professor of Education at St Mary’s University London, a writer, broadcaster, and teacher. Amongst his many innovative sustainability projects which extend across every continent worldwide Paul leads the Millemont Naturally Smart Centre at a Chateau de Millemont South West of Paris, works in the Western desert with indigenous communities in Central and South Australia, and has links with with coffee farmers in Guatamala and East Timor. Paul has spoken at many conferences, TEDx, BBC, and the UN and runs the popular Naturally Smart People podcast on iTunes.
Originally published at school-of-sustainability.com on January 9, 2018.
