Always remember that there is fun in fundraising and it offers a wonderful opportunity to get the whole community, whether a school, parish or other body, to pull together in pursuit of a common goal.

The first thing to do is to produce a fundraising plan. This will help focus your thoughts and put some structure into what you do. Here are some of the questions to ask yourself and your fundraising team:

• What is your estimated requirement for funds?
• How much do you think you can raise yourselves and what needs to be obtained via a grant?
• When do you plan to have your play area open for children and how does that match your projected inflow of funds?
• Have you included an ongoing funds requirement for the maintenance and upkeep of the play area?
• Is it realistic – can you really raise what you need?
• When do the funding bodies have cut off dates for their applications and how long is their decision making process?
• What’s ‘Plan B’ if your grant application(s) are unsuccessful?

It is advisable to break your big target down into a series of achievable small ones to allow you to celebrate success frequently and keep up your project’s momentum.

The most critical element of your fundraising is to ensure that everyone is involved. In a school, this will usually mean the governors, teaching and admin staff, parents (often through the PTA) and, of course, the children. In a parish, the parish council can include local groups, village hall users, children’s groups such as Brownies or the local football teams and school(s) as well as individual residents. Children will often surprise you with their creative and innovative ideas for raising money (and they don’t all involve teachers and wet sponges)! The involvement of the whole community will be a plus point in your funding application.

Involve the local media, newspapers, radio or even television. They are always on the lookout for stories with a strong human interest, so think about how you engage them. If your school or council publishes newsletters or has a website, make sure you keep updating the readers with your progress. The children can incorporate the fundraising activities into their lessons and create eye-catching displays around the school or village hall.

There is lots of advice about fundraising; there are even courses designed for fundraisers to develop their skills. The following websites may be helpful to you, but the list is by no means exclusive.

www.ncpta.org.ukThe National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations

www.raisingfunding.co.ukRaising Funding was formed to offer a unique reference point on fundraising ideas, activities and regulations, with articles and advice from experts in the field.

www.easyfundraising.org.ukEasy Fundraising is an online shopping portal which enables you to take a commission every time someone shops online.

www.netmums.com/coffeehouseNetmums is an internet based network offering local advice for Mums (and Dads). Their coffeehouse national forum board has lots of fundraising ideas suggested by parents. A search on school fundraising will bring up over 5,000 pages.

www.raisingkids.co.ukRaising Kids is an information and support website with some ideas on fundraising events for schools.

www.fundraisingschools.co.ukFundraising for Schools is a monthly magazine which contains up to date information about sources of funds for your school.

www.ncb.org.uk/cpis/The Children's Play Information Service (CPIS) is a specialist information resource providing information on many aspects of children's play. It is government funded and sits within the National Children’s Bureau. CPIS has a large and comprehensive collection of materials on children's play, with over 10,000 books, reports, pamphlets and journal articles plus 45 current journal titles covering a broad range of issues relevant to children's play.

In addition, lots of charities have fundraising ideas and advice on their own websites and there are several web based fundraising advice businesses who will sell books and other material on fundraising and writing grant applications.