Private Provision And Fundraising

[Guest]

Hello -we are a private pre-school. We are finding it financially difficult to pay adequate wages to our valuable staff and maintain all our equipment at the level we would like . The pre-school is owned by myself and another manager and we both work directly with the children ( on different days) we wonder if any of you private provisions out there fundraise for major purchases or would this be considered a big no,no due to PVI status ????

[Guest]

We are in the same boat. Our funding for April next year is being cut by approx 20p per child, so I will be financially really badly off. I know of a Nursery that because of the cuts has put out a donation box and parents are giving donations for equipment. She has researched and check with Lawyers and the NDNA and they have said that as long as it goes down as Donations in your accounts there is nothing wrong with it. Parents she has know what the difference between what she charges and the free entitlement amount and are giving her the difference as a donation. she doesn't invoice and if they don't volunteer the money she doesn't ask but most of her parents are helping her out. Admitted the nursery is in a financially good area and it is small.

We are looking to have a toy donation money box so that we can use what any one puts in. The NDNA have put out a letter for groups to send to parents explainingthe situation.

 

Hope that helps. We will certainly be fundraising from now on and maybe even looking for sponcership, as I won't be able to survive on the money I'm getting from the Free entitilement.

[Panders]

Personally, I have always understood it to be a big no! However, that being said, when I was a parent of my own nursery and not the owner, we had a group of parents who all fund raised and presented the nursery with a new sand tray and equipment.

 

To this day, the parents have not done similar things, but always when the children leave they club together to buy presents for the nursery rather than the staff, and, quite often ask us what we would ideally like.

 

If there were larger items we felt the nursery needed I would think about the Capital Grant scheme and to be fair to my local authority they do send us quite a bit of equipment for free! Last week we received a lot of outdoor play equipment, strangely though when I opened one of the boxes, I found inside screwed up some Sainsburys Schools parcel tape - so I imagine this item had been "recycled" by somebody!

[kristina]

I also own my own Pre-School so shall be watching this with interest!!

When studying for my level 3 my tutor owned (and still does) her own Pre-School and she said that private settings can fundraise just the same as any other setting!! She said it is your own business so there is nothing to dictate that you can't!!

So as previously said will watch this with interest!!

 

Kristina

[finleysmaid]

i cannot see that if your parents are willing that this is a problem ....lets face it every private school fundraises and no one stops them! the government cannot restrict your practise....they are not allowed to tell you how to run your business (despite the fact they may change the rulesall the time!)

[Guest]

I own a nursery school which I took over two years ago. Traditionally they had always run a summer open day where they did a raffle and a few low keys bits a pieces for fundraising which I had always felt was a big no no for private settings, but i decided to make it into a huge summer fun day and have raised up to £700 in one day! I alway make sure that we tell parents beforehand what we are raising the funds for so they know it is for something specific rather than just going in the pot and no one has said that they don't agree - To be honest it has been a really lovely day to get everyone together - this year we used the money to develop our gardening area.

 

I feel that now the Early Years entitlement has gone up to 15 hours and that we can't charge any top ups, we as a private setting aren't bringing in anymore money than the committee run pre-school down the road so why shouldn't we fundraise just like they do!

[Rea]

I recall being told that the difference between a private concern and a charity one is that a charity can fundraise outside of their familes and a private one cant. So, with the owners permission a charity can put a charity box in a shop but a private setting cant.

Nothing to stop you fundraising within your families though. Although we did find out recently that to fundraise outside of our families we would need permission from the local council with a licence at a cost of around £50 per year.

[Inge]

I too think this is where unless registered charity it is ok 'in house' but not outside.

 

 

 

Although we did find out recently that to fundraise outside of our families we would need permission from the local council with a licence at a cost of around £50 per year.

 

 

This may depend on the kind of fund-raising - we contacted ours and we were Ok to do street collecting with a bucket - we had a sponsored walk and had buckets for collecting money, and anything like bag packing and collection pots in shops were ok,

 

but for raffle/lottery outside of setting or sold in advance, including within our parents a licence was needed.

 

we checked it twice to make sure.. as we though we needed permission /licence for street collection, but they said not!

 

yet another minefield.

 

Inge

[HappyMaz]

I recall being told that the difference between a private concern and a charity one is that a charity can fundraise outside of their familes and a private one cant.

That is my understanding, Rea!