Fundraising Ideas

Instead of sharing typical things like a bake sale, fun-run, or anything you can find via a Google search, we wanted to share inspirational stories of previous participants that have proven to be successful in allowing young people to engage their community and work together to make their dreams come true. Examples include; 

Montesser Comunidad Montessori, Colombia – SDGames Mexico 2023

Registering for participation just two months before the event, the young people from this school embarked on the mission of raising funds to finance their trip, with the ambitious goal of raising 25 million Colombian pesos (approximately 5,800 euros).

This required creativity, ingenuity and boundless cooperation, as they planned various events including bazaars selling used items and groceries, raffles and games, even transforming their school into a makeshift water park, bringing together children from the community and surrounding areas.

However, the most significant event was the production and sale of lasagna, which involved young people in the entire process, from planning and purchasing to preparation and sale. Lasagna production became an educational experience in itself, ranging from practical math lessons to business management, which proved to be the most lucrative of all events that allowed them to hit their goal and attend this event.

Cremon Montessori Life School, India – GMG Italy 2023

Our friends from Hyderabad held a Winter Carnival at their school, which became a learning process from start to finish and a collaboration of the children in primary, elementary, adolescent and the parent community.

The students planned ideas for their own stalls, which included games, edibles, harvest, art, hand made goods, with a total of 14 stall in total, each with a different theme. This activity allowed the children to work in small teams to share their knowledge and experience, as well as raise money. This was also an opportunity for them to promote sustainability, with all stalls being decorated with eco-friendly materials and the adolescents harvesting and selling food from the school farm, supporting the use of non-GMO seeds and saving local seeds and plants.

The children and the community felt happiness through giving and sharing, and were rewarded for their efforts, as the funds contributed to their participation in the Global Montessori Games.

Casita Montessori de Mayagüez, Puerto Rico – GMG Bolivia 2024

As well as selling raffle tickets, cooking and selling breakfast twice a week from the school canteen, and creating an online donations page, the students of Casita Montessori de Mayagüez took a very creative approach to fundraising, by utilizing the artistic talents of themselves, their classmates and other members of their community.

After holding music workshops, and lots of practice and planning, they held a music concert in a downtown theater, for which they sold tickets. The students had an opportunity to play for the crowd and were joined by two well-known musicians in Puerto Rico; Roy Brown and Zoraida Santiago, who kindly donated their time and shared their talents free of charge.

On a separate occasion, they created an original play, written and performed by students of the middle and high school, while others sold drinks and snacks among the audience, and asked for donations. It was these creative performances, and the creative thinking of the students, that afforded them the opportunity to go to Cochabamba.

Escuela Alma Montessori, Spain – GMG Bulgaria 2024

Being a typical Montessori elementary group, the students of this school approached the planning of this trip like a global going out and met regularly to discuss how to prepare a travel budget, air travel and transfers, accommodation, activities, diets, and insurance, and quickly came to the conclusion that their fundraising actions had to go beyond the school.

Having collaborated with local businesses in their community, they were donated gifts and experiences such as full-board hotel stays and spa treatments and services, which they were able to sell raffle tickets for. Typical of the moral consciousness in this plane, the children considered how the raffle could be legal and transparent, and how the winning ballot could be made public. They also showed their reasoning skills, as they discussed how much of the profit should be kept, and how much should be reinvested into their Green Soul Market – a second-hand goods circular economy that they hold at their school once a year. They got permission to take this to the local market every Sunday, and all children and their families collected their old clothes, shoes, books and toys, and sold them within the local community to give them a new home and to give themselves the trip of a lifetime.

Bærum Montessoriskole , Norway – GMG Chile 2025
This is a story of how a teacher-led Inspiration Tour of Norway became a student-led project of creativity and collaboration, in order to develop one girl’s idea into nationwide shared goal.

Alma Blystad’s journey to the Global Montessori Games began with a spark of inspiration. After Roelant Wijngaards visited her school – Bærum Montessoriskole – she and her friend Katarina immediately recognised a unique educational opportunity. As Alma stated, they believed it was “such an educational and special opportunity to travel to Chile, we just couldn’t miss.”

That initial excitement quickly turned into determined action. Alma took the lead, assembling a team from her own school. She then leveraged her role on the Norwegian Student Council to connect Montessori communities across the country. After successfully convincing not only her own school’s administration, she also invited students from DaVinci in Bergen to join the effort. The response was overwhelmingly positive because she made them see what she saw. In her words, “They thought it was so important and they didn’t want to miss out on this.”

To turn this dream into a reality, Alma and her team became master fundraisers. They spearheaded inventive campaigns like “mini cake lotteries where we earned money by baking and selling cakes.” Their strategy was a resounding success, so much so that Alma’s advice to others is clear: “Stalls like cake lotteries work so amazingly, that you have to book a place at the mall early!” With plans for a GoFundMe page underway, their relentless efforts have secured significant funding, with more still coming in.

Through her passion and perseverance, Alma was instrumental in ensuring Norway would be represented at the upcoming event in Chile. She transformed a personal goal into a collective mission, uniting students from different schools and proving that with vision and hard work, young people can achieve anything.

We at GAMES are proud to see such creative and collaborative efforts to attend our events, and invite other educators and young people to share their own stories of success.

We love to hear such stories of hard work, collaboration and community involvement, and of young people using their creativity and intelligence to make their participation in our events possible. We hope that these stories may help inspire others to do the same and welcome other participants to share their own stories of success.

We look forward to sharing them with our growing global network.

PEACE

Global Association of Montessori Education and Sport