The "Parable of the Talents" challenge: innovative super-speedy charity fundraising ideas needed for my twelve year old for a school project!

Ooh they did this on the Archers recently.

Tempted to say bet it on a horse but maybe not...

Is that what they did on the Archers? Blimey, I haven't listened to that programme foir ages!

I think her school would frown on placing bets, somehow :(

Change the £2 into 200 pennies and put them in a jar, then charge people to guess how many pennies with the nearest winning the jar? (Obv this only works with people who don't know there was £2 to start with and you do lose the entire outlay if anyone guesses right.)

even better than drawing a big treasure map - <i>making </i> a whole Treasure Island in relief out of papier maché and painting it!

I am sure there must be various Pirates of the Caribbean merchie on sale out there that you could offer as prizes in lieu of yr actual signed pic.

Or buy £2 worth of jelly beans and put them in a jar for a guess-the-number game!

Maybe I could find someone who does those Virgin Vie makeup parties and get her to come in and do a fun skincare and makeup demonstration (it's a girls school, so I'm sure tickets could be sold to all the year groups as well as maybe even the staff). Maybe in return the girls could take business cards/info back home to their mothers to generate new partyplan leads for the Virgin Vie demonstrator?

Oh, I dunno.

xpost to Mark : yes, there is merchandise available, but if she's only got £2 to start with, the's not going to be able to afford very much at all. If I had more time I could try and get dazzling prizes donated - sorting this out so quickly is really flippin hard!

www.pokerstars.com

her own enterprise, lateral thinking and business acumen.

will think, but brain not working right now :(

I would guess little chance of getting J.Depp stuff, other than via ebay (would be more than £2 and may be fake fwiw). Would Keira pirates of the Carrib stuff do? Her agents are called something like PFD or PDF and are in London (google will no doubt help).

Will try and think of more ideas later.....

How is she going to learn how to be creative if her mum does it for her? (I'm not being cruel or contrary on purpose, but it is meant to stimulate her creative talents, isn't it?)

It seems to me the best thing to do would be something where the money could go round several times egm, use the money to buy ingredients for flapjacks or similar, bake them sell at a premium, use that money to buy more ingredients sell them on, etc. etc.

Good opportunity to learn double entry book-keeping, you can decide whether you bill her for gas in the kitchen.

I hear what you're saying, Stan - I know it sounds very much as though I have taken over, but in fact we all sat around as a family over dinner last night and had a massive brainstorming session with her coming up with the majority of the ideas. But she only has two weeks to sort something out, and she specifically asked me if I would start a message board thread asking for creative input from people here, because she's heard me talk about the board and knows there's a great gang of folk here - whatever she ultimately decides to do, she'll be the one doing the making/baking/raffle ticket selling etc. She's just casting the net as widely as possible for ideas, that's all :)

I'm not being an annoying Mum taking over from her, honest!

oh, ok then ^_^

knows there's a great gang of folk here

she'll start posting soon, I wager.

She has her mum paving the way for a sympathetic reception, I like her already!

is this in any way useful?

http://www.grassrootsfundraising.org/howto/

I think the treasure map idea is brilliant, and something that could be fun and involving. Your only problem here seems to be that you don't have a tempting enough prize, right? Is she allowed to ask a local business to sponsor a prize?

treasure map is also good excuse to dress up as a pirate.

bump

Pirates doing the bump!

Maybe she could use the £2 to put a deposit on a hall, and have a pirate disco.

What's the charity they're fundraising for, C J ? (maybe we can think of something that's vaguely related to it?)

It's for the paediatric oncology unit of the local hospital, so I suppose they could shave their heads for charity or something.

This is her with a group of friends (she's in the front row with the sunglasses on).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v506/Paronomasiac/20038598a4467074379b793950426l.jpg

(omg jailbait)

She's still keen on the pirate treasure map idea .... tomorrow she's going to ask the manager of the multiplex cinema if he might donate two tickets to go and see Pirates of the Caribbean movie for the first prize. I expect she can talk her way into getting that, she's very good at putting up convincing arguments for things :)

Shush, Stan!

Paediatric, you say! Well, over here in Belgium there's this great organisation called Clini Clowns (site only in Dutch & French, unfortunately: http://www.cliniclowns.be ) who are a bunch of clowns (really) that visit paediatric hospitals and perform for the kids/ do a tour of the beds (with the kids that can't leave or get to the gathering room) so they can forget their troubles for a couple of hours.

I'm not quite sure how this information can be turned into something fundraising-like, but I just felt I had to relate how great I think these guys are.

(also: pathetic attempt at making you forget that jailbait comment)

d'oh!

She's still keen on the pirate treasure map idea .... tomorrow she's going to ask the manager of the multiplex cinema if he might donate two tickets to go and see Pirates of the Caribbean movie for the first prize. I expect she can talk her way into getting that, she's very good at putting up convincing arguments for things :)

This is a fine plan. But she should ask for four at least. Whenever I approached the managers of multiplexes for prizes, they always stumped up four tickets. They don't usually specify what film they're for, though, they just give you the vouchers.

Ooh, good idea.

These places are always keen on the good publicity for supporting a local charity, so I expect she'll get the tickets without too much bother.

They might have some Pirates merchandise knocking about that she could use to decorate the map, as well.

Aw, now I want to come to your house and make a pirate map!