Fundraising for Schools and Organizations: PTO Making Money with Virtual Reality

Raising money is a vital aspect of any organization’s sustainability and ability to further their mission. Funds create new opportunities for stakeholders while paying for necessary operating costs. But when the money begins to dry up administrators have to get creative in order to entice donors and raise funds or else the organization is at risk of decline.

“Buy experiences, not things” – leading advice to achieve happiness.

Virtual Reality experiences are compelling because of several factors like the immersiveness, variety of content, and uniqueness. People are more willing than ever to pay for a unique experience and that’s exactly where VR can earn money for an organization. At centertec®, a large Location-Based Virtual Reality showroom in suburban Philadelphia, PTOs and other organizations can raise money simply by promoting fun events with memorable experiences. The organizing party [the PTO] gets a percentage of all profits generated at the event and everyone has a good time. centertec® can house 200+ people (technically much more with 6,700 square feet of space!) and provides a fun, party-like environment that can adapt based on the needs of the party.

Other ways that a PTO can make money, besides hosting an event, is to sell a product in which the PTO earns money for every product sold – this is a classic example: think ‘kids selling candy’ to raise money for their school. But candy isn’t very STEM-related and why not make fundraising related to curriculum? Here is an example of a way to raise funds by selling Virtual Reality goggles – they are a lot less expensive than you might think! In this case, students and teachers can sell school-branded VR goggles for ~$10-$15/headset and raise money from each sale or even put the raised-funds into a new headset for the school (buy 1 / donate 1).