Running a charter school requires more than finding classroom space and creating a curriculum.

In the case of the United Federation of Teachers, which this year opened a new charter school in East New York, Brooklyn, it also requires raising $700,000.

In order to reach its $2.5 million budget for the year, the union is kicking off a major fund-raising campaign with a breakfast on November 17 at its new headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

More than 100 foundation representatives, philanthropists, and other education supporters are expected to attend.

Privately managed and publicly funded, charter schools in New York receive less funding for each student on average than regular public schools.

The UFT school is the first in the country to be developed and operated by a teachers union.

The vice president in charge of elementary schools at the UFT, Michelle Bodden, said the union knew from the get-go that it would have to raise a substantial amount of money to run the school.

“It was clear when we did the budget that fund raising would be an important component,” Ms. Bodden said. The school opened in September to 150 kindergarten and first-grade students.

In a promise to members last year, the union’s president, Randi Weingarten resolved not to use any membership dues to run the school.

“The UFT fund-raiser suggests that per pupil they cannot cover their costs. It underscores in some ways the challenges all charter schools have when it comes to devoting energy and time to raising funds instead of focusing on students,” a spokesman for the New York City Center for Charter School Excellence, Jeff Maclin, said.

In New York City, about 12,000 students attend 47 charter schools, including 15 that opened this year. They are not required to hire union teachers or follow the citywide curriculum.

Charter schools receive about $9,000 a student in annual funding. A recent report by the Independent Budget Office estimated the city’s per pupil spending at $14,642.

The head of the education department’s office of new schools, Garth Harries, said it was difficult to compare the figures because the city provides charter schools with many additional funding streams.

Proponents of the schools have bemoaned the gap in funding. At the same time, they have boasted of charter schools’ ability to produce equal or better results than other schools.

One of the main differences is that charter schools do not receive any building aid to construct or repair schools and do not qualify for other funding pools available to regular public schools.

“But what this chancellor has done for several schools is to give them city owned space,” the director of policy for the Charter School Association, Peter Murphy, said. About half of all city charter schools operate out of city schools.

A member of the state Board of Regents and one of the UFT breakfast’s co-hosts, Merryl Tisch, said she thought that funding competition was good for the schools.

“While they do receive less funding, charter schools also have a great ability to go out and fund-raise … and most of them do so quite successfully,” Ms. Tisch said. “It’s healthy. This creates an atmosphere of outside of the box thinking.”

The breakfast also is being hosted by the founder of the Broad Foundation, Eli Broad.